Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Sunday laid out his conditions for Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony regarding her allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
But Graham, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was blunt in an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace: “I’m just being honest. Unless there’s something more, no, I’m not going to ruin Judge Kavanaugh’s life over this.”
Blasey Ford’s lawyers on Saturday indicated they were open to her providing “her first-hand knowledge of Brett Kvanaugh’s sexual misconduct next week,” but the details of her potential testimony are still up in the air.
On Sunday, Graham said: “We are not going to turn over to the other side how many witnesses to call. There will be two witnesses, Dr. Ford, then Judge Kavanaugh, and we will hire our own counsel. They contest those two things. If they continue to contest those two things, there won’t be a hearing.”
“We’re not going to turn the hearing over to her lawyers,” he said.
Elsewhere in the interview, Graham bragged of having been “a prosecutor, defense attorney and a judge,” but defended Republican committee members’ decision to have outside counsel conduct questioning during the hearing. Democrats allege that maneuver is an attempt by the all-male Republican side to avoid appearing as though they’re bullying Blasey Ford.
Graham said the committee’s Republicans were “11 politicians who haven’t done a trial in about 20 years.”
“I thought it would be really smart to have somebody come in that knows what the hell they’re doing, to ask the questions, to be respectful,” he said, adding: “I think it’d be smart to have a professional litigator do this.”
Elsewhere, he characterized Blasey Ford’s allegations as being “too old for a criminal trial. You’d never bring a lawsuit because it’s uncertain. You couldn’t even get a warrant.”
Wallace corrected that statement at the end of the interview, saying that “there is no statute of limitations on sex assault cases in Maryland, so there are weaknesses with the case, obviously, but she could legally bring it.”
“Well, it would go nowhere,” Graham responded.
