Kavanaugh sexual assault claim detailed
• Professor tells Senate hearing she believes it is her civic duty to testify
A professor detailed her allegations that Brett Kavanaugh, US President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, sexually assaulted her 36 years ago, at a momentous Senate hearing on Thursday that could determine whether he will be confirmed to the lifetime job.
The Senate hearing, which has riveted Americans and intensified the political polarisation in the US, occurred against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault. Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge picked by Trump in July for a lifetime job on the high court, were the only two witnesses scheduled for the judiciary committee.
Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual misconduct by two other women as well. He has denied all the allegations.
“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school,” Ford said, reading from her prepared testimony, her voice breaking with emotion.
Ford was seated at a table in the packed hearing room flanked by her lawyers, facing a bank of senators.
Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said a drunken Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing at a gathering of teenagers in Maryland when he was 17 years old and she was 15.
“Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was very inebriated and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothing. I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help,” Ford said, adding that Kavanaugh and a friend of his were “drunkenly laughing during the attack”. Ford said that when she tried to yell, he put his hand over her mouth.
She said she was able to escape when Kavanaugh and another boy she said was in the room fell off the bed.
Republican Chuck Grassley, chairperson of the committee, said at the opening of the hearing that he wants it to be “safe, comfortable and dignified for both of our witnesses”. He decried the “media circus” around the allegations against Kavanaugh and said the nominee and Ford have been through a terrible few weeks since Ford levelled her accusation.
“What they have endured ought to be considered by all of us as unacceptable and a poor reflection on the state of civility in our democracy,” Grassley said. “So I want to apologise to you both for the way you’ve been treated. I lament how this hearing has come about,” he added, noting that Ford’s allegations emerged only after Kavanaugh’s original confirmation hearing earlier in September.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, said that sexual violence is a serious problem in the US “and one that goes largely unseen”.
She thanked Ford for coming forward and made reference to the #MeToo movement.
“What I find most inexcusable is this rush to judgment, the unwillingness to take these kinds of allegations at face value and look at them for what they are: a real question of character for someone who is asking for a lifetime appointment on the supreme court,” Feinstein said.
Ford should be treated with more respect than Anita Hill, who in 1991 accused Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, Feinstein said. Thomas was ultimately confirmed by the Senate and still sits on the court.
Supporters of Ford were spotted throughout the Senate office building, including a group of about 50 women who attended the same school that Ford did at the time of the incident.
Deborah Ramirez accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself at a drunken dormitory party in the 1983/1984 academic year.
Julie Swetnick, whose allegations emerged on Wednesday, said she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and others to get girls drunk at parties so that they could be raped. She also said he was present at a 1982 party at which she was raped.
The all-male Republican majority on the senate judiciary committee has hired a female lawyer with experience in prosecuting sex crimes, Rachel Mitchell, to question Ford.
Democratic senators are set to ask their own questions. In his prepared testimony, Kavanaugh said, “Sexual assault is horrific. It is morally wrong. It is illegal. It is contrary to my religious faith. And it contradicts the core promise of this nation that all people are created equal and entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.”
Supreme Court appointments must be confirmed by the Senate, and Trump’s fellow Republicans control the chamber by a 51-49 margin.
That means that a handful of moderate Republican senators who have not announced whether or not they support Kavanaugh could determine his fate. The committee could vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Friday, with a final Senate vote early next week.
WHAT I FIND MOST INEXCUSABLE IS … THE UNWILLINGNESS TO TAKE THESE KINDS OF ALLEGATIONS AT FACE VALUE