The woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, Dr. Christine Ford, has accepted the Senate Judiciary Committee’s invitation to testify.
A public hearing has been scheduled for 10 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 24, according to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chair of the committee.
In the short letter, Katz and Banks also said that the details of the hearing should be negotiated further.
While the lawyers stated the invitation was accepted, they didn’t explicitly state the Monday date was agreed upon, and have previously said Ford wouldn’t testify on Monday. A person familiar with the negotiations told the Associated Press that she wants to testify Thursday, though no reason was given as to why.
An anonymous senior official at the White House told the AP that the letter amounted to “an ask to continue ‘negotiations’ without committing to anything. It’s a clever way to push off the vote Monday without committing to appear Wednesday.”
The delay over Ford agreeing to testify was claimed by the lawyers to be over conditions of the testimony, with the attorneys at one point trying to get the committee to let Ford testify after Kavanaugh and issuing a subpoena to Mark Judge, who Dr. Ford said was in the room when the alleged assault occurred.
Ford has not provided a number of details about her accusation, including a date, time, or the place it occurred, making an investigation difficult. She has, through her lawyers, repeatedly asked for an FBI investigation, but the bureau said it would not investigate the alleged assault, which is said to have happened in 1982 when Ford was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17.
Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the accusation and gave testimony to judiciary staff on Tuesday. Staff also obtained testimony from Judge and another person who Ford said was present at the house during the assault.
Top officials have stood by Kavanaugh during the chaos surrounding the accusation, including President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump noted on Friday that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had held a letter from Dr. Ford for months before the accusation was made public, and Ford revealed herself as the accuser in an interview with the Washington Post.
Trump said on Twitter, “Senator Feinstein and the Democrats held the letter for months, only to release it with a bang after the hearings were OVER—done very purposefully to Obstruct & Resist & Delay. Let her testify, or not, and TAKE THE VOTE!”
