Last updated on December 1st, 2018 at 05:02 am
The attorney for Brett Kavanaugh accuser Dr. Christine Ford is concerned about Republicans hiring an “experienced sex crimes prosecutor” for Thursday’s hearing where she will give her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Michael Bromwich sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley expressing his concerns.
Bromwich said in the letter:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
“This is not a criminal trial for which the involvement of an experienced sex crimes prosecutor would be appropriate. Neither Dr. Blasey Ford nor Judge Kavanaugh is on trial. The goal should be to develop the relevant facts, not try a case.”
The move by Republicans seems to make clear their intentions for Thursday’s hearing: they want to impeach Ford as a witness and destroy her credibility. They are not seeking the truth; they are seeking to undermine Ford and confirm Kavanaugh regardless of what testimony is presented.
Bromwich also wrote that using outside counsel to perform questioning on the senators’ behalf would go against Ford’s “repeated requests through counsel that senators conduct the questioning.”
“The central point is that there is no precedent for this Committee to bring in outside counsel for the sole purpose of shielding the members of the Committee from performing their responsibility to question witnesses,” Bromwich said.
Bromwich added that Grassley’s staff hasn’t responded “to a number of outstanding questions about the hearing,” including what the role will be for the “experienced sex crimes prosecutor” during the hearing.
“Please identify this person and ask your staff to send us her resume immediately. We respectfully request to meet with her tomorrow,” he added.
This latest communication from Ford’s attorney seems to cast doubt on Thursday’s hearing. There is a chance that Ford will still back out of the hearing, and refuse to give her testimony in a setting that is designed to be a “circus” and to undermine what she has to say.
Bromwich in the letter also took aim at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who accused during a Senate floor speech that Democrats are using Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh as part of a “smear campaign.”
“The Majority Leader dismissed Dr. Ford’s experience as a ‘smear campaign,’ claiming mistakenly that the witnesses’ statements to the Committee constitute ‘a complete lack of evidence,’ implying that there has been a thorough investigation,” he said in the letter to Grassley.
Republicans are not playing fair because they think they hold all the cards. But they don’t. Dr. Ford could skip Thursday’s hearing and give her testimony directly to a national TV audience the same way that Kavanaugh did last night. By doing that she could avoid being dragged through the mud by the Republican sexual assault enablers who sit on the Judiciary Committee.
This latest information from Dr. Ford’s attorney makes clear that she is not willing to play their games anymore.
[wl_faceted_search]
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
