Palo Alto Statistics professor Christine Blasey Ford, whose accusation of sexual assault 36 years ago threatens to derail US President Donald Trump’s conservative US Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, has said she is willing to testify in a showdown at the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary.
Ford’s lawyers told the committee that she refuses to appear at a hearing scheduled for Monday, where Kavanaugh plans to present his side of the story.
Ford’s attorneys called the date set by Republicans “arbitrary,” US news reports said.
However, they said that she is open to negotiating a new date — under strict conditions, given the increasingly nasty atmosphere surrounding the case.
“As you are aware, she has been receiving death threats, which have been reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she and her family have been forced out of their home,” Ford’s lawyers were reported by the Washington Post and New York Times to have said in a letter.
“She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” they were quoted as saying.
That question of fairness is at the heart of a bitterly partisan debate over how to deal with the allegation that Kavanaugh drunkenly assaulted Ford at a party when he was 17, she was 15 and they were attending private schools outside Washington.
Kavanaugh denies knowledge of any such assault and no further direct witnesses have come forward.
Ford’s lawyers repeated their call for the matter to be dealt with in a rigorous investigation, not in what Democrats have described as a rushed hearing in the Republican-dominated Senate aimed at confirming Kavanaugh as quickly as possible.
“Her strong preference continues to be for the Senate Judiciary Committee to allow for a full investigation prior to her testimony,” the letter said.
The lawyers and numerous Democrats have repeatedly called for the FBI to open a probe.
However, Trump has rejected ordering FBI involvement.
The Republican party has accused Democrats of using Ford as a last-minute spoiler to try and wreck Kavanaugh’s path to the highest court, where he would tilt the bench firmly to the right for possibly years to come.
Republicans also fear that if the nomination is delayed any further, the remaking of the Supreme Court could be endangered by a possible Democratic sweep in the congressional midterm elections planned in seven weeks.
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