GOP Sen. Susan Collins on Monday called for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a woman accusing him of sexual assault to testify under oath — and if Kavanaugh is found to have lied, “it would be disqualifying” for a high court seat.
In a press briefing, the Maine Republican — a key vote in the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court justice nominee — said she spoke to Kavanaugh last Friday about the letter and “he emphatically denied that the allegations were true.”
“That's why it's important that we have testimony under oath with a lot of questions asked of both of them,” she said.
Christine Blasey Ford, 51, a university professor in California, has accused Kavanaugh of trying to attack her and remove her clothing in 1982 at a small house party when they were both high school students in a Maryland suburb outside Washington.
Kavanaugh has vehemently denied he ever attacked Ford, or was even at the party.
“There are questions, inconsistencies, gaps,” Collins said. “That's why to be fair we need to know what happened,” she said, adding: “Obviously if Judge Kavanaugh has lied about what happened, that would be disqualifying.”
Collins conceded that when she first learned last week of a then-anonymous woman who revealed an alleged sexual attack, “we had no idea who had sent it, and I noticed the date of the letter and wondered why the information had not been released long ago.”
Ford came forward with her story to the Washington Post on Sunday.
Ford wrote a confidential letter to her Democratic congresswoman in late July; it was passed along to Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., in August.
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