Senate going forth with Brett hearing
The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is refusing to delay Monday’s hearing on sexual-assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh or request an FBI investigation into the accusations.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a letter Wednesday evening to California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the committee, that accuser Christine Blasey Ford has until 10 a.m. Friday to let the panel know whether she will testify.
“Dr. Ford has asked for the opportunity to be heard in a hearing, and I believe she should have that opportunity,” Grassley wrote. “I recognize that testifying publicly about sexual assault allegations may be difficult for Dr. Ford.”
Grassley said he offered Ford four options: a public or private hearing, or a public or private staff interview.
Ford, a university professor from California, claims that a drunken Kavanaugh locked her in a bedroom during a highschool party in 1982 and tried to pull her clothes off while covering her mouth to stop her from screaming.
Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
After the allegations became public, Grassley announced plans to reopen the hearing into Kavanaugh’s nomination on Monday, but Ford has asked him to hold off and allow the FBI to investigate her claims first.
In a letter to Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee, Grassley argued that an FBI probe is unnecessary because the agency’s role in Supreme Court nominations is to perform confidential background checks to help the White House — not “a credibility assessment” for the Senate on information that is already public.
“The job of assessing and investigating a nominee’s qualifications in order to decide whether to consent to the nomination is ours, and ours alone,” he wrote.
Ford’s lawyer repeated her request for the investigation Wednesday, and criticized Grassley for refusing to allow other witnesses to testify at the hearing.
“The Committee’s stated plan to move forward with a hearing that has only two witnesses is not a fair or good faith investigation; there are multiple witnesses whose names have appeared publicly and should be included in any proceeding,” attorney Lisa Banks said in a written statement.
“The rush to a hearing is unnecessary, and contrary to the Committee discovering the truth.”
She also said Ford has received threats and has been unable to return to her home since her allegations became public over the weekend.
“Fairness and respect for her situation dictate that she should have time to deal with this,” Banks wrote.
In a separate letter to Ford and Banks on Wednesday, Grassley said he was “disturbed” to hear about the threats, but nevertheless wouldn’t push the hearing back.
Republicans have accused Democrats of trying to stall the Kavanaugh hearing until after the midterms, and complained that Feinstein first got a letter with Ford’s claims on July 30, but held onto it until Sept. 13. Feinstein has said that the accuser had wanted at first for her claims to remain confidential.
In his letter to Feinstein, Grassley demanded that she immediately turn over an unredacted copy of Ford’s letter and charged that Feinstein “chose to sit on the allegations until a politically opportune moment.”
Meanwhile, President Trump said it’s “very hard for me to imagine” his Supreme Court nominee would commit such an attack.