Supreme Court stalemate — Kavanaugh and Ford testify in riveting Senate hearing

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Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh (left) and Christine Blasey Ford, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. | Jim Bourg and Saul Loeb, distributed by the Associated Press

WASHINGTON – A dramatic, historic Supreme Court confirmation hearing ended in a stalemate on Thursday with Christine Blasey Ford “100 percent” certain she was sexually assaulted in high school by nominee Brett Kavanaugh — who was equally sure the incident in question never occurred.

Kavanaugh’s testimony, highly partisan and accusatory against Democrats, appears to have saved him.

The Republicans control the Senate Judiciary Committee and, after huddling on Thursday night, announced a vote for 8:30 a.m. Central Time on Friday to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination to the full Senate, which means they have the support of all 11 Republicans on the panel.

ANALYSIS

There are ten Democrats on the committee, and all are expected to vote no.

Whether Kavanaugh has the support to be confirmed is still not certain. A few key senators, including Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, are undecided.

Democrats framed the hearing as a job interview.

Republicans took it as an unfair inquisition, careful, however, not to suggest Ford was making up her allegations.

Notably, Kavanaugh, who told the panel his reputation was ruined by Ford’s allegations, resisted demands by several Democrats, including Sen. Dick Durbin D-Illinois, to request that the FBI reopen his background investigation.

Thursday echoed the equally dramatic and historic Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991, which led to the “Year of the Women” in the 1992 elections.

Those women elected in 1992 included Democrat Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, the first female and first African American senator from Illinois, and California’s Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Both women joined what was then the all male Judiciary Committee.

Today, Feinstein is the top Democrat on that panel, and she took considerable heat from Republicans for not disclosing a letter Ford wrote last July that she had detailing her allegations against Kavanaugh.

Feinstein defended herself by saying Ford wanted to keep her identify confidential — and that neither she nor her staff leaked the letter to the press. Ford’s explosive charges came out in a Washington Post story.

The Kavanaugh hearing is coming in the context of the “MeToo” sexual misconduct movement and weeks before the November mid-term elections.

The hearing, lasting about eight hours, differed from the previous Kavanaugh sessions with the committee.

The public was not allowed, so there were no protestors. And the 11 Republicans on the panel — all men — hired a female prosecutor from Arizona, Rachel Mitchell, to ask questions for their side when Ford testified.

That strategy may have backfired.

Mitchell’s questions took on an adversarial tone. Ford ended her testimony with her credibility in tact. Republicans had been trying to avoid the appearance of putting a victim of sexual violence on trial.

When Kavanaugh testified, most of the GOP senators asked their own questions. That left Mitchell sitting behind a desk with nothing to do but watch.

President Donald Trump, said in a Tweet after the hearing ended that Kavanaugh’s testimony “showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting. Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist.“

Christine Ford: Her testimony

Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, testified about an assault during the summer of 1982 at a house party attended, she asserted, by Kavanaugh and a high school classmate, Mark Judge.

“I was pushed onto the bed, and Brett got on top of me,” she said. “He began running his hands over my body and grinding into me. I yelled, hoping that someone downstairs might hear me, and I tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy.

“Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time, because he was very inebriated, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit underneath my clothing.

“I believed he was going to rape me.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, asked about her “strongest memory” of the incident.

“The uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”

Judge has denied the allegations. The Republicans declined to call him as a witness.

Testified Ford, “the details that — about that night that bring me here today are the ones I will never forget. They have been seared into my memory, and have haunted me episodically as an adult.”

Durbin asked, “Dr. Ford, with what degree of certainty do you believe Brett Kavanaugh assaulted you?”

She replied, “One hundred percent.”

Brett Kavanaugh: His testimony

Kavanaugh, testifying after Ford, vehemently denied her accusations.

Kavanaugh went further, angrily accusing the Democrats of “coordinated character assassination.”

“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record.

“Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.

Ford wrapped up her testimony with barely a nick on her – perhaps an inconsistency on whether she had an aversion to flying or not.

Kavanaugh put some distance between his partisan accusations and Ford.

Said Kavanaugh, “This onslaught of last-minute allegations does not ring true. I’m not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time. But I have never done this. To her or to anyone. That’s not who I am. It is not who I was. I am innocent of this charge.”

RELATED

• FBI reaches out to Kavanaugh Yale classmate, accuser Deborah Ramirez

• Despite sympathy for his accuser, Kavanaugh supporters stick with pick

• New Supreme Court term begins Monday in the shadow of tumult over Kavanaugh

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