Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other top Democrats in the Senate are demanding that a classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh testify at a high-stakes hearing set for Monday.
Democrats said Mark Judge, who was allegedly in the room when Christine Blasey Ford says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party in the early 1980s, needs to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee and provide testimony.
Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Monday announced that the panel would hold a public hearing with Kavanaugh and Ford to discuss the allegations.
{mosads}“Let’s not rush the hearings,” Schumer said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “Let’s not repeat the mistake made in the Anita Hill hearings. Let’s call the relevant witnesses, not just the two selected by Chairman Grassley who did not want to call the hearings to begin with.”
Schumer added, “How could we want to get the truth and not have Mr. Judge come to the hearings and be asked questions?”
Ford alleges that at a party in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh held her down on a bed and tried to remove her clothing. Judge has denied that the alleged incident took place.
Republicans haven’t invited Judge to testify and have said they won’t call for additional witnesses.
But Democrats said his testimony is critical. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), Christopher Coons (Del.), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Kamala Harris (Calif.) — all members of the Judiciary Committee — have said Judge should testify.
“I think not having in front of us the third person who is alleged to have been a participant in this troubling incident would be to not fully question whether there is some truth to this or not,” Coons told MSNBC.
Democrats on Judiciary Committee wrote in a letter to Grassley that there are “other relevant witnesses who should be questioned under oath, in a public setting.”
“This includes Mark Judge, who Dr. Blasey Ford identified, and others that might be identified through the FBI’s investigation or subsequent due diligence by the Committee itself,” they said.