Brett Kavanaugh confirmation: Senior Republican says woman accusing Supreme Court justice nominee of sexual misconduct 'deserves to be heard'
The senior Republican senator overseeing the confirmation process of Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, has said the woman who has accused him of sexual misconduct “deserves to be heard”.
The process of confirming Brett Kavanaugh has been thrown into disarray after an academic claimed the judge had sexually assaulted her at a high school party decades ago.
Over the weekend, the woman, Christine Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University in California, spoke publicly of the alleged incident in an interview with the Washington Post. Mr Kavanaugh has denied the claims.
On Monday, amid calls from Democrats to postpone a vote scheduled by the Senate Judiciary Committee for Thursday, Ms Ford’s lawyer said she was prepared testify in public before the committee.
Appearing on CBS, Debra Katz, a lawyer for Ms Ford, said "she is willing to do whatever is necessary” to ensure the committee had the full story. “She’s willing to do what she needs to do, she’s willing to hopefully tell her story in a manner that is a fair proceeding," she said.
“Unfortunately, what we’re already hearing this morning is that the Republicans intend to play hard ball, they intend to grill her.”
Mr Kavanaugh, whose nomination is due to be voted on by the committee and passed to the full senate for confirmation on Thursday, has denied the allegations levelled against him. Last week, when the allegations were first made but before his accuser identified herself, Mr Kavanaugh issued a statement denying the claims: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman @ChuckGrassley issued the following statement regarding the nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. #SCOTUShttps://t.co/QnS36Fd76Zpic.twitter.com/SXm5aBwiBk
— Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) September 17, 2018
On Monday, Mr Kavanaugh issued a second statement and said he was also prepared to answer questions on the matter.
“This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes—to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday," he said
“I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity.”
Later on Monday, Mr Trump told reporters it was unfortunate the allegations against Mr Kavanaugh were not raised sooner. He said he believed nomination remained "very much on track" and that he wanted the senate to complete the process. He said Mr Kavanaugh was one of the "great intellects". "I want to see a complete process. Most of all, I want the American people to be happy." Asked if he was considering withdrawing Mr Kavanaugh's nomination, he said it was a "ridiculous" question.
The allegations against Mr Kavanaugh first emerged late last week, when Democrats in the Senate revealed they had referred a complaint involving Mr Kavanaugh to the FBI for investigation. The complaint came from a woman who accused Mr Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when they were both in high school, more than 30 years ago.
Republican Chuck Grassley, chairman of the senate committee, said: “Anyone who comes forward as Dr Ford has deserves to be heard, so I will continue working on a way to hear her out in an appropriate, precedented and respectful manner.
“The standard procedure for updates to any nominee’s background investigation file is to conduct separate follow-up calls with relevant parties. In this case, that would entail phone calls with at least Judge Kavanaugh and Dr Ford Consistent with that practice, I asked Senator Feinstein’s office yesterday to join me in scheduling these follow-ups. Thus far, they have refused.”
Ms Ford had contacted the Democrats in the summer before the confirmation process for the US Appeals Court judge had begun. In a letter to her local congresswoman, Anna Eshoo, she wrote that she had been a victim of sexual misconduct by Mr Kavanaugh in the 1980s, when he was student at Georgetown Preparatory School, in Bethesda, Maryland, and she was attending a nearby high school.
In the letter, the woman claimed that at a party, Mr Kavanaugh and a friend, who she said had both been drinking heavily, held her down on a bed and tried to force himself on her. She also claimed the young men had turned up the music to drown out any noise.
“Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early 1980s. He conducted these acts with the assistance of [REDACTED]. Both were one to two years older than me and students at a local private school,” she wrote.
“Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with [REDACTED], who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me. From across the room a very drunken [REDACTED] said mixed words to Kavanaugh ranging from 'go for it' to 'stop'.
“I have received medical treatment regarding the assault. On July 6 I notified my local government representative to ask them how to proceed with sharing this information. It is upsetting to discuss sexual assault and its repercussions, yet I felt guilty and compelled as a citizen about the idea of not saying anything.”
Over the weekend, the woman – whose letter was passed to Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic member of the committee – identified herself in an interview with the Washington Post.
Ms Ford told the newspaper she had not spoken in detail of the alleged incident until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ms Ford and reviewed by the Post, did not mention Mr Kavanaugh by name but said she reported she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington”.
Her husband, Russell Ford, said that in the 2012 sessions she had talked about being trapped in a room with two drunken boys, one of whom pinned her to a bed, molested her and prevented her from screaming. He said he recalled that his wife used Mr Kavanaugh’s last name and voiced concern that the judge might one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.
The newspaper said Ms Ford had contacted it through a tip line some moths ago, but had not wanted to be identified. She took a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent in early August, it said.
She engaged Ms Katz, a Washington lawyer known for her work on sexual harassment cases, who advised her to undergo the polygraph test, which she did last month. It said she was telling the truth.
As the accusations gathered steam, Senate judiciary committee chairman Charles Grassley, a Republican, released a letter from 65 women who said they knew Mr Kavanaugh when he attended high school in North Bethesda.
“Through the more than 35 years we have known him, Brett has stood out for his friendship, character, and integrity,” the women wrote. “In particular, he has always treated women with decency and respect. That was true when he was in high school, and it has remained true to this day.”
Like those women, the second young man said to have been present also denied that Ms Ford’s accusations were true. “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way,” he said.
It was amid these denials, the Post said, that Ms Ford decided to identify herself as the person who said she was assaulted.
“These are all the ills that I was trying to avoid,” she said. “Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation.”
Longterm watchers of the Supreme Court say the claims by Ms Ford echo the allegations of sexual harassment that were made against nominee Clarence Thomas in 1991 by Anita Hill, who worked under Mr Thomas at the US Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
Ms Hill was called to give televised testimony before the committee, and told senators: “He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes ... On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess.”
Mr Thomas, who had been nominated by George HW Bush, was eventually confirmed by the full senate in a narrow vote – 52 to 48. He remains a justice on the court and would be a colleague of Mr Kavanaugh if he is confirmed.
