A pair of Republican senators who could hold Brett Kavanaugh’s fate in their hands blasted President Trump for mocking Christine Blasey Ford over her allegations that the Supreme Court nominee sexually attacked her.
“There’s no time and no place for remarks like that. To discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right. It’s just not right. I wish he hadn’t had done it,” Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake told NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday, adding, “It’s kind of appalling.”
Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, told reporters: “The president’s comments were just plain wrong.”
Even South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — one of Trump’s most fervent fans in Congress — was critical.
“I don’t like what the president said last night. President Trump went through a factual rendition and I didn’t like it. I would tell him to knock it off – it’s not helpful,” he said at an event in DC before minimizing the incident.
“But it can be worse, someone could be dead.”
The president’s “factual rendition” at his MAGA rally in Mississippi actually included several misrepresentations of Ford’s testimony, such as his claim that the only thing she remembered was having one beer.
While Ford admitted she could not recall all of the details of the alleged incident in 1982, she did provide more information than Trump’s version of her testimony.
Flake last week asked for an FBI investigation after Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee that a drunken Kavanaugh pinned her down on a bed and groped her during a high school party.
He and Collins could be key votes in confirming Kavanaugh in the Senate, which Republicans control by a slim 51-49 margin.
They joined a chorus of Democrats who condemned the comments Trump made during a speech Tuesday evening in Mississippi.
California Sen. Kamala Harris, a member of the committee, said Ford “deserves better” from the president and the GOP.
“Dr. Ford is a profile in courage. She knew what she was up against when she came forward but spoke out because she felt it was her civic duty. She deserves better,” she wrote on Twitter after Trump’s speech.
Another member of the panel, Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, told CNN, “We can always count on the president to go down to the lowest common denominator — mock people, call people names, attack them — this is what he does.”
Trump in his MAGA rally speech mocked Ford’s inability to recall the details of the alleged incident.
“What neighborhood was it in? ‘I don’t know.’ Where’s the house? ‘I don’t know.’ Upstairs, downstairs? ‘I don’t know.’ ‘But I had one beer, that’s the only thing I remember,’” the president said as the crowd cheered.
Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s allegations.
Reports say the FBI could wrap up the investigation as soon as Wednesday, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would hold a vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation this week.
Besides Flake and Collins, Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota have yet to declare their positions on Kavanaugh.
Meanwhile, the FBI has finished an interview with Chris Garrett, a high school friend of Kavanaugh.
Garrett’s lawyer, William Sullivan, said Garrett has voluntarily cooperated with the FBI’s reopened background check, but he declined to comment further.
Garrett is at the least fifth person known to have been interviewed since last Friday, when the White House directed the FBI to look again into the allegations.
Others interviewed include Mark Judge, who Ford has said was in the bedroom where she said Kavanaugh sexually attacked her.
Also interviewed were two other people Ford said were present but in a different room: Patrick “P.J.” Smyth and Leland Keyser. Judge, Smyth and Keyser say they don’t recall the incident described by Ford.
Kavanaugh has denied the accusations by Ford, by Deborah Ramirez, who says he exposed himself to her during a college party, and by Julie Swetnick, who has alleged she was victimized at a party attended by Kavanaugh and his friends.
With AP
