Wednesday, Sep 26th
Last update05:20:13 AM GMT
Congressional Glance
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s freshman roommate at Yale University came forward late Monday, describing Kavanaugh as “a heavy drinker” who became “aggressive and belligerent” when drunk.
James Roche, Kavanaugh’s roommate in Fall 1983, said in a statement posted on Twitter that they didn’t socialize together much, but would chat at night after Kavanaugh would return from outings with his friends.
GOP Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), a critical swing vote in the Supreme Court fight, said on Monday that she believed a woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct should speak with Senate staff under oath.
“I believe that the committee investigators should reach out to Deborah Ramirez to question her under oath about what she is alleging happened,” Collins told reporters, when asked what she made of the latest allegation against Kavanaugh.
Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, will testify before the Senate judiciary committee on Thursday, in proceedings likely to become a decisive moment in the confirmation of the conservative judge.
A statement issued on Sunday by lawyers for the professor at Palo Alto University, who alleges Kavanaugh assaulted her at a part in the early 1980s, said an open hearing would take place at 10am on Thursday.
Kavanaugh, who has denied the allegations, is also expected to appear.
“Despite actual threats to her safety and her life, Dr Ford believes it is important for senators to hear directly from her about the sexual assault committed against her,” the statement said.
Minnesota state Rep. Jim Knoblach abruptly ended his re-election campaign Friday amid allegations of inappropriate touching from his adult daughter.
Minnesota Public Radio reported the announcement came hours after the St. Cloud Republican's attorney, Susan Gaertner, denied the allegations in an interview with the station. She said the veteran lawmaker "does not want to drag his family through six weeks of hell."
An aide to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley resigned Friday night after NBC News learned he had been accused of sexual harassment at a previous job, according to media reports.
Garrett Ventry served as a communications adviser to Grassley, helping the Senate Judiciary Committee with the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who has himself been accused of sexual assault.
Ventry did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. A spokesman for Grassley did not respond immediately to emailed questions.
According to the Portland Press Herald, Collins stopped short of giving an opinion on the veracity of Christine Blasey Ford’s claims that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party decades ago, even as she criticized Trump's remarks.
“I was appalled by the president’s tweet,” she said at a speaking event in Portland.
The woman who has accused Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault has told the Senate Judiciary Committee, in an apparent bid to jump-start negotiations, that she “would be prepared to testify next week,” so long as senators offer “terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” according to an email her lawyers sent to committee staff members.
In the email, obtained by The New York Times, the lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford said that testifying Monday — the timetable Republicans have set for a hearing — “is not possible and the Committee’s insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event.” The lawyer reiterated that it is Dr. Blasey’s “strong preference” that “a full investigation” occur before her testimony — wording that stopped short of demanding an F.B.I. probe and suggested she is open to testifying without one.
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