Political negotiations over Kavanaugh accuser's testimony

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Political negotiations over Kavanaugh accuser's testimony

Christine Ford, the California professor accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she 'would be prepared to testify next week,' provided the terms are 'fair'; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," September 19, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS, R-MAINE: I think it's not fair to Judge Kavanaugh for her not to come forward and testify. Both of them need to testify under oath.

SEN. MARCO RUBIO, R-FLA.: I encouraged and I wanted the committee under Senator Grassley to provide her an opportunity and a forum she was comfortable in to share this information.

ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR EMERITUS: I think she has to show up on Monday. If she doesn't show up on Monday, she has violated his core right to confront his accuser.

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.: They would like a he-said, she-said scenario, because you know what happens in those scenarios? The men are typically believed. I consider that to be bullying.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: It continues, and it does not appear that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will be here on Monday, but she may testify after all to the Senate Judiciary Committee. She is the accuser of Brett Kavanaugh, alleging sexual assault.

The Senate Judiciary Committee tweeting this out today, "Democrats sat on Dr. Ford's allegations for months and did nothing. They still haven't turned over the original letter they received from Dr. Ford. Why would Dems sit on allegations for months and then not even participate in the committee's investigation?" On Monday the staff interviewed Judge Kavanaugh under penalty of felony. Democrat staff was invited and could have asked any question of Judge Kavanaugh. They declined to participate. Staff contacted Mark Judge," he's the other person alleged to be in the room, "and obtained a statement under penalty of felony. Staff contacted third person allegedly at part described by Dr. Ford and obtained a statement under penalty of felony. The staff contacted a fourth person allegedly at party. Staff have contacted a schoolmate who claimed on social media this week to have info related to Dr. Ford's allegations. Committee has not yet heard back." That's what they tweeted out today.

Where are we on all of this? Let's bring in our panel: Byron York, chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner; Mollie Hemingway, senior editor at The Federalist, and David Catanese, senior politics writer for U.S. News and World Report. We should point out the Democrats, Byron, are pushing hard and continuing to push for an FBI investigation before Dr. Blasey Ford sits down.

BRYON YORK, WASHINGTON EXAMINER: I think what that series of tweets you just read says is you want an investigation? We have been investigating, the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Also, there's no reason Senate Democrats could not be investigating this themselves. They have investigators on staff. They have a specific fund that is given to Democrats and Republicans to temporarily beef up the staff for Supreme Court nomination fights. So they could actually do this. They don't need Republican permission to do it.

But now we have entered the hard negotiation phase of this, not sure where it's going to go, but we have a witness who apparently wants to tell our story, setting conditions that the Senate must follow to hear her story.

BAIER: Mollie?

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, THE FEDERALIST: It does seem like the Senate Judiciary Committee has gone out of its way to accommodate this witness, and they have said they would be willing to go out to her, that she could do her testimony behind closed doors publicly or otherwise. So the fact that she's not willing to testify is a big problem because the other evidence thus far is her story. So it really needs to be told for this to have any hope of having an impact on the process. And if it's not told, then it's also very unfair to Kavanaugh who has been accused of a very serious crime. And so it's very important that everyone play well here.

BAIER: Senator Gillibrand saying if Brett Kavanaugh doesn't call the FBI investigation on himself, then that means he's guilty.

DAVID CATANESE, U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: I don't think anyone believes that. That's a very political and partisan statement. When this allegation was dropped and we put a name and a face on it on Sunday, I think this was very damaging to Kavanaugh. I think Republicans were in a pinch.

I think today we started to see the tipping point because now the accuser is lawyered up and they are playing with semantics. And given that the Republicans have pushed back the vote, they said to come on Monday, and now they're saying, no, we don't want to come on Monday. Maybe it's Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. And I think this could harden Republicans who are wavering, you have those two or three Republicans that were wavering because this is such a serious accusation, are now saying why won't you show up and speak to the Senate? And frankly, Senator Gillibrand, you saw her last night, she was on television saying she shouldn't come and testify, that it's not credible. And then a couple hours later --

BAIER: The whole thing shifted since Monday. It was she should testify, they should both testify. Then it was we need the FBI investigation. And then don't testify, she is being bullied. What were you going to say?

YORK: We need to talk a little bit about schedules, because the Judiciary Committee rules require the chairman to give a one-week notice for a hearing. When this thing blew up on Monday, Grassley said we are going to have a hearing, and it's no accident that he called next Monday for the hearing. That was the quickest he could call the hearing without Democratic consent to call him before.

So if those rules stand this time and Senator Grassley agreed to this new demand, he would call the hearing for at least no earlier than next Thursday. So this is going to take a while if the committee accedes to this new demand.

BAIER: What about Democrats saying, listen, just tell the FBI to do it? I get that the FBI is saying the background investigation is done, but when Democrats say that, what is the response to that?

HEMINGWAY: I think there are many responses to that. One would be if you wanted the FBI to investigate this, or if you wanted resources put forth, you should have done it when you first were notified of this. Also the investigation is happening right now. More than anything, though, all that the accuser has is her story. You don't need the FBI to get a story. She can get that story right now. She can give that story behind closed doors, in a public hearing, however she wants to do it. There is no need for the FBI because all she has are her memories of this.

And so it is also an important thing I think that we talk about Me Too moments and how important it is that women not be sexually assaulted. It's also important that we remember as a country why we have due process and how important it is that the accused also have rights, and going around and making a very serious claim like this, if Judge Kavanaugh is an attempted rapist then he deserves whatever is coming at him. If he is not, this is a great disservice to him. He is a man with a wife and children and has an active role in their lives, and this is an unjust thing unless this is true.

BAIER: Politics just quickly, as you take these out, it seems like wherever you stand, if he goes through Democrats are going to be fired up on their base. If the nomination ends, Republicans are going to be livid. How does this play?

CONTINETTI: Absolutely. It's completely politicized, and I think you have countervailing forces. Republicans want to vote on this before the midterms. Democrats want to delay the game as much as possible. Maybe they win the Senate, maybe they don't have a Supreme Court there. I think it's completely politicized.

The problem I think, and the travesty about all this, is this is unprovable, we will probably never know the exact truth. And even if he is confirmed, he is going to be tarred as someone labeled as an accused sexual offender moments before he gets a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. And that I think is very, very sad for the accuser and for Brett Kavanaugh.

BAIER: I want to turn topics, and that is the declassification. Here is Trey Gowdy from the show earlier:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY, R-S.C.: I would tell Chris and Dan Coats and everyone else, by the way, all of whom are Trump appointees, that is you are concerned about sources and methods, if you're concerned about relationships with friend foreign policy governments, then you need to go sit down with the president and say, look, there's a way we can get this information out, but safeguard sources and methods. I would think the president would be open to that.

I've read it. Some of it is embarrassing for the Department of Justice. Some of it is embarrassing for the FBI. Embarrassment is not a reason to classify something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Byron?

YORK: Trey Gowdy is one person who says he has read all of this stuff. And Republicans were worried about slow walking, and I think the slow walking is going on right now. We have been talking about maybe some of these documents being released this week. Now we are not talking about that anymore. Don't know what's going to happen next week.

Bu the fact is the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Intelligence Community, the same groups that don't want to release this are the ones who have to actually implement this presidents order to release it.

BAIER: And John Brennan and others say they shouldn't do it.

HEMINGWAY: We have heard over and over again that declassifying information about the Russia probe would cause problems for national security, and what it ends up causing is embarrassment to the FBI or DOJ when it shows what they were doing, spying on an opposing political campaign or learning how they were talking about their investigations. So they've kind of lost credibility because they've used that argument so many times. And when we see what they were protecting, whether it's Andy McCabe's $75,000 desk or what they sent to the FISA court, it ends up not being anything other than embarrassing to them and their procedures.

BAIER: Do we get the papers soon?

CONTINETTI: I think so. But I think we know in Washington everything is over-classified. Wouldn't it be ironic if you had a document dump and we have classified information released tarring the FBI and tainting another election like it did two years ago, revealing things about the Justice Department and the FBI that Americans are uncomfortable with. And it could be a rallying point for Republicans.

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