It appears Senator Chuck Grassley has had enough. In a statement issued tonight, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman says he’s giving Christine Blasey Ford and her legal team a deadline of 10pm tonight to respond to panel’s testimony offer.
As The Hill reports, the committee announced on Friday that the Monday hearing — where both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, had been invited to speak — was being called off.
Instead, Grassley said in a statement Friday that he is giving Ford’s lawyers until 10 p.m. on Friday to respond to the GOP request for her to testify on Wednesday.
“I’m providing a notice of a vote to occur Monday in the event that Dr. Ford’s attorneys don’t respond or Dr. Ford decides not to testify,” Grassley says.
“In the event that we can come to a reasonable resolution as I’ve been seeking all week, then I will postpone the committee vote to accommodate her testimony. We cannot continue to delay.”
If they do not, or if Ford declines to testify, Grassley said the Judiciary Committee will vote Monday on Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Democrats lambasted the GOP maneuver.
All 10 Democrats on the Committee wrote a letter to Grassley saying “the Committee majority’s treatment of Dr. Ford has unquestionably been worse than the disgraceful treatment that Anita Hill received 27 years ago.” Hill accused now-Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in 1991 and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were criticized for their handling of the situation.
President Trump tonight reconfirmed his support for Kavanaugh and said he expected him to get confirmed.
Meanwhile, social media is alive with #WhyIDidntReport tweets of abused women explaining why they did not report their abuse, as if in some way this provides cover for Ford’s lack of reporting or remembering the event until many years later.
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