President Trump attacked the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in a tweet wondering if the alleged ‘attack’ was so bad, why did she wait so long to come forward?
Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of forcing himself on her at a high school party in the early 1980s. She does not remember where exactly the alleged assault took place, who was there, or what year it was.
Republicans have accused Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) - who found out about the allegations in July, but only revealed them after Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings - of using Ford’s claims to obstruct Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote.
“The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didn’t someone call the FBI 36 years ago?” Trump tweeted on Friday.
Kavanaugh vehemently denies Ford’s allegations, and Republicans have gathered statements from the judge’s schoolmates, ex-girlfriends, and a witness who was supposedly present when the attack took place, testifying to his character. Ford has been invited to testify to the Senate on Monday, but initially declined, asking for an FBI probe first.
Now, Ford says that she may indeed testify, but not on Monday. Now, Ford says that she may indeed testify, but not on Monday. Her lawyer, Debra Katz said that she would only testify if senators offered her “terms that are fair and which ensure her safety.”
In another tweet on Friday, Trump defended Kavanaugh, calling him “a fine man, with an impeccable reputation.” The president said that Kavanaugh is “under assault by radical left wing politicians who don’t want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay.”
Republicans have pushed to proceed with Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote, which should originally have taken place on Thursday. Now, an open FBI investigation could stall the vote further - certainly past the first Monday in October when the Supreme Court is due to meet, and perhaps until after November’s midterm elections, when Democrats have a fighting chance of taking back a majority in the Senate.
Ford’s allegations are uncorroborated, and in the absence of hard evidence, accusations and defenses have been made and retracted daily.
A classmate of Ford’s said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that the “incident did happen, many of us heard about it in the school,” but changed her tune when contacted by NPR. "That it happened or not, I have no idea," she told the network on Thursday.
On the other side, conservative attorney Ed Whelan argued that the supposed culprit could have been someone else from Kavanaugh’s high school class. Whelan tweeted a photo of Kavanaugh’s yearbook, showing a classmate and football teammate of Kavanaugh, who bore a striking resemblance to the Supreme Court nominee. The similarity, as well as some other circumstantial evidence he tweeted, “powerfully supports Judge Kavanaugh’s categorical denial,” he said.
Whelan later deleted the tweets, saying that implicating Kavanaugh’s classmate in the assault debacle was “an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment.”
With a voting day still up in the air, the scandal has chipped away at public support for Kavanaugh. A poll published on Friday shows 40 percent of Americans oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination, while only 31 percent approve. A separate poll taken last month found that 29 percent of voters opposed him. Opposition to his nomination is higher among women and Democrats.
Trump’s tweets were met with shock and disgust from the left, and bewilderment from the right, who worried that Trump’s itchy Twitter finger could spell more trouble for Kavanaugh.
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