The GOP is offering to hold the hearing on Wednesday after Ford sought Thursday and is meeting some of her requests but not others, the senator said. The senator added that Republicans are not inclined to agree with Ford’s lawyers that she should only be questioned by lawmakers – not an outside counsel.
“We’ll do it on Wednesday, we expect the accuser before the accused, and we do intend to have the counsel do the questioning,” the senator said, summing up the Republicans’ stance.
The party is assenting to two of the terms Ford’s lawyers laid out in a Thursday evening call with staff from both parties, the senator said: limiting the hearing to one camera and ensuring that Kavanaugh is not in the same room as her.
GOP members of the Judiciary Committee held a conference call on Friday morning to discuss how to respond to the requests from Ford’s lawyers. But several elements of their offer appear to be nonstarters with Democrats and Ford’s camp, which had made clear that she could not be in the capital to testify before Thursday, according to a senior aide to the minority.
“They’re making this disingenuous counter-offer knowing she won’t be here,” the Democratic aide said.
The GOP has been told that Ford does not want to fly from her California home to Washington, according to the Republican senator, which means she may need to drive across the country to make the hearing. Ford has reportedly told friends she is uncomfortable in confined spaces, indicating a physical difficulty in making the trip by plane.
Republicans have discussed using an outside counsel to question Ford, potentially a woman, in order to avoid the potentially painful sight of their 11 male Judiciary Committee members grilling Kavanaugh’s accuser in an echo of the 1991 Anita Hill hearings.