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US-POLITICS-COURT-ASSAULT
Supreme Court nominee accuser agrees to testify before US Senate
WASHINGTON, Sept 23, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – The woman whose sexual assault
allegation threatens to bring down President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court
nominee has agreed to testify in the Senate, her lawyers said Saturday,
setting up a dramatic showdown next week.
Christine Blasey Ford’s decision followed days of negotiations and came
after Trump turned against her and said her accusation could not be true.
After the Senate Judiciary Committee received a message from Ford’s
lawyers, several members confirmed she had accepted their committee’s request
to testify.
“Dr. Blasey Ford will testify next week. She has shown tremendous courage
in the face of death threats and harassment and deserves respect as final
details for the hearing are worked out,” Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein
tweeted.
Hours later, multiple outlets including Politico and The Daily Beast
reported the hearing would take place on Thursday, citing sources familiar
with a phone call between the committee and Ford’s lawyers.
The committee’s Republican leader Chuck Grassley had wanted the hearing to
take place on Wednesday, but Ford asked that it be held on Thursday at the
earliest and to be able to call as a witness a man she says was present
during the assault.
The tentative deal capped a day of frenetic developments, with time
running out for Trump to get his hand-picked conservative judge confirmed —
thereby tilting the Supreme Court firmly to the right for years to come —
before November elections when Republicans risk losing control of Congress.
Earlier, the panel had given the California professor until 2:30 pm (1830
GMT) to decide whether to appear, after she rejected a Friday evening
deadline imposed by Grassley.
“Although many aspects of the proposal you provided via email, on (Friday)
are fundamentally inconsistent with the committee’s promise of a fair,
impartial investigation into her allegations, and we are disappointed with
the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process, we are hopeful that
we can reach agreement on details,” read the lawyers’ letter cited by The
Washington Post.
The White House criticized Ford for allegedly dithering, and said: “Brett
Kavanaugh remains ready, willing and eager to testify as soon as possible.”
– Denial –
Ford alleges that Kavanaugh drunkenly assaulted her at a party when he was
17, she was 15 and they were attending private schools outside Washington in
the 1980s.
Kavanaugh denies knowledge of any such assault and wants to give his side
of the story to the committee.
The White House later also pushed back on Ford’s claims.
“One week ago, Dr. Christine Ford claimed she was assaulted at a house
party attended by four others. Since then, all four of these individuals have
provided statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee denying any knowledge
of the incident or even having attended such a party,” White House
spokesperson Kerri Kupec said.
It came as, after several days of maintaining a relatively neutral
posture, Trump on Friday declared that Ford was lying.
“TAKE THE VOTE!” Trump tweeted, blaming “radical left wing politicians”
for the controversy.
– ‘Highly offensive’ –
According to Trump, the fact that Ford remained silent until now shows the
incident probably never happened — even if this runs counter to what experts
say is the typical reaction of sexual assault victims afraid or too
embarrassed to report.
“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says,”
Trump tweeted, “charges would have been immediately filed with local Law
Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.”
The senior senator for Trump’s Democratic foes, Chuck Schumer, called the
president’s logic a “highly offensive misunderstanding of surviving trauma,”
while Democratic Senator Feinstein said: “We must treat sexual assault
survivors with respect, not bully or try to silence them.”
Even one of Trump’s own Republican senators, Susan Collins — who sits on
the Judiciary Committee — said she was “appalled by the president’s tweet.”
Trump’s outburst saw a new #MeToo era hashtag storm the internet, with
people — mostly women — sharing why they did not report being assaulted
under the Twitter hashtag #WhyIDidntReport.
Ford told the Post she went public with her claims because she felt her
“civic responsibility” was “outweighing my anguish and terror about
retaliation” after the basic outlines of the story emerged in the media.
Republicans are frustrated over what they say was the deliberate timing of
the last-minute revelation of Ford’s allegation, accusing Democrats of
seeking to prevent the process from finishing before the midterm elections in
a few weeks.
For their part, Democrats say Republicans are mounting an unseemly rush to
get Kavanaugh into the nine-member Supreme Court while they still control the
legislature.
BSS/AFP/GMR/1200 hrs