Kavanaugh Accuser Christine Ford Willing To Testify Before Congress
Christine Blasey Ford has said — through her attorney — that she is willing to testify against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in connection to a decades-old sexual assault claim that allegedly occurred when they were both in high school, USA Today reports.
Ford, 51, first made the charge in The New Yorker magazine last week but was unidentified in the article. She came out publicly as the named figure to the Washington Post on Sunday.
“She is willing to do whatever it takes to get her story forth,” Debra Katz, Ford’s attorney, said in an interview with NBC’s Today show Monday. “(Ford) believes that these allegations obviously bear on his character and fitness.”
On the morning show, Katz pushed back against claims that Ford — a registered Democrat — has been politically motivated in these allegations. Katz charged that her client has received “very vicious sexually violent emails from total strangers” since making her claims public.
“She has taken a polygraph,” Katz told Today. “She is a credible person. These are serious allegations and they should be addressed.”
USA Today reported that three Republicans – Arizona’s Jeff Flake, Tennessee’s Bob Corker, and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski – have all suggested that Ford should be heard before a vote be taken on his nomination. Flake sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee which had been poised to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination so it could move to the full Senate.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said through his spokesman Sunday that he is working to arrange “follow-up calls with Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford ahead of Thursday’s scheduled vote,” according to USA Today.
Ford is charging that Kavanaugh held her down and attempted to remove her clothes at a high school party, covering her mouth with his hand to prevent her from screaming before getting away, USA Today wrote.
Ford told the Washington Post that she escaped when Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Preparatory School classmate Mark Judge jumped on them, allowing her to break free.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” Kavanaugh said in a statement released last week about the charge, which was followed up by the White House on Sunday, the Post noted.
“On Friday, Judge Kavanaugh ‘categorically and unequivocally’ denied this allegation,” White House representative Kerri Kupe said, per USA Today. “This has not changed. Judge Kavanaugh and the White House both stand by that statement.”
Ford had initially reached out to the Washington Post in August, but declined to go on the record and eventually decided not to speak out against the Kavanaugh nomination.
Her story was leaked when The Intercept reported about Ford’s letter, describing it as being in the possession of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
