Ford open to testifying next week
Kavanaugh accuser rejects Monday hearing in laying out terms amid threats, lawyer says
WASHINGTON — An attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who is accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, said Thursday that her appearing at a hearing Monday to detail her claims is “not possible” but she could testify later in the week.
Debra Katz, Ford’s lawyer, relayed the response to top staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, requesting to set up a call with them to “discuss the conditions under which (Ford) would be prepared to testify next week.”
“As you are aware, she’s been receiving death threats which have been reported to the FBI and she and her family have been forced out of their home,” Katz wrote to the committee. “She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety. A hearing on Monday is not possible and the committee’s insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event.”
The preference would be for Ford to testify Thursday, and she doesn’t want Kavanaugh in the same room, her attorney told Judiciary Committee staff in a 30minute call that also touched on security concerns and others issues, according to a Senate aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
No decisions were reached, the aide said.
Katz reiterated that Ford, a psychology professor in California, would like the FBI to investigate before her testimony.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said through a spokesman late Thursday that he would be consulting with colleagues on how to proceed.
Kavanaugh wrote to Grassley in a letter released by the White House that he looks forward to testifying. “I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible, so that I can clear my name,” Kavanaugh said in the letter.
Amid the maneuvering, the nomination was roiled further late Thursday by incendiary tweets from a Kavanaugh friend and supporter who publicly identified another high school classmate of Kavanugh’s as Ford’s possible attacker.
Ed Whelan, a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, pointed to floor plans, online photographs and other information to suggest a location for the house party in suburban Maryland that Ford described. He also named and posted photographs of the classmate he suggested could be responsible.
Ford dismissed Whelan’s theory late Thursday: “I knew them both, and socialized with” them, Ford said, adding that she had once visited the other classmate in the hospital. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill and White House officials sought to distance themselves from Whelan’s claims. Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately Kavanaugh Sens. Mazie Hirono and Kirsten Gillibrand defend Christine Blasey Ford on Thursday. Ford has accused nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault at a high school party in the ’80s. discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident happened to Ford, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
Democratic senators, pointing to the Anita Hill hearings in October 1991, have defended Ford’s request to have the FBI do its own probe before she testifies. Back then, the FBI report into Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against now-Justice Clarence Thomas was finished on Sept. 26, 1991 — three days after its inquiry began.
“Someone who is lying does not ask the FBI to investigate their claims,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, DN.Y., said Thursday on Capitol Hill. “Who is not asking the FBI to investigate these claims? The White House. Judge Kavanaugh has not asked to have the FBI investigate these claims. Is that the reaction of an innocent person? It is not.”
Gillibrand said Senate Republicans’ ultimatum of a Monday hearing was “bullying.”
Republicans have rejected the comparisons to the Hill proceedings. Grassley wrote in a Wednesday letter to Democrats on the Judiciary Committee that the FBI investigated Hill’s accusations against Thomas when they were still not public.
A senior Senate Democratic aide noted that reopening FBI background checks was fairly routine.
Ahandful of pivotal senators have yet to disclose how they will vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, including GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. On Thursday, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, both independents, issued a statement opposing Kavanaugh’s nomination.
“Mr. Kavanaugh’s record does not demonstrate a commitment to legal precedent that protects working families,” Walker and Mallott said in the statement, remarks that could put pressure on Murkowski.
Earlier Thursday, Senate Republicans had reiterated their resolve to press forward with a vote on Kavanaugh if Ford chose not to testify before the 21-member Judiciary Committee. “If she doesn’t want to participate and tell her story, there’s no reason for us to delay,” Sen. John Cornyn, Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, told CNN.
Ford has alleged that while she and Kavanaugh were at a house party in the early 1980s, when the two were in high school, Kavanaugh drunkenly pinned her to a bed, groped her and put his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams as he tried to take off her clothes. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.
Republicans have largely stuck to Grassley’s decision to limit the hearing to two witnesses: Kavanaugh and Ford.
“What is happening with the Judiciary Committee, really, I would call it a railroad job,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said alongside Gillibrand on Thursday. “They are totally intent on getting Judge Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court come hell or high water ... You have to ask yourself why.”
Hirono spoke at an event on Capitol Hill to highlight a letter of support that was said to have been signed by more than 1,000 alumni of Ford’s high school in Maryland. A flood of anti-Kavanaugh protesters also descended on Capitol Hill while more Senate offices reported receiving threats related to the nomination.