EXPLOSIVE
POWERFUL SEX-ASSAULT TESTIMONY MET WITH FURY FROM SUPREME PICK
President Trump urged the Senate to go ahead and approve his embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as soon as possible after yesterday’s emotional sexual-assault testimony from Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh’s impassioned, often angry, response.
“Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him,” Trump tweeted after yesterday’s explosive hearing. “His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!”
A Judiciary Committee vote is expected today, with the Senate expected to vote on the controversial nominee early next week — with a few moderate senators on both sides still uncommitted.
Republicans control the Senate, 51-49, and can only afford to lose one among their ranks if they want to put the conservative Kavanaugh on the high court.
Ford went first yesterday, testifying sometimes tearfully that a drunken Kavanaugh tried to force himself on her at a party in 1982 when they were teenagers in Maryland.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” Ford said of Kavanaugh. She said the most vivid memory she has from the evening is “laughter — the uproarious laughter between the two and they’re having fun at my expense.”
The Republican committee members ceded their time to a special counsel, federal prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, who specializes in sex crimes. The Ford testimony alternated between Democratic senators praising her bravery and the prosecutor going back and forth with Ford in calm exchanges on specifics.
The tenor changed when Kavanaugh took the stand, as he opened by blasting what he saw as a partisan smear campaign by Democrats.
“You have replaced ‘advice and consent’ with ‘search and destroy,’ ” Kavanaugh told the Democratic senators.
Republican senators quickly ditched Mitchell’s questioning and followed Kavanaugh’s lead in lambasting the Democrats.
“To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you’re legitimizing the most despicable thing I
have seen in my time in politics,” bellowed a furious Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who compared the hearing to McCarthyism.
Neither the Republican senators nor Kavanaugh attacked Ford, though, with Kavanaugh saying he believes she was sexually assaulted at some point — just not by him.
“A lot of Americans will believe both of them — both were credible. You have to wonder if it’s a case of mistaken identity or something,” Harvard Law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz told the Herald.
Neither of Massachusetts’ U.S. senators sit on the 21-person Judiciary Committee. But U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted, “Dr. Ford’s testimony today is heartbreaking, credible, and compelling. Anyone watching can have no doubt she is telling the truth. I believe her, and I hope my Republican colleagues do too.”
U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey tweeted, “Judge #Kavanaugh was angry, belligerent, and disrespectful. He displayed the exact opposite of the kind of temperament expected from a justice on our nation’s top court. Judge Kavanaugh displayed the kind of behavior you would see on the People’s Court, not the Supreme Court.”
Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley, who is expected to take a seat in the next U.S. Congress, tweeted, “#dearprofessorford, I believe you. Thank you for your courage and for going above and beyond your civic duty by telling the truth today. I know reliving this trauma in front of the world is painful, and I want you to know that your #survivortribe is with you today and everyday.”