President Trump on Friday called the woman accusing his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, of attempted rape in high school “credible” a day after she testified about the alleged assault on Capitol Hill.
“I thought her testimony was very compelling and she looks like a very fine woman to me. She was a very credible witness,” Trump said about Christine Blasey Ford, before adding that he has not thought “even a little bit” about replacing Kavanaugh.
Ford described to the Senate Judiciary Committee in emotional testimony on Thursday her claim that Brett Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed at a party when they were both in high school, covered her mouth, and tried to remove her clothes before she managed to escape. Kavanaugh has categorically denied the accusation and those leveled against him by several other women, and gave a fiery and tearful defense of his younger self to the Judiciary Committee after Ford’s testimony Thursday.
The Committee advanced Kavanaugh’s nomination on Friday to a vote on the Senate floor, after Republican Jeff Flake of Arizona insisted on delaying that final for one week so the FBI could conduct an investigation of Ford’s allegations.
“I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to but not more than one week in order to let the FBI do an investigation, limited in time and scope, to the current allegations,” Flake said. “This country is being ripped apart here.”
“I will be totally reliant on what [Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck] Grassley and the group decides to do,” Trump said. “They have to do what they think is right. They have to be comfortable with themselves.”
Any FBI investigation of the allegations would ultimately have to be ordered by the president, who has said that he will do whatever Senate Republicans ask.
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