Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) said Sunday that it was “insulting” for Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) to say that Christine Blasey Ford simply “thinks” that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Collins, Hirrono asserted in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, “said that Dr. Ford thinks that she was assaulted” — Hirono emphasized the word “thinks” — “which is even more insulting than saying that she gave a very credible account.”
Hirono was responding to an interview Collins gave Bash aired earlier in the hour, in which Collins explained how she could believe Blasey Ford was sexually assaulted while not believing Blasey Ford’s assertion that she was “100 percent” certain Kavanaugh was the perpetrator.
“I believe that she believes what she testified to,” Collins said of Blasey Ford, adding later: “I do believe that she was assaulted, I don’t know by whom, and I’m not certain when, but I do not believe that he [Kavanaugh] was the assailant.”
Hirono wasn’t satisfied with that answer, given Collins’ crucial vote to confirm Kavanaugh.
“To say that she thinks that Dr. Ford thinks that she was assaulted, what is that?” Hirono asked. “Is she mistaken? She, herself, said that she serves so many survivors from her state and elsewhere. All of us have been hearing stories and accounts from survivors going back many, many years where they kept all these painful, traumatic accounts to themselves.”
“This is what happens with sexual assault survivors, that they do not come forward.”
Hirono also criticized Collins’ claim that Blasey Ford’s allegations had not been corroborated.
“There was corroboration, because she had talked about this assault to her husband, to others, before Brett Kavanaugh was ever nominated to the Supreme Court,” Hirono said. “She took a lie detector test. Corroboration was there.”
Watch below:
Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono respond to Susan Collins’ comments that she believes Ford was assault but not by Kavanaugh: “She says that Dr. Ford thinks that she was assaulted, which is even more insulting than saying she gave a very credible account."
— andrew kaczynski? (@KFILE) October 7, 2018
