Angrily defended himself

Kavanaugh keeps confirmation hopes alive in momentous hearing

Brett Kavanaugh angrily defended himself while Christine Blasey Ford said she's certain he sexually assaulted her.

By ELANA SCHOR and BURGESS EVERETT

The most anticipated hearing on a Supreme Court nominee since Anita Hill testified in 1991 began as a search for facts about an assault claim against Brett Kavanaugh — and ended in a partisan firefight.

The nine riveting hours in between were packed with grandstanding, anger and raw emotion on the part of the accuser and the accused, as the makeup of the Supreme Court hung in the balance.

The momentous hearing sets the stage for the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote on Kavanaugh Friday, with a full Senate vote as early as next week. The very makeup of the Supreme Court is at stake, and the hearing has touched off the wider debate about the #MeToo movement and its implications for both accusers and the accused.

After three misconduct allegations against President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee surfaced in recent weeks, Christine Blasey Ford delivered powerful and unbowed remarks before the Judiciary Committee about her claim that Kavanaugh assaulted her when both were in high school.

A “terrified” Ford testified that she was “100 percent” certain Kavanaugh was the perpetrator, adding, "I believed he was going to rape me. I believed Brett was going to accidentally kill me."

But the judge followed with a combative defense of his innocence. Kavanaugh, at turns defiant and choked up, portrayed a systematic “character assassination” by his critics and said that his confirmation has become “a national disgrace.” He described Ford’s claim as “not only uncorroborated, but refuted by everyone she says” attended the 1982 party where the California-based professor claims he tried to force himself on her.

His forceful testimony rallied most Republicans behind him, including the president, who tweeted after the hearing that Kavanaugh “showed America exactly why I nominated him."

It was a day filled with tears from both Ford and Kavanaugh, and despite hours of testimony, Republicans and Democrats appeared to be in the same place they were at before the hearing: defending their respective sides but questioning the credibility of either Ford or Kavanaugh.

With the hearing complete, the question remained how key Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Jeff Flake of Arizona will vote. All three said they’d reserve judgment until after the hearing, and all three could decide Kavanaugh’s fate. Collins, Murkowski, Flake and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia all met privately before a full GOP meeting after the Kavanaugh hearing.

The direction of the day swerved soon after Kavanaugh began taking questions, with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) erupting about a "despicable hearing” and excoriating Democrats for executing what the 53-year-old nominee had slammed as an "orchestrated political hit.”

Once Graham spoke, Rachel Mitchell — the veteran sex crimes prosecutor hired by the GOP to question Ford — never returned to the mic to question Kavanaugh about the specifics of the claim. Instead, Republicans began lining up behind the nominee, criticizing Democrats for sitting on Ford's allegation and belittling their calls for an FBI investigation.

“This is worse than Robert Bork, and I didn’t think it could get any worse than that. This is worse than Clarence Thomas, and I didn’t think it could get any worse than that,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), who earlier Thursday lauded Ford as “articulate,” told his fellow senators. “This is a national disgrace."

Following Graham’s infuriated remarks, few senators in either party concentrated on the alleged assault in the second half of the hearing. Democrats homed in on Kavanaugh’s lack of interest in an FBI probe and his past comments about drinking during his younger years, while Republicans aired complaints about the last-minute emergence of Ford’s claim.

Outside the hearing room, protesters on both sides of the historically bitter Supreme Court battle clamored to bolster either Ford or Kavanaugh. The white-hot partisanship of the moment seeped into the Capitol, too, as pro-Ford protesters trailed swing-vote Flake after the hearing, crying out for him to oppose Kavanaugh.

The hearing of more than eight hours began on a more solemn footing, as Ford described in vivid detail to rapt senators her claim that Kavanaugh assaulted her in 1982. Ford explained how Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge pushed her into a room at the party and how the alleged attack changed the course of her life.

Subtly addressing questions from some Kavanaugh supporters about why she didn't come forward earlier, Ford recalled that she had told herself she "should just move on" because she was not raped. Ford later said that she was “100 percent” certain Kavanaugh assaulted her and nobody else.

The high court nominee began his remarks with an emotional avowal of his own, saying that his name had been "destroyed" by claims from Ford and two other women who have come forward against him, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), however, sought to clarify that one individual Ford has identified as attending the party in question declined to refute the allegation, instead stating that she did not know Kavanaugh but believes Ford’s account.

“I’m not questioning whether Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person at some place at some time. But I have never done this to her or to anyone. That is not who I am, and not who I was,” Kavanaugh told senators. "You may defeat me in the final vote. But you won’t make me quit."

He later exploded when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) raised the new allegations against him, deeming Swetnick’s "a joke. It's a farce."

As senators assessed Kavanaugh's testimony, few openly questioned Ford's credibility.

"I found no reason to find her uncredible. Obviously, there are gaps in her story," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas.

But senators ceased using Mitchell, the outside lawyer they had hired for the hearing, to question Kavanaugh early on in the judge’s testimony. The last question Mitchell was permitted to ask Kavanaugh dealt with an entry in high school-era calendars he submitted to the committee that referenced “skis,” a 1980’s slang term for beers, with two of the individuals identified by Ford as attending the party where she was assaulted.

During Ford’s portion of the hearing, Democrats questioned her directly while Republicans outsourced their time to Mitchell. As the hearing wound down, Mitchell acknowledged the imperfect format and suggested a one-on-one interview would have been far preferable to five-minute increments of questioning alternating between Mitchell and Democratic senators.

Ford's attorneys said they were representing her pro bono after Mitchell asked about who paid for Ford's polygraph and other probing questions.

Mitchell questioned Ford about the details of her memory regarding the night and her recollections of it to the media, focusing at one point on media reports that Ford was unable to fly due in part to the consequences of her alleged trauma.

Ford held her ground, describing air travel as “anxiety-provoking” but telling senators that she did take a plane to Washington for her testimony.

Senate Republicans huddled together after the first portion of the hearing. They later assembled in the Capitol for an evening conference meeting to gauge whether Kavanaugh’s nomination can move ahead to a committee vote on Friday, as scheduled.

Mitchell used her time to ask Ford about potential discrepancies in her written statement before passing a polygraph exam in August, as well as in a July letter about her allegation that she sent Feinstein, the committee's top Democrat. Later in the hearing, Feinstein denied any involvement by her or her staff in a media leak earlier this month that forced Ford’s letter into the public eye — a leak that has infuriated Republicans who blame the California Democratic senator.

Ford offered only minor alterations and made no substantive changes to her story — other than to ask the committee to probe when Judge, Kavanaugh’s friend allegedly involved in the assault, worked at a local supermarket, to pinpoint when the incident occurred. She said she encountered Judge at a supermarket after the incident and he did not want to speak to her after previously being friendly. Judge refers in one of his books to having worked at a supermarket during high school.

Judge has told the committee he does not want to testify, and the GOP has declined to force him to despite calls for a subpoena.

Her husband did not attend the hearing, according to a source familiar with its logistics, so he could stay behind in California to take care of their children amid death threats the professor has received.

With Kavanaugh short of the 50 votes to get confirmed and at least four GOP senators’ decision hinging on his and Ford’s performance, the hearing is likely to determine Kavanaugh’s fate in the Senate. The Senate Judiciary Committee Chuck Grassley said his committee still plans to meet on Friday morning regarding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Several senators said Thursday night they expect a committee vote, though Grassley would not say that explicitly.