Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about Ford’s allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while in high school.
The hearing arrives after days of intense negotiations over the timing, setting, and format of Ford’s testimony, as well as allegations from two other women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, about Kavanaugh’s conduct in his teens.
Ford alleges that in the early 1980s, when both she and Kavanaugh were in high school, he drunkenly sexually assaulted her while at a party. She claims he corralled her into a bedroom and pinned her down on a bed, tried to take her clothes off, and covered her mouth as she screamed while one of his friends, Mark Judge, looked on. Kavanaugh has categorically denied the allegations.
Ford first detailed her allegations in a letter shared with Rep. Anna Eshoo and Sen. Dianne Feinstein over the summer. She publicly came forward about them in an interview published by the Washington Post on September 16. Ford also provided the Post with notes from 2012 and 2013 therapy sessions in which she described an attempted rape she experienced while in high school.
Ford, her lawyers, and many Democrats had asked for an FBI investigation into her claims, but Senate Republicans have insisted Thursday’s hearings will be enough.
The all-male Republican members of the judiciary panel have asked Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor from Arizona, to question both Ford and Kavanaugh on Thursday, saying it will help to “depoliticize the process and get to the truth.” Ford’s lawyers released four sworn statements ahead of the hearing to support her story and the results of a polygraph test she took.
Kavanaugh has categorically denied Ford’s allegations, saying she may have experienced a sexual assault in her life but insisting he was not involved. In written testimony released before the hearing on Wednesday, he acknowledged that while he said and did things in high school that “make me cringe now,” he never did anything “remotely resembling” what Ford has described. “The allegation of misconduct is completely inconsistent with the rest of my life,” the testimony reads.
The committee has already scheduled a vote for Friday, the day after the hearing takes place.
How to watch Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee
When: Thursday, September 27, 2018, at 10:00 am ET
Where: Capitol Hill, Washington, DC
How to watch: Senate Judiciary Committee, C-SPAN
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
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