The Los Angeles Post

President Trump casts doubt on Kavanaugh accuser, saying it’s ‘hard to imagine’ that ‘anything happened’

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President Trump cast doubt on sexual assault claims made against his Supreme Court nominee Wednesday, but said Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser deserves to be heard.

“I really would want to see what she has to say,” Trump said as he left the White House en route to the Carolinas. “I want to give it all the time they need. They’ve already given it time. They’ve delayed a major hearing.”

Trump called Kavanaugh, a 53-year-old appeals court judge with a conservative record who once worked for the George W. Bush White House, an “outstanding man” and says it’s “very hard” for him to imagine anything happened.

California college professor Christine Blasey Ford claims a drunken Kavanaugh violently assaulted her while the two were teenagers. Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s allegations.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a public hearing for Monday and has invited Kavanaugh and Ford to testify regarding her allegation against him.

While Ford’s attorneys say she wants the FBI to investigate her allegation before she testifies, Trump said that her credibility rests on an appearance on Capitol Hill.

“If she shows up, that would be wonderful,” he said. “If she doesn’t show up, that would be unfortunate.

If she shows up and makes a credible showing, that’ll be very interesting, and we’ll have to make a decision, but, I can only say this, he’s such an outstanding man, it’s very hard for me to imagine that anything happened,” he added.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, meanwhile, imposed a deadline of Friday for Ford to accept or decline his offer to appear either in open or closed session before the panel.

Grassley rejected Ford’s request that the FBI get involved.

“It is not the FBI’s role to investigate a matter such as this,” he wrote to Ford’s attorneys on Wednesday. “We have no power to commandeer an Executive Branch agency into conducting our due diligence.”

“The job of assessing and investigating a nominee’s qualifications in order to decide whether to consent to the nomination is ours and ours alone,” the letter goes on.

Under FBI rules, Trump would have to order the bureau to reopen the background-check process.

However, the President, himself no stranger to accusations of sexual misconduct, has also rejected the idea of asking the FBI to reopen its investigation.

Ford’s attorney, Lisa Banks, blasted Grassley’s insistence on rushing the hearing and refusal to allow testimony from witnesses, arguing there are several pertinent voices that should be heard, including Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge, who is alleged to have been in the room during the purported assault.

“The Committee’s stated plan to move forward with a hearing that has only two witnesses is not a fair or good faith investigation; there are multiple witnesses whose names have appeared publicly and should be included in any proceeding,” Banks said. “The rush to a hearing is unnecessary, and contrary to the Committee discovering the truth.”