Senate Democrats on Tuesday pressed Republicans to allow more witnesses to testify at next week’s hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and California professor Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused the judge of sexual assault.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said senators need to hear from relevant witnesses like Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge, who Ford said was also in the room when the alleged assault took place.
“There must be an agreement on witnesses, and the FBI should be given time to reopen it’s background check on Judge Kavanaugh to speak to any potential witnesses or any relevant individuals,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “That way, senators will have necessary information and expert analysis at their disposal at the hearing making it much less likely that it will devolve into a ‘he said, she said’ affair.”
Schumer said he believes Ford’s account, but that in order for senators to make their determinations, the FBI should reopen its background check to include these specific allegations, which FBI officials didn’t know about when initially vetting Kavanaugh.
“We have two diametrically opposed stories,” said Schumer. “In my view, Professor Ford is telling the truth.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Judiciary committee, backed Schumer’s call for more witnesses, arguing that 22 witnesses were called to the 1991 Anita Hill hearing.
[Related: Anita Hill: Rushing Kavanaugh process shows sexual assault charges ‘not important’]
“What about other witnesses like Kavanaugh’s friend Mark Judge?” Feinstein said in a statement. “What about individuals who were previously told about this incident? What about experts who can speak to the effects of this kind of trauma on a victim? This is another attempt by Republicans to rush this nomination and not fully vet Judge Kavanaugh.”
In an effort to increase pressure on Republicans, all 10 Democrats on the Judiciary committee signed a letter to Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, demanding a more thorough investigation.
“We are concerned that the Majority’s actions both repeat mistakes of the past and fail to treat these allegations and the witnesses with the respect and carefulness that is required,” the letter said. “In 1991, within a week after Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment became public, the Judiciary Committee held three days of controversial hearings.”
How the Senate handles Ford’s allegations, the Democrats wrote, “will rightly be scrutinized by all Americans.”
“Failing to even perform the basic due diligence that was done under the Bush Administration, and repeating the mistakes of the past will not reflect well on the majority or this institution,” the letter said.
