Make it or break it Senate hearing set for Kavanaugh as other accuser comes forward
WASHINGTON — With high drama in the making, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh emphatically fended off new accusations of sexual misconduct Wednesday and headed into a charged public Senate hearing that could determine whether Republicans can salvage his nomination and enshrine a high court conservative majority.
The Senate Judiciary Committee — 11 Republicans, all men, and 10 Democrats — was to hear from just two witnesses on Thursday: Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge who has long been eyed for the Supreme Court, and Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor who accuses him of attempting to rape her when they were teens.
Republicans have derided her allegation as part of a smear campaign and a Democratic plot to sink Kavanaugh's nomination. But after more allegations have emerged, some GOP senators have allowed that much is riding on Kavanaugh's performance. Even President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh and fiercely defends him, said he was "open to changing my mind."
"I want to watch, I want to see," he said at a news conference in New York.
Kavanaugh himself has repeatedly denied all the allegations, saying he'd never even heard of the latest accuser and calling her accusations "ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone."
The hearing will be the first time the country sees and hears from the 51-year-old Ford beyond the grainy photo that has been flashed on television in the 10 days since she came forward with her contention. In testimony released in advance of the hearing, she said she was appearing only because she felt it was her duty, was frankly "terrified" and has been the target of vile harassment and even death threats.
"It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court," she was to tell the senators. "My responsibility is to tell the truth."
The stakes for both political parties — and the country — are high. Republicans are pushing to seat Kavanaugh before the November midterms, when Senate control could fall to the Democrats and a replacement Trump nominee could have even greater difficulty. Kavanaugh's ascendance to the high court could help lock in a conservative majority for a generation, shaping dozens of rulings on abortion, regulation, the environment and more.
But Republicans also risk rejection by female voters in November if they are seen as not fully respecting women and their allegations.
In the hours before the hearing, Republicans were rocked by the new accusation from a third woman, Julie Swetnick. In a sworn statement, she said she witnessed Kavanaugh "consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s." Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, who also represents a porn actress who is suing Trump, provided her sworn declaration to the Judiciary Committee.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when they attended Yale University, raised her profile in a round of television interviews.
Transcripts of private interviews with committee investigators, released late Wednesday, show they also asked Kavanaugh about two other previously undisclosed accusations received by Senate offices. One came in an anonymous letter sent to Sen. Cory Gardner's office describing an incident in a bar in 1998, when Kavanaugh was working for the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton. The other accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in college. Kavanaugh denied them both.
Republicans largely expressed confidence in Kavanaugh ahead of the hearing, emerging from a closed-door lunch with Vice President Mike Pence to say the nominee remains on track for conformation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell all week has said Republicans will turn to a committee vote on Kavanaugh after the hearing. They hope for a roll call by the full Senate — where they have a scant 51-49 majority — early next week as they seek to fulfill their pledge to get him on the court before its new term starts Oct. 1.
But at least a hint of doubt has crept in. Asked whether there were signs of Republicans wavering in their support of Kavanaugh in their lunch, Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Republican, paused briefly before saying "no."
In the hearing, Democrats plan to ask Kavanaugh if he'd be willing to undergo FBI questioning about the various claims — a request Republicans oppose— and press him about his drinking and behavior as a teenager.
One goal is to emphasize inconsistencies in his statements so far and make him appear nervous, said a Democratic aide who described the plan on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss it publicly.
Questions for Ford will be aimed at giving her a chance to explain herself. That includes describing why it took her so long to publicly discuss the alleged incident and how it's affected her life, the aide said
Ford will testify first at the hearing, which starts at 10 a.m. and at her request is being held in a small, wood-paneled hearing room that seats only a few dozen spectators.
Republicans have hired an outside attorney, Phoenix prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, to handle much of their questioning. Thus, they will avoid having their all-male contingent interrogating Ford about the details of what she describes as a harrowing assault.
Democratic questioners will include two senators widely seen as potential presidential candidates in 2020: Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who aggressively challenged Kavanaugh during the judge's earlier confirmation hearing.
Ford plans to tell the committee that, one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, "groped me and tried to take off my clothes," then clamped his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream before she was able to escape.
"I believed he was going to rape me," she will say, according to her prepared testimony.
Kavanaugh is being challenged on multiple fronts by his accusers, former classmates and college friends. They say the goodguy image he projects in public bears little relation to the hard-partying behavior they witnessed when he was young.
In his prepared testimony, the 53-year-old appellate judge acknowledges drinking in high school with his friends, but says he's never done anything "remotely resembling" what Ford describes. He said he has never had a "sexual or physical encounter of any kind" with her.