Kavanaugh accuser, panel close in on deal
Sides agree on hearing; talks shift to details
WASHINGTON — The woman who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers said Saturday that she was willing to testify this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but she asked for more time to continue negotiating the details of her appearance.
The Judiciary Committee and lawyers for the woman reached a tentative agreement later Saturday for her to publicly testify on Thursday, an apparent breakthrough in the negotiations.
After a brief call late Saturday, the lawyers and aides to Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, planned to talk again this morning to continue negotiations over the conditions of the testimony, according to three people familiar with the call. Aides to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top Democrat, were also involved.
Negotiations could still falter over those details, which include who will question the woman, Christine Blasey Ford. But in tentatively agreeing to a Thursday hearing, Republicans made a significant concession that suggested they were working to ensure that the session occurred after several days of
uncertainty.
Grassley will be left to decide today whether to move ahead with a committee vote on Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination that’s scheduled for Monday, which would determine whether Kavanaugh’s nomination is recommended to the full Senate.
Also on Saturday, Republicans on the committee received a statement that seemed to eliminate any chance of corroboration of Ford’s account by anyone who attended the high school party where she says she was assaulted.
A woman named Leland Keyser — who is believed to have been identified by Ford as one of the five people at the party — told the committee through a lawyer that she “does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford.” Two men have also told the committee that they have no recollection of the events.
Before her name became public, Ford told The Washington Post that she did not think Keyser would remember the party because nothing remarkable had happened there, as far as Keyser was aware. Ford has said she did not tell anyone about the alleged assault until 2012.
In a letter to the committee earlier Saturday, lawyers for Ford wrote that she “accepts the Committee’s request to provide her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual misconduct next week.”
Attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said many aspects of Grassley’s earlier offer were “fundamentally inconsistent” with the committee’s promise of a “fair, impartial investigation.” They said they remained disappointed by the “bullying” that “tainted the process” but remained “hopeful that we can reach agreement on details.”
The move by Ford, 51, a research psychologist in Northern California, came after an extended back-andforth between her lawyers and top Judiciary Committee aides. Grassley had set 2:30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday as a final deadline for Ford to agree or decline to appear.
Grassley’s spokesman had no immediate comment on the Ford letter.
As Republicans were considering their next move in private talks Saturday, they also made it clear they viewed Ford’s offer as a way to delay voting on President Donald Trump’s pick for the court.
A senior official at the White House said the letter amounted to “an ask to continue ‘negotiations’ without committing to anything. It’s a clever way to push off the vote Monday without committing to appear Wednesday.” The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the Senate negotiations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a member of the committee, echoed the White House criticism.
“Worth noting that this is exactly where we were on Monday morning — without agreeing to a date, time, and terms we are no closer to hearing from Dr Ford then we were when her lawyers said Dr. Ford was willing to testify during their media tour,” Hatch tweeted.
A spokesman for GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a committee member, tweeted that Ford “agreed to nothing. She rejected the committee’s offer to testify Wednesday.”
But Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who has advocated for public testimony by Ford and who controls a crucial vote on the committee, said via Twitter on Saturday afternoon that he saw progress. “This is good,” he wrote.
FORD’S REQUESTS
The letter from Ford was the latest turn in on-again, offagain negotiations that began cordially, with Ford voicing an openness to testifying, but quickly turned acrimonious. There have been several sticking points, including who would question her at a hearing and how many news media cameras would be present. Democrats went to her defense Saturday.
“Dr. Blasey Ford really is a profile in courage,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said in an interview. “She has decided to tell her story in the face of an impossible choice.”
Republicans said they would accommodate several of Ford’s requests, including ensuring that she had adequate security at the Capitol and that Kavanaugh would not be in the room when she speaks. But the GOP also declined her other requests, including that Kavanaugh testify first and that the committee subpoena Mark Judge — a Kavanaugh friend who Ford says was present during the alleged incident.
“If this process to secure her testimony falls apart, the fault is totally and clearly on the Republican leadership,” Blumenthal said in another interview, with The Washington Post, on Saturday.
Meanwhile, Vice President Mike Pence joined the chorus of Republican support for Kavanaugh on Saturday, telling a crowd of about 2,000 conservative activists at the Values Voter Summit that Kavanaugh “is a man of integrity, with impeccable credentials and a proven judicial philosophy” and that he would soon be confirmed.
Pence then took aim at the conduct of Democratic senators during the confirmation process, describing it as “a disgrace and a disservice to the Senate and the American people.”
Testimony by Ford would set up a showdown after days of uncertainty over whether she would appear at a hearing. It could also complicate matters for Kavanaugh, who has vigorously denied Ford’s allegations.
Ford says an inebriated Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried to remove her clothes when both were teenagers in the 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied doing this and said he wants to appear before the committee as soon as possible to clear his name.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he has enough votes supporting the nominee, but with at least two Republicans in the Senate undecided and with the party holding only a 51-49 majority, confirmation is hardly assured.
Ford’s accusations, coming
just days before the Judiciary Committee was initially set to vote on Kavanaugh, have rocked Washington, evoking memories of the 1991 confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment by law professor Anita Hill.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who ran for the Senate after watching Hill’s testimony a quarter-century ago, wrote on Twitter that “all eyes are on Senate GOP to see how they treat a sexual assault survivor.”
She continued: “The Senate failed test in ’91, we must do better now.”
MOVES IN D.C.
The intense attention on Ford’s accusations continued to reverberate on Capitol Hill on Saturday in unexpected ways. A communications adviser to Grassley, who had joined the Judiciary Committee temporarily to help shape messaging around Kavanaugh’s confirmation, stepped down from his position after NBC News raised questions about an accusation that he sexually harassed a co-worker in a previous political job.
The adviser, Garrett Ventry, said the sexual-harassment claim against him was false. A spokesman for the committee, Taylor Foy, noted the denial of wrongdoing but said Ventry had decided to step aside “to avoid causing any distraction from the work of the committee.”
Saturday’s letter from Ford’s lawyers also indicated that Michael R. Bromwich, a Washington lawyer and former inspector general of the Justice Department, had joined Ford’s legal team. Bromwich is also at the center of another leading storyline in Washington: He represents Andrew McCabe, the former FBI deputy director, who was fired this year and witnessed many of the most sensitive episodes of the bureau’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Information for this article was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Nicholas Fandos and Julie Hirschfeld Davis of The New York Times; by Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Jonathan Lemire of The Associated Press; and by Seung Min Kim, Sean Sullivan, Emma Brown, Gabriel Pogrund, Josh Dawsey and Karoun Demirjian of The Washington Post.