For the second day in a row, President Trump said Tuesday that he had not spoken with Brett Kavanaugh about a woman’s allegations that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her at a high school drinking party in the 1980s.
“I haven’t wanted to speak to Judge Kavanaugh because I knew somebody would ask me the same question: ‘Have you spoken to Judge Kavanaugh?’ Specifically I thought it would be a good thing not to. He can handle himself better than anybody. He is a very outstanding man,” the president said from the White House during a sitdown with Polish President Andrzej Duda, a like-minded nationalist.
Trump also gave a measured response when asked about California college professor Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations, defending the judge but refraining from the attacks that usually typify his reaction to unwelcome news.
“We are looking to get this done as quickly as possible,” he said about a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Monday in which the pair were expected to testify.
“He is a truly outstanding person, as you know. He has an unblemished record. It’s a terrible thing that took place,” he said, referring to the allegation.
“And it’s frankly a terrible thing that this information was not given to us months ago when they got it and they could have done that instead of waiting until everything was finished and spring it.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, top Democrat on the committee, revealed the woman’s allegations last week, but Ford did not want to go public at that time.
She agreed to be interviewed by the Washington Post over the weekend after reporters began approaching her and she realized her name was already known by the media.
But Trump still attacked Democrats over the timing.
“That’s what the Democrats do. It’s obstruction and resist and whatever you have to do. With all of that being said, it’s a process and we all feel, speaking for all of the Republicans, we feel we want to go through the process and give everybody a chance to say what they have to say,” he continued.
“We will delay the process until it’s finished out. Judge Kavanaugh is anxious to do it. I don’t know about the other party. Judge Kavanaugh is very anxious to do it. A delay is certainly acceptable.”
Ford told the Washington Post that a falling-down-drunk Kavanaugh forced her onto a bed, groped her, tried to take her clothes off and covered her mouth with his hand when she tried to protest during a high school drinking party.
The president also talked about his order a day earlier that a trove of Justice Department documents and FBI emails between ex-officials he considered to be enemies be released — and yet again decried the Russia probe as a “witch hunt.”
“We want transparency. What I want is I want total transparency. This is a witch hunt. Republicans are seeing it. The Democrats know it’s a witch hunt, too, but they don’t want to admit it because it’s not good politics,” he declared, calling unspecified text messages between the former feds “a disgrace to our nation.”
