Trump Supreme Court pick denies 1980s sexual assault story

President Donald Trump's conservative pick for the Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh denied Friday involvement in an alleged sexual assault on a woman while they were in high school in the 1980s.

In a statement released to US media, Kavanaugh rejected the woman's claim, made in a letter to Democrats vetting his nomination, that he tried to force himself on her during a party while they were in high school.

"I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time," Kavanaugh said in the statement.

The allegation came just one week before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to vote on his nomination. If approved by the committee and the whole Senate, as has been expected, Kavanaugh is likely to decidedly tilt the court to conservatives for years to come.

Democrats fighting the nomination say that could turn the court away from guaranteed abortion rights, against programs that benefit disadvantaged minorities, and for greater presidential immunity from the law.

On Thursday Senator Dianne Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, announced cryptically that she had forwarded to the Federal Bureau of Investigation "information from an individual concerning the nomination."