Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sunday to postpone a vote on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until a sexual misconduct accusation leveled against him is investigated.
“For too long, when women have made serious allegations of abuse, they have been ignored. That cannot happen in this case,” Schumer said via a written statement.
[Kellyanne Conway: Kavanaugh accuser ‘should not be ignored’]
Schumer’s calls follow the woman accusing Kavanaugh of trying to force himself onto her in the 1980s, when the pair were in high school, coming forward and publicly putting her name to her claim.
Christine Blasey Ford, now a 51-year-old California-based professor, told the Washington Post on the record Sunday that Kavanaugh drunkenly pinned her on her back in a Maryland bedroom during a gathering when she was 15, groped her, and attempted to muffle her screams for help with his hand. Kavanaugh has “categorically and unequivocally” denied the accusation.
Schumer said Sunday that Kavanaugh’s credibility was “even more suspect,” repeating Democratic attacks based on the federal appeals court judge’s tenure in the George W. Bush White House.
“To railroad a vote now would be an insult to the women of America and the integrity of the Supreme Court,” Schumer added.
The Senate Judiciary Committee had been scheduled to vote as part of Kavanaugh’s confirmation process last week, but the vote was delayed until Thursday.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s office on Sunday said the timing of Ford’s “uncorroborated” allegation was “disturbing,” given she first wrote a confidential letter to her local congresswoman, a Democrat, in July. Rep. Anna Eshoo then reportedly forwarded the claim to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate judiciary panel.
“It raises a lot of questions about Democrats’ tactics and motives to bring this to the rest of the committee’s attention only now rather than during these many steps along the way,” staffers from Grassley’s office wrote in a statement. “Senator Feinstein should publicly release the letter she received back in July so that everyone can know what she’s known for weeks.”
