Republican Senate staff stymied an accuser's effort to give testimony
By Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer
9:05 A.M.
Throughout Thursday’s Senate hearing on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual-misconduct allegation against Brett Kavanaugh, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee claimed that they had tried in vain to secure more information about other accusations made about the judge ...
On Wednesday, several conservative-media outlets published .. some .. e-mail correspondence between Ramirez’s team and Republican committee staffers ... But a fuller copy of the e-mail correspondence between Ramirez’s legal team and Republican and Democratic Senate staffers shows that a Republican aide declined to proceed with telephone calls and instead repeatedly demanded that Ramirez produce additional evidence in written form ... The exchange culminated in a breakdown of communication between the two sides ...
... Ramirez told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Kavanaugh has repeatedly said that the allegations are false.
From the start, Ramirez’s legal team had called for the F.B.I. to conduct an investigation ...
Ford’s road to testifying was also marked by partisan rancor and allegations of stonewalling by both sides. In an e-mail last week, Ford’s attorney Debra Katz wrote to the committee’s majority staff, saying, “The imposition of aggressive and artificial deadlines regarding the date and conditions of any hearing has created tremendous and unwarranted anxiety and stress on Dr. Ford.” In announcing Ford’s agreement to testify after days of tense exchanges, Katz wrote that “many aspects” of the terms under which she would testify “are fundamentally inconsistent with the Committee’s promise of a fair, impartial investigation into her allegations, and we are disappointed with the leaks and the bullying that have tainted the process” ...
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/e-mails-show-republican-senate-staff-stymied-a-kavanaugh-accusers-effort-to-give-testimony