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The Senate Judiciary Committee officially voted to move Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination forward on Friday, Sept. 28, by an 11-10 partisan vote.
However, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona suggested that an FBI investigation take place before the full Senate vote, delaying it by a week.
It's impossible to say exactly what changed Flake's mind at the last minute -- the Republican senator had said he would support Kavanaugh -- two Capitol Hill protesters, Maria Gallagher of Westchester and Ana Maria Archila Gualy of Queens, confronted Flake in the Hart Senate elevator en route to Friday's committee vote, with a video of the incident quickly going viral. Watch the video in the second image above or here.
The women shared their own personal stories of sexual assault and told the father of five that his "yes" vote would prove to victims that their stories don't matter.
According to Gallagher’s LinkedIn page, she is a graduate of Ardsley High School and Northeastern University in 2017 where she studied psychology. Gallagher also said on the website that she was a member of the society, Strong Women, Strong Girls. Acting Out.
An article on Northeastern’s website mentions that Gallagher survived a school shooting. Prior to attending Northeastern, Gallagher had been a student at Purdue University in Indiana. In January 2014, Cody Cousins shot and killed teaching assistant Andrew Boldt at Purdue.
Gallagher told The Daily Beast in this article: "It was all kind of a blur. We all ran after him. We held open the elevator and I just started telling him why it was important and what had happened to me and why he should not let Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court."
Gallagher told reporters that Sen. Flake "wouldn’t meet my eye. It made me very angry. He kept saying thank you and I’m sorry and wasn’t taking into account what his actions would be doing to millions of people and what this means for everyone."
Gallagher admitted to The Daily Beast that it was the first time she went public about her sexual assault -- even her mother found out about it while watching cable television on Friday.
During their exchange, Gallagher told Flake: "You're telling me that my assault doesn't matter, that what happened to me doesn't matter, and that you're going to let people who do these things into power. That's what you're telling me when you vote for him."
Gallagher posted a photo of her and Ana Maria Archila Gualy of Queens on Twitter, writing: "I feel relieved that @JeffFlake seems to have heard my and @AnaMariaArchil2’s voices in the Senate elevator today. We absolutely need an FBI investigation and for him and all Senators to vote NO. #StopKavanaugh"
Gallagher's Twitter account was inactive on Saturday, Sept. 29.
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