New claim ahead of high-stakes hearing
Kavanaugh denies latest allegation, Trump ‘open’ to changing his mind
With high drama in the making, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh emphatically fended off new accusations of sexual misconduct ahead of today’s charged public Senate hearing that could determine whether Republicans can salvage his nomination and enshrine a high court conservative majority.
The Senate Judiciary Committee — 11 Republicans, all men, and 10 Democrats — was to hear from just two witnesses today: Kavanaugh, a federal Appeals Court judge who has long been eyed for the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor who accuses him of attempting to rape her when they were teens.
Republicans have derided her allegation as part of a smear campaign and a Democratic plot to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination.
But after more allegations have emerged, some GOP senators have allowed that much is riding on Kavanaugh’s performance. Even President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh and fiercely defends him, said he was “open to changing my mind”. “I want to watch,” he said.
Kavanaugh himself has repeatedly denied all the allegations, saying he’d never even heard of the latest accuser and calling her accusations “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone”.
The hearing, which was due to start at 5am NZT, is the first time the country sees and hears from the 51-year-old Ford beyond the grainy photo that has been flashed on television in the 11 days since she came forward with her contention. In testimony released in advance of the hearing, she said she was appearing only because she felt it was her duty, was frankly “terrified” and has been the target of vile harassment and even death threats.
“It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr Kavanaugh deserves
to sit on the Supreme Court,” she was to tell the senators. “My responsibility is to tell the truth.”
Republicans are pushing to seat Kavanaugh before the November midterms, when Senate control could fall to the Democrats and a replacement Trump nominee could have even greater difficulty. Kavanaugh’s ascendance to the high court could help lock in a conservative majority for a generation, shaping dozens of rulings on abortion, regulation, the environment and more.
But Republicans also risk rejection by female voters in November if they are seen as not fully respecting women and their allegations.
Yesterday, Republicans were rocked by the new accusation from a third woman, Julie Swetnick. In a sworn statement, she said she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s”. Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who also represents a porn actress who is suing Trump, provided her sworn declaration to the Judiciary Committee.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when they attended Yale University, raised her profile in a round of television interviews.
Republicans largely expressed confidence in Kavanaugh ahead of the hearing, emerging from a closeddoor lunch with Vice-President Mike Pence to say the nominee remains on track for confirmation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell all week has said Republicans will turn to a committee vote on Kavanaugh after the hearing. They hope for a roll call by the full Senate — where they have a scant 51-49 majority — early next week with the aim of getting him on the court as its new term begins.
But at least a hint of doubt has crept in. Asked whether there were signs of Republicans wavering in their
support of Kavanaugh in their lunch, Senator John Thune, the thirdranking Republican, paused briefly before saying “no”.
In the hearing, Democrats were expected to ask Kavanaugh if he would be willing to undergo FBI questioning about the various claims — a request Republicans oppose — and press him about his drinking and behaviour as a teenager.
One goal is to emphasise inconsistencies in his statements so far and make him appear nervous, said a Democratic aide who described the plan on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorised to discuss it publicly.
Questions for Ford would be aimed at giving her a chance to explain herself. That includes describing why it took her so long to publicly discuss the alleged incident and how it’s affected her life, the aide said. At Ford’s request, the hearing is being held in a small, wood-panelled hearing room that seats only a few dozen spectators.
Republicans have hired an outside attorney, Phoenix prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, to handle much of their questioning. That means they will avoid having their all-male contingent interrogating Ford about the details of what she describes as a harrowing assault.
Democratic questioners will include two senators widely seen as potential presidential candidates in 2020: Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who aggressively challenged Kavanaugh during the judge’s earlier hearing.
Ford planned to tell the committee that, one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, “groped me and tried to take off my clothes”, then clamped his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream before she was able to escape.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” she would say, according to her prepared testimony.
In his prepared testimony, Kavanaugh, 53, acknowledges drinking in high school but says he’s never done anything “remotely resembling” what Ford describes. He provided the committee with calendar pages listing in green-and-white squares the activities that filled his summer of 1982 when he was 17 years old — exams, movies, sports and plenty of parties. That’s the year when Ford says she believes the assault occurred.
Nothing on the calendar appears to refer to her.
Ford released sworn statements from people who said she had told them about the assault in later years.