Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley went out of his way to arrange for a second accuser of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to testify, a Wall Street Journal commentator argues in a series of tweets.
In her tweets Tuesday, Kimberley Strassel described an email exchange over several days between Grassley’s Judiciary Committee staff and lawyers for Deborah Ramirez.
1) Breaking: So Debra Ramirez's attorney, John Clune, went on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 tonight. In interview, he accuses "game playing" by "majority party" with regards her testimony. But read the emails that have gone back and forth (I have), and that is downright false
— Kimberley Strassel (@KimStrassel) September 26, 2018
But a lawyer for Ramirez, John Clune, disputed the account Tuesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.”
Clune accused the “majority party,” Republicans, of “game playing” in efforts to set up a date for Ramirez, 53, to testify.
Clune said the committee blew off a scheduled call with Ramirez, who alleged in a New Yorker article published Sunday that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a party when they were both students at Yale College. No one has corroborated her account.
“We got on the phone and only the minority party showed,” Clune told Cooper on his CNN show.
“Every time we try to set up a phone call, the majority party either change the rules of the phone call or they want additional information as a precondition for even having a phone call with us,” he said.
Strassel disputed Clune’s characterization. Her series of tweets described the email exchange between Ramirez’s lawyers and committee staff.
Republican committee staff sent an email to Ramirez’s lawyers Sunday afternoon, the day The New Yorker published its story, Strassel writes. She gives this account:
Ramirez’s lawyers respond Monday, demanding an FBI investigation of the allegations and suggesting a call to discuss a possible in-person interview with Ramirez, “on appropriate terms.”
Throughout Monday the committee requests evidence of Ramirez’s claims. Her lawyers respond with repeated calls for the FBI to get involved. The only evidence they cite is the New Yorker article.
On Tuesday, Ramirez’s lawyers again fail to provide evidence, but move a conference call to the end of the day. Republicans respond with more inquiries about evidence and possible future testimony before agreeing to a call.
At this point, Strassel recounts, Democrats’ staff intervene in the exchange to apologize for Republicans’ “preconditions” and offer to put Ramirez’s lawyers in touch with the FBI and set up a conference call.
A few hours later, Republican staff send their sixth request for some kind of statement or further information, at which point Clune goes on CNN.
“This is a serious accusation,” Strassel wrote on Twitter:
No law enforcement would commence investigation without such [a] statement—this is [a] basic request, in line with any committee probe. Yet every polite request for [a] basic on record statement is ignored, rebuffed, delayed, denied. [The] GOP has bent backwards.
“Blaming us for being noncooperative is just flat out not consistent with how things have gone and what the emails show,” Clune said on CNN, responding to claims that Ramirez was being purposely evasive.
Media contacts for the committee and in Grassley’s office did not respond to phone calls from The Daily Signal asking for comment.
