President slams Kavanaugh accuser
WASHINGTON — After holding his tongue for a week, President Donald Trump sarcastically assailed the woman claiming a decades-old sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, tweeting that if the episode was “as bad as she says,” she or “her loving parents” surely would have reported it to law enforcement.
Trump’s searing reproach of Christine Blasey Ford on Friday defied the Senate Republican strategy — and the advice of White House aides — of not disparaging her while firmly defending his nominee and the tight timetable for confirming him.
The comment came as the California psychology professor’s attorneys sought agreement from Republicans on terms under which she might testify at a Judiciary Committee hearing next week. That showdown, should it occur, could play out on national television and settle whether Kavanaugh’s nomination survives.
The president’s tweet brought blistering rejoinders from Democrats and a mix of silence and sighs of regret from his own party. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who hasn’t declared support for Kavanaugh, called the remark “appalling.”
Chairman agrees to extension for accuser to decide if she will testify
Nearly two hours after a deadline set by Chairman Chuck Grassley expired Friday night, the Iowa Republican tweeted that he’d “just granted another extension” for Ford to agree to terms for telling his panel and a captivated nation about her allegation. He provided no details of the extension, and participants from both sides didn’t immediately return messages requesting clarification.
“She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand,” he wrote in a tweet just before midnight in a comment directed at Kavanaugh.
Earlier, Grassley had rejected proposals by Ford’s attorneys that only senators interrogate Ford and that she appear after Kavanaugh should she appear. Ford lawyer Debra Katz requested another day to decide and said Grassley’s deadline’s “sole purpose is to bully Dr. Ford and deprive her of the ability to make a considered decision that has life-altering implications for her and her family.”
Ford says an inebriated Kavanaugh pinned her on a bed, muffled her cries and tried removing her clothes when both were teenagers in the 1980s.