Senate set for SC showdown
Republicans abruptly laid plans yesterday for a Senate committee hearing at which Brett Kavanaugh and the woman alleging he sexually assaulted her decades ago will testify publicly, as GOP leaders grudgingly opted for a dramatic showdown they hoped would prevent the accusation from sinking his Supreme Court nomination.
With GOP support eroding for plunging ahead without openly examining the allegations, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said his panel would hold a hearing next Monday, US time, with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
‘‘To provide ample transparency, we will hold a public hearing Monday to give these recent allegations a full airing,’’ Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement.
Just hours earlier, top Republicans had shown no interest in a theatrical spectacle that would thrust Kavanaugh and Ford before television cameras with each offering public – and no doubt conflicting – versions of what did or didn’t happen at a high school party in the early 1980s.
Instead, Grassley had said he’d seek telephone interviews with Kavanaugh and Ford, winning plaudits from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for planning to handle the episode ‘‘by the book.’’ Democrats rejected that plan, saying the seriousness of the charges merited a full FBI investigation.
Republicans had also displayed no willingness to delay a Judiciary panel vote that Grassley had planned for this Thursday to advance the nomination, setting the stage for full Senate confirmation of Kavanaugh by month’s end, in time for the new Supreme Court session. Thursday’s vote will not occur.
President Donald Trump telegraphed earlier yesterday that that schedule might slip. He told reporters at the White House: ‘‘If it takes a little delay, it will take a little delay.’’
If the Judiciary committee’s timetable slips, it would become increasingly difficult for Republicans to schedule a vote before the November 6 elections.
With fragile GOP majorities of just 12-11 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.
Among the GOP defectors was Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Judiciary Committee member who has clashed bitterly with Trump and is retiring from the Senate. Flake said he told No. 2 Senate Republican leader John Cornyn of Texas on Monday that ‘‘if we didn’t give her a chance to be heard, then I would vote no.’’
There was enormous pressure on GOP Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, two moderates who have yet to announce their positions on Kavanaugh and aren’t on the Judiciary Committee.
Collins said both Kavanaugh and Ford should testify under oath to the committee. Neither she nor Murkowski face reelection this fall.
Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., another retiring Trump critic who is not on the committee, also said he favoured delaying Thursday’s panel meeting.
With the #MeToo movement galvanising liberal and female voters and already costing prominent men their jobs in government, journalism and entertainment, a hearing would offer a fuller vetting of Ford’s charges but also present a politically jarring prelude to November elections for control of Congress.