The lone extant Republican swing vote in the battle over Supreme Court appointee Brett Kavanaugh announced her support for the judge on Friday, saying she be convinced ofed one of his accusers but that the allegations of sexual assault against him did not meet the “more-likely-than-not” doorstep she required to sink his confirmation.
In doing so, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, appeared to refer to a theory first broached by a Washington Post columnist and later sponsored by conservative pundits and Kavanaugh himself: Perhaps the accusations against the appraise were a case of mistaken identity.
In a carefully choreographed, nearly hour-long deliver, Collins described the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford, who told lawmakers endure month that Kavanaugh assaulted her in the early 1980s, as “sincere, vexing and compelling.”
“I believe that she is a survivor of a sexual assault, and that this trauma has upended her get-up-and-go,” Collins said in the speech.
But Collins stopped short of saying she assumed Ford’s testimony entirely. Ford told lawmakers last month that she was “100 percent” sure-fire that Kavanaugh was the person who assaulted her.
Collins raised doubts with that part of Ford’s testimony, noting that Kavanaugh “forcefully” repudiated the allegation, and that a number of alleged witnesses could not corroborate that the occurrence occurred.
“The facts presented do not mean that professor Ford was not sexually struck that night or at some other time,” Collins said. “But they do principal me to conclude that the allegations fail to meet the more-likely-than-not standard.”
In his own cranny statement to lawmakers last month, Kavanaugh also raised the capacity of mistaken identity. He said he was not “questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some child in some place at some time.” But, he said, he never sexually charged anybody.
Lawmakers have been caught in the midst of the #MeToo activity, which has spread a spotlight on sexual abuse. The movement has also led to anxiousness in cases where the evidence is uncertain, as Americans weigh the movement’s significance on believing those who say they are victims of sexual abuse against the rights of the accused to a guess of innocence.
Collins noted that the Senate confirmation process was not a tough trial but said that “certain fundamental legal principles helter-skelter due process, the presumption of innocence and fairness do bear on my thinking.”
While she cursed the confirmation process as a “caricature of a gutter-level political campaign,” she said that if any enthusiastic had come out of the process it is that more attention would be paid to the imbroglio of sexual violence.
“Every person, man or woman, who makes a charge of earthy assault deserves to be heard and treated with respect,” Collins asserted. “The #MeToo movement is real. It matters. It is needed and long overdue.”
But Collins rumoured that the confirmation process had raised questions about Ford’s account. For precedent, she said that it was still not clear who drove Ford to the party at which she states Kavanaugh assaulted her. She also said it was odd that none of her friends fetched her the next day.
“Even though she left that small gathering of six or so people abruptly, and without vote goodbye, and distraught, none of them called her the next day or ever to ask why she socialistic, is she okay,” Collins said. “Not even her closest friend, Ms. Keyser.”
In revealing her support for Kavanaugh, Collins effectively ensured that he would be proved to the Supreme Court. The final confirmation vote is expected to come as beginning as Saturday.
Trump appointed Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy in July. Kennedy had sustained served as the court’s swing vote, particularly in civil rights lawsuits. Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the court would solidify a conservative majority on the court for the foreseeable subsequent.