Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) slammed ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) “shameful way” of pushing Christine Blasey Ford to testify amidst a “media circus.”
Grassley held a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday to discuss California psychology professor Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Supreme Court Justice nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh allegedly attempted to sexually assault her when they were both in high school in the 1980s.
Chairman Grassley said that he lamented how this hearing arose, given that Sen. Feinstein did not relay this information during the committee’s confirmation process until the “eleventh hour.”
Grassley said that six separate Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inquiries did not reveal anything to suggest that Kavanaugh engaged in any inappropriate sexual behavior.
“Nowhere in any of these six FBI reports, which committee investigators have reviewed on a bipartisan basis, was there ever a whiff of any issue – at all – related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior,” Grassley said.
Sen. Grassley noted that Feinstein learned about these accusations two months ago, but waited until after the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation process finished to take action.
“Dr. Ford first raised her allegations in a secret letter to the Ranking Member nearly two months ago in July. The Ranking Member took no action,” Grassley explained. “The letter wasn’t shared with me, our colleagues, or my staff. These allegations could’ve been investigated in a way that maintained the confidentiality Dr. Ford requested.”
The Iowa senator then elaborated that Feinstein did not ask Kavanaugh about the accusations during her meeting with the nominee in August, during their four-day confirmation hearing in September, and not during a closed committee session on the last evening of the hearing, which, Grassley adds, Feinstein did not attend.
“Throughout this period, we did not know about the Ranking Member’s secret evidence,” the Iowa Republican added.
Chairman Grassley then charged that Feinstein referred these allegations to the FBI only “at the eleventh hour,” at which time the allegations were leaked to the press, all to Ford’s dismay because she had insisted on confidentiality.
“This is a shameful way to treat Dr. Ford, who insisted on confidentiality, and Judge Kavanaugh, who has had to address these allegations in the midst of a media circus,” Grassley said.