U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who accused him of a 1982 sexual assault will be called to testify in the Senate next Monday, complicating what had appeared to be a smooth confirmation process.
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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said his panel would hold a hearing next Monday with both Kavanaugh and Ford “to provide ample transparency” and “give these recent allegations a full airing”.
Two women who dated Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and who knew him in high school issued statements defending his character in response to an accusation of sexual misconduct. He repeated his frequent assertion that the USA has been the victim of unfair trade practices, saying “we’ve been ripped off by China, we’ve been ripped off by.the European Union, we’ve been ripped off by everybody”.
Judge Kavanaugh, 53, has called the allegation “completely false”. Judge, the friend who was allegedly involved in the incident, spoke to The Weekly Standard before Ford came forward publicly, and said: “It’s just absolutely nuts”. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford looks forward to working with you and the Committee.
With fragile GOP majorities of just 11-10 on the Judiciary committee and 51-49 in the full Senate, Republican leaders had little room for defectors without risking a humiliating defeat of Trump’s nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Debra Katz, the lawyer representing Ford, told CNN Monday her client is willing to testify. Ford identified Kavanaugh’s friend as the conservative writer Mark Judge. In the last decade, we have seen the Supreme Court legalize gay marriage, reshape campaign finance laws and uphold the Affordable Care Act and Trump’s travel ban. “If they wanted to be, I would certainly do that, but as you know, they say this is not really their thing”. They want additional witnesses beyond Kavanaugh and Ford to be added to the planned hearing Monday.
Still, Conway and other Republicans are going out of their way to say they want Ford and Kavanaugh to be heard.
At a minimum, given the allegation and the stakes, the senators who have to decide whether Kavanaugh is fit to sit on the court should not only get to hear directly from both Ford and Kavanaugh, but also to ask questions of both of them as well.
Ford, who was 15 at the time, told the Washington Post that at one point in the night, she got up to use the bathroom.
“I’ve made it clear that I’m not comfortable moving ahead with the vote on Thursday if we have not heard her side of the story or explored this further”, Arizona’s Jeff Flake, a member of the committee, told the Post.
One key undecided lawmaker on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Republican Susan Collins of ME, said she was “very puzzled” by the uncertainty of Ford’s testimony. “Senate Republicans and the White House should drop their inexplicable opposition to an FBI investigation, allow all the facts to come out, and then proceed with a fair process in the Senate”.
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The Kavanaugh case comes at a particularly fraught time in American political life, with a president facing possible legal action that could prompt a Supreme Court case and with vital midterm congressional elections only seven weeks away – political tests that could determine which party controls Capitol Hill and, pointedly, elections that could turn on the conduct of some of the main actors in the Kavanaugh drama. The allegation does not involve any potential federal crime. Eshoo passed the letter to Feinstein, who turned it over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
