Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Christine Blasey Ford will be “respectfully treated” during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this week but noted her accusations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982 wouldn’t hold up in court and won’t change his mind.
“You can’t bring it in a criminal court, you would never sue civilly, you couldn’t even get a warrant,” Graham, a member of the committee, said on “Fox News Sunday.” “What am I supposed to do? Go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation? I don’t know when it happened, I don’t know where it happened, and everybody named in regard to being there said it didn’t happen.”
“I’m just being honest,” the South Carolina lawmaker said. “Unless there’s something more, no I’m not going to ruin Judge Kavanaugh’s life over this. But [Ford] should come forward, she should have her say, she will be respectfully treated.”
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin said Ford hasn’t been treated fairly by Republicans, noting that Sen. Chuck Grassley, the committee chairman, initially wanted to set up a conference call with her and the White House has rejected her demand that the FBI launch an investigation.
“I think her requests have been reasonable,” Durbin, a member of the committee, said on ABC’s “This Week.” “What Dr. Ford has asked for I believe is a credible request, an investigation by the FBI.”
Another Democratic member of the panel, Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, also renewed her call for an FBI investigation and said other witnesses should be able to testify.
“We have before us a nominee that is under a cloud. There’s not even a modicum of investigation. And so we are left basically with he-said, she-said. This happens a lot in the context of sexual assault. We know this,” Hirono said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said despite Ford’s decades-old claims, Ford shouldn’t be second-guessed.
“The message I’m comfortable with is that accusers go through a lot of trauma. Some handle it one way and some handle it the other way. Regardless, it’s not something that we want to do to blame the accuser or try to second guess the accuser,” Haley told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “She deserves to be heard. Kavanaugh, who has been accused, deserves to be heard. And I think we’ll get all our answers next week.”
Ford, a research psychologist at Palo Alto University in California, agreed to testify before the panel on Thursday and continue ironing out the details Sunday.
But Graham said while some of her demands have been met, others have not.
He said Ford’s lawyer laid out 10 conditions for her appearance on Thursday, and senators accepted six of them.
Graham said they won’t budge on two demands from Republicans – that there be only two witnesses, Ford and Kavanaugh, and the Republicans will hire their own counsel to interview her.
“They can contest those two things. If they continue to contest those two things there won’t be a hearing,” Graham said. “If they really want to be heard they can be heard in a small room with a lot of security, limited press availability. She’ll be treated fairly but we’re not going to turn the hearing over to her lawyers.”
She alleges that a drunken Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her and put his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming during a high school party in suburban Maryland in 1982.
Kavanaugh has denied the charges.