Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said that Thursday’s hearing with Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford would go forward as planned even as new allegations surfaced against President Donald Trump’s embattled Supreme Court nominee.
Grassley, an Iowa Republican, told reporters Wednesday that while they are investigating the new allegation, there will not be a delay of the prescheduled hearing, saying “tomorrow is very important.”
A Grassley spokesman later reiterated the hearing will go on as scheduled.
One the chamber’s most watched Republicans, retiring Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, took to the Senate floor after the latest allegations to offer an apology on behalf of the US Senate to Kavanaugh and Ford, as well as rebuke Trump, and both Republican and Democrat lawmakers, for what he saw as an over politicization of the confirmation process.
“I must also say that separate and apart from this nomination and the facts that pertain to it, I do not believe that a claim of sexual assault is invalid because a 15-year-old girl didn’t promptly report the assault to authorities, as the President of the United States said just two days ago,” Flake said.
Flake, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also said warned that his fellow panel members may “have to be prepared for the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that there will be no definitive answers to the very large questions before us” following Thursday’s hearing.
The latest allegation comes from a woman named Julie Swetnick, who attended Gaithersburg High School in Maryland. Swetnick says she attended “well over ten” parties where Kavanaugh was present and saw him “drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, ‘grinding’ against girls and attempting to remove or shift girls’ clothing to expose private body parts.” Kavanaugh has denied all allegations against him, including those of Ford and Swetnick.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to the latest allegations by calling on Republicans to “immediately suspend the proceedings related” to the nomination and saying that he believes Kavanaugh “should withdraw from consideration.”
“Republicans need to immediately suspend the proceedings related to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, and the president must order the FBI to reopen the background check investigation,” the New York Democrat said in a statement.
He added, “I strongly believe Judge Kavanaugh should withdraw from consideration. If he will not, at the very least, the hearing and vote should be postponed while the FBI investigates all of these allegations. If our Republican colleagues proceed without an investigation, it would be a travesty for the honor of the Supreme Court and our country.”
Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexual and physical assault during their high school years at a party in the early 1980s.
