For some reason, Republican leaders are still contesting the idea that a credibly accused sexual assaulter should NOT be on the United States Supreme Court. They’ve scheduled a rushed vote on Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation for the coming days, but the controversy surrounding the nominee keeps piling up. Now, it’s become clear that Deborah Ramirez, the second woman to accuse him of misconduct, would (probably) be willing to testify about her experience before Congress — but Republican Congresspeople aren’t interested.
Her lawyer John Clune explained on the Today show:
‘She would be willing to testify, but we can’t even talk with the Senate Judiciary Committee about what that would look like, and they certainly haven’t invited her, so at this point, it’s a moot question.’
He’s explained separately that Republicans have gone so far out of their way to avoid Ramirez that they didn’t participate in a scheduled phone call set for Tuesday night that had been meant to cover her story.
She brought her account out via a piece in The New Yorker, explaining that she’d been subject to abuse from Kavanaugh during a party at Yale. Her account is similar to the one California’s Dr. Christine Blasey Ford brought forward, having explained that during a high school party, Kavanaugh assaulted her and attempted to rape her.
Both women have been shunned by Republicans, who control the Senate and its Judiciary Committee, but they finally agreed to have Ford testify on Thursday. They’d previously made a show of setting a date for her to appear on Monday, but they hadn’t even confirmed Ford would be willing to testify when they announced that.
Interests sticking up for both women have asserted that there should be an FBI investigation into their accounts, and even Republican U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (AK) recently acknowledged that such an undertaking would no doubt be useful.
Republican leaders, though, aren’t interested. Remaining a minority in Congress for now, there’s only so much that Democrats can do.
John Clune explained his own support for an FBI investigation to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, calling it the “only intelligent way to get to the truth of what happened.”
He added:
‘We don’t just to straight to trial and skip the investigation process. We have a process that’s set up of how to do the background investigations into Supreme Court, and to cheat that process is going to end up with an unintelligent outcome.’
Watch below.
“Will she [Ramirez] testify even if there isn’t the [FBI] investigation she would prefer?” –@savannahguthrie
“That’s a decision I’ll certainly let her make…but it wouldn’t surprise me if she would agree to do that.” -Attorney for Kavanaugh accuser Deborah Ramirez pic.twitter.com/tRa1IUbTnn
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) September 26, 2018
There is a precedent for the FBI looking into allegations like the ones Kavanaugh faces; they investigated Clarence Thomas’s background, although the U.S. Senate still confirmed him to the nation’s highest court anyway.
It’s a specific aspect of that process that no doubt has Republicans worried. Thomas spent 99 days going from nomination to confirmation — and that’s about the same amount of time left before the next Congress takes its seats in January 2019. Democrats are likely going to take control of the U.S. House, and there’s a chance — sitting at 1 in 3, according to FiveThirtyEight — that they take control of the U.S. Senate too.
Just this week, a new poll came out putting Democrats 14 percent ahead of Republicans in generic House ballot polling — so in other words, they’ve got good reason to worry.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
