supreme court Trump stands firmly behind Kavanaugh

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

President Donald Trump on Wednesday bluntly questioned the allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a fellow high school student over 30 years ago, and Republicans warned the accuser the window was closing to tell her story before a confirmation vote.

Trump’s skepticism, the most explicit challenge top Republicans have so far mounted to Christine Blasey Ford’s credibility, came as GOP Senate leaders tried to firm up support for Kavanaugh.

A potentially climactic Judiciary Committee showdown is scheduled for Monday with both Ford and Kavanaugh invited, but her attendance is uncertain, casting doubt on whether the hearing will take place at all.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote to Ford’s attorneys that the hearing was still scheduled for Monday morning, and he pointedly said she must submit her written statement by 10 a.m. Friday “if she intends to testify” that day.

Lisa Banks, a lawyer for Ford, released a statement late Wednesday that cast no light on whether her client will appear.

She wrote that Ford wants “a full non-partisan investigation” and said Ford is willing to cooperate. But she said Grassley’s plan to call just Kavanaugh and Ford “is not a fair or good faith investigation” and said “multiple witnesses” – whom she didn’t name – should appear.

Ford has said she wants the FBI to investigate her allegation before she will testify. Democrats support that, but Trump and Senate Republicans have been emphatic that it won’t happen.

Leaving the White House to survey flood damage in North Carolina from Hurricane Florence, Trump conceded that “we’ll have to make a decision” if Ford’s account proves convincing. Despite that glimmer of hesitancy, which few other Republicans have shown publicly, the president stood firmly behind the 53-year-old Kavanaugh, who would fill the second high court vacancy of Trump’s term.

“I can only say this: He is such an outstanding man. Very hard for me to imagine that anything happened,” Trump said.

The Republicans are resisting all Democratic efforts to slow and perhaps block what once seemed a smooth path to confirmation that would promote the conservative appeals court judge by the Oct. 1 opening of the Supreme Court’s new term. Kavanaugh’s glide to approval was interrupted last weekend when word of Ford’s allegation became public, but GOP senators are showing no signs of slowing their drive to confirm him as quickly as possible.