UPDATE 3-Trump calls allegations against his court nominee a 'con game'

President Donald Trump, fighting to shore up his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court in a divided U.S. Senate, on Tuesday called sexual misconduct allegations against the judge "a con game being played by the Democrats."

Senate Republican leaders said they plan to hold a vote on confirming Kavanaugh in the days after a high-stakes Judiciary Committee hearing set for Thursday. At that hearing, the panel will hear testimony from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a university professor who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when both were high school students in Maryland.

In a break from convention, the committee's Republican senators - 11 white men - will use a woman outside lawyer to question Ford. Typically, senators do the questioning themselves.

"We're going to be moving forward," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. "I'm confident we're going to win, confident that he'll be confirmed in the very near future."

In comments to reporters at the United Nations, Trump escalated his rhetoric in defense of Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge whose nomination to a lifetime post on the high court has been imperiled by the decades-old allegations by Ford and another woman.

The Kavanaugh confirmation fight comes just weeks before Nov. 6 congressional elections in which Democrats are trying to take control of Congress from Republicans, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations by Ford and Deborah Ramirez, who accused him in an article published on Sunday in the New Yorker magazine of exposing himself to her at a drunken dormitory party during the 1983-84 academic year at Yale University.

Trump said Ford's allegation was 36 years old "and nobody ever heard about it." Of Ramirez's allegation, Trump said, "And now a new charge comes up. And she says, 'Well it might not be him.' And there were gaps. And she said she was totally inebriated, and she was all messed up, and she doesn't know it was him, but it might have been him."

"Oh, gee, let's not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that? This is a con game being played by the Democrats," Trump added.

Asked whether Ramirez should also be allowed to testify, Trump said, "The second accuser has nothing."

Kavanaugh and his Republican allies have framed the allegations as part of a "smear campaign" by Democrats who have opposed his nomination from the beginning.

Republicans hold a slim 51-49 Senate majority, meaning Kavanaugh's confirmation prospects may hinge on the votes of a handful of moderate Republican senators who have not yet announced their intentions, These include Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Jeff Flake.

A comment by Murkowski to CNN on Tuesday could be an ominous sign for Kavanaugh. Republican leaders and Trump have rejected Democratic demands for the FBI to investigate the allegations. But Murkowski, asked about an FBI investigation, said, "It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldn't it?"

Senator John Thune, a member of the Republican leadership, told reporters the debate in the full Senate on confirming Kavanaugh could begin as soon as Friday or Saturday, with a confirmation vote possible next week.

McConnell said the outside lawyer will question Ford "in a respectful and professional way," but did not identify her. The panel's Democratic senators, four women, and six men, were expected to question Ford and Kavanaugh but those details were still not final, Senator Dick Durbin said.

Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said in an interview published in the Washington Post last week that Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing while he was drunk at a party when he was 17 years old and she was 15.

'A GOOD PERSON'

In an interview with Fox News aired on Monday night, Kavanaugh said he "never sexually assaulted anyone," has "always treated women with dignity and respect" and "did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter." Regarding alcohol, he said he never drank so much that he could not remember what happened the night before.

"I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an allegation of sexual assault. I've never sexually assaulted anyone," Kavanaugh said in the interview, sitting alongside his wife.

"I'm a good person," Kavanaugh added.

Trump gave this assessment of Kavanaugh's Fox News interview: "He was so truthful."

Ford's legal team on Monday had objected to the possibility Republicans would use an outside lawyer to question her.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on McConnell to apologize to Ford "for labeling her allegations a 'smear job,'" adding, "I challenge you, Leader McConnell, if you are so convinced this is a smear campaign, you'll have no problem with an FBI investigation to prove your case."

Kavanaugh's confirmation would firm up conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance Trump's goal of moving the high court, and the broader federal judiciary to the right.