National Post (National Edition)
Trump defends Kavanaugh, says he’s ‘an extraordinary man’
WASHINGTON • President Donald Trump offered a robust defence of Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday, saying it was “very hard for me to imagine anything happened” with the woman who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when both were teenagers.
The president’s assessment came as it remained uncertain whether Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s accuser, would testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.
Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, asked Ford’s attorneys to respond by Friday on whether she plans to appear before his panel. While Grassley has been flexible on some aspects of her testimony — such as whether she wants to speak in private or publicly — he and other Republicans have not budged from the Monday schedule, nor are they willing to accommodate her request for an FBI investigation before she testifies.
“I have reopened the hearing because I believe that anyone who comes forward with allegations of sexual assault has a right to be heard, and because it is the committee’s responsibility to fully evaluate the fitness of a nominee to the Supreme Court,” Grassley wrote to Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, who are Ford’s lawyers. “I therefore want to give Dr. Ford an opportunity to tell her story to the Senate and, if she chooses, to the American people.”
The standoff over Ford’s testimony persisted as Trump, in his most effusive defence of Kavanaugh yet, praised him as “an extraordinary man” with “an unblemished record,” and said what he is experiencing is “unfair.”
Still, the president also said that Ford deserves to be heard by the Judiciary Committee.
“Look, if she shows up and makes a credible showing, that will be very interesting and we’ll have to make a decision,” Trump said. “But I can only say this: He is such an outstanding man. Very hard for me to imagine that anything happened,” he said.
Trump told reporters that the FBI has investigated Kavanaugh six times for federal jobs and suggested that it is unnecessary to do so again.
The FBI reiterated Wednesday that it had included information about the allegations in Kavanaugh’s background file, and that it is now up to the White House to decide what to do with it.
Ford, a 51-year-old psychology professor, has alleged that, at a party in the 1980s, Kavanaugh drunkenly pinned her to a bed, groped her and put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he attempted to take off her clothes.