Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford get their chance to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday.
Photo / AP
Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford get their chance to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday.
Photo / AP
The congressional showdown taking shape between Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault is a battle of optics - or how things are perceived - as much as truth, and it comes at the height of campaign season.
At issue are logistics - Christine Blasey Ford's security, her questioners, the placement of reporters and who is allowed in the hearing room. The back-and-forth also is about how majority Republicans and Democrats answer women who allege assault and the men who deny the accusations in the #MeToo era. Leading the way for the GOP is President Donald Trump, the former reality show star who on Saturday attacked Ford's credibility and zeroes in on people who "make me look as bad as possible".
Here are some snapshots of the Washington drama as early voting begins in some states ahead of the November 7 midterm elections:
Accusation and denial
Kavanaugh was headed toward confirmation to the Supreme Court until Ford identified herself to the Washington Post, alleging that he steered her into a bedroom and tried to undress her when both were teenagers in suburban Maryland in the 1980s. He has staunchly denied her account.
Most everyone in Congress agreed at first that both should have a chance to tell their stories under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Republican-controlled panel set a hearing for tomorrow. Kavanaugh accepted, and spent most of last week at the White House preparing. But Ford said tomorrow was impossible for her, offering instead to testify later in the week under certain conditions. They are now set to testify on Friday.
Brett Kavanaugh. Photo / AP
Their allies and opponents are issuing ferocious statements, further electrifying the election season atmosphere. Both families - Kavanaugh's and Ford's - have said they're getting death threats.
The leader
Trump had spent most of the past week unusually restrained and heeding the tone set publicly by counsellor Kellyanne Conway. Ford, Conway said, should not be ignored or insulted and should be heard. Trump likewise avoided casting doubt on her account, at one point even acknowledging the possibility that Ford could make a credible case if she testified.
Then on Saturday, Trump questioned Ford's credibility and challenged her to provide more evidence than the notes from a therapist reviewed by the Washington Post. He tweeted, "I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!" He also repeated a question he asked on Fox News on Friday in Las Vegas: "The radical left lawyers want the FBI to get involved NOW. Why didn't someone call the FBI 36 years ago?"
There could be many reasons for that, starting with the fact that it's not clear Ford's alleged account would have been a federal crime.
Even now, no one is really asking for a criminal investigation. Ford and Democrats called for the FBI to add to Kavanaugh's background check with more interviews about her allegation. Trump has refused to ask for that.
Also, the Government's Bureau of Justice Statistics says a majority of rapes and sexual assaults are not reported to police. The percentage reporting in 2016 for rape or sexual assault was just 22.9 per cent.
The fallout
Trump's abrupt change of course put off at least one person he may need to confirm Kavanaugh in the Senate, which Republicans narrowly control, 51-49.
"I was appalled by the President's tweet," said Republican Senator Susan Collins. "I'm not saying that's what happened in this case - but we know allegations of sexual assault are one of the most unreported crimes that exist. So I thought that the President's tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong."
The terms
Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford get their chance to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday.
Photo / AP
Kavanaugh has said he wants to deny Ford's accusation in sworn testimony, and as soon as possible. He will get to do so on Friday.
Ford said she wanted to appear, but issued a series of conditions that Conway said on Saturday sounded more like demands.
The news site Politico cited a source as saying representatives of Ford and the committee would talk today to work out the specifics of her testimony.
The committee was said to be considering Ford's terms, which were:
• Security, including by US Capitol Police that could mirror Kavanaugh's.
• Reporters kept at a distance, as they are for Kavanaugh and most other high-profile hearings.
• She had said tomorrow was too soon as she would need time to secure her home and family.
• She does not want Kavanaugh in the room when she testifies.
• She wants the panel to subpoena Mark Judge, the other person she says was in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly attacked her. Judge has said he never saw Kavanaugh behave as Ford has described.
• She would prefer that senators, and not an outside counsel hired by Republicans, question her. Having an outside counsel would seem too much like a trial, her lawyer told the committee.
The toughest optics
The hearing or hearings would have enormous stakes for Kavanaugh, Ford and their families.
But Republicans have the toughest challenge in the Department of How It Looks. The GOP is defending House and Senate majorities in the election, and though Trump is not on the ballot on November 7, the contest is widely considered a referendum on his stewardship. The President has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women - all liars, he has said.
Inside the Senate, split 51-49, only six Republicans are women. On the Senate Judiciary Committee zero Republicans are women.
In contrast, four Democrats are women - some with ambitions to challenge Trump in 2020.
Haunting every politician is the memory of the 1991 confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, in which an all-male Senate panel hammered Anita Hill on her allegations of sexual harassment. Thomas heatedly denied the charge and was confirmed. Democrats were in charge, and the spectacle is widely regarded as a Senate embarrassment.
Democrats suggest now that tough treatment of Ford at the hands of Republicans would victimise her.
"The woman should be given the benefit of the doubt and not be, you know, abused again by the system," former Vice-President Joe Biden told NBC's Today show. Biden, who chaired the Thomas hearing and is considering running for president, said he regretted the way Hill was treated.
Senate Republicans agreed almost immediately after Ford's name became public that her story should be heard.
They've offered to hear her in public or private. The Judiciary Committee offered to send its investigators out to talk privately with Ford at a place where she was comfortable.
But they were eager to avoid the spectacle of 11 Republican men cross-examining a woman who says she's been victimised by a man. Doing so would almost certainly evoke the panel's handling of Hill and potentially alienate suburban women voters who could decide the elections and control of the House and Senate.
Republicans were considering bringing in an outside counsel, possibly a woman, to question Ford.
