Senate Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have apparently made a counteroffer to Kavanaugh’s liberal accuser and are giving her until the end of Friday to accept.
Here’s the lowdown:
POLITICO – The Senate Judiciary Committee is giving Christine Blasey Ford attorney’s until the end of the day Friday to work out terms of next week’s proposed hearing on Ford’s allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, according to a Republican senator.
Senate GOP is offering to hold the hearing on Wednesday after Ford asked for a Thursday hearing and is meeting some of Ford’s requests but not others, the senator said.
“We’ll do it on Wednesday, we expect the accuser before the accused and we do intend to have the counsel do the questioning,” the senator said, summing up the Republicans’ stance. The party is OK with limiting the hearing to one camera as requested by Ford and has also “acquiesced” to Ford’s request that Kavanaugh not be in the same room as her, the senator said.
GOP members of the Judiciary Committee held a conference call on Friday morning to discuss how to respond to Ford’s requests on Thursday. And barring new revelations, the party plans to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination in Judiciary Committee shortly after hearing her testimony next week.
It’s interesting that committee members are insisting on outside counsel to do the questioning of both Kavanaugh and Ford. They must worried about the politics of a committee member having foot in mouth disease during the questioning – and it might also prevent antics from the Democrats who will no doubt try and make a scene over some of what Republicans might be asking. After what we saw in this last hearing, I’m now of the opinion that this is actually a great idea. It protects Republicans, it protects the process and is a win-win all around. Glad they stuck to their guns on that one.
As far as Wednesday goes….it’s better than Thursday and I guess we’ll have to live with it, assuming it happens. And keeping Ford going first just makes more sense in my opinion.
I don’t like that they’ve ‘acquiesced’ to Kavanaugh being outside of the room and I don’t know why ‘one camera’ is even an issue. Are multiple cameras arbitrary or something? Heh.
Again, I hope that she doesn’t accept and the hearing never takes place. But something tells me this farce will play out in front of TV cameras and we aren’t going to like it.