Kavanaugh tells Senate panel: I want a hearing to ‘clear my name’
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he plans to push ahead and appear at a Senate hearing set for Monday, despite lawyers for the woman accusing him of sexual assault saying she won’t be there.
Kavanaugh sent a letter Thursday to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, saying he wanted to attend the Monday hearing to “clear my name.”
“Thank you for the invitation to appear before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on Monday, September 24. I will be there. I look forward to the opportunity to testify before the Committee,” Kavanaugh wrote.
{mosads}Kavanaugh noted that during a private phone call with Judiciary Committee staff on Monday of this week he had requested a hearing as soon as the following day.
“I continue to want a hearing as soon as possible, so that I can clear my name,” Kavanaugh said.
The White House released the letter hours after a lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh’s accuser, said she would not testify at the hearing set for Monday but opened the door for testifying later in the week.
“She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” Ford lawyer Debra Katz wrote to the Judiciary Committee.
Katz wrote that her client’s appearance on Monday “is not possible” and argued “the committee’s insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event.”
Republicans had invited both Kavanaugh and Ford to appear for the Monday hearing.
Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing since Ford came forward publicly on Sunday to accuse him of sexual assault.
Ford told The Washington Post that during a high school party in the early 1980s Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, tried to remove her clothes and covered her mouth when she tried to protest.
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