MSNBC's "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski said on Wednesday that Senate Republicans should be expected to demand a confirmation vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh if his accuser does not testify during Monday's scheduled hearing.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, was the previously anonymous woman who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault while they were teenagers in high school. In a letter she sent via Rep. Anna Eshoo (D., Calif.) to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) in July, Ford claimed Kavanaugh drunkenly held her down, groped her, and attempted to undress her at a party in Maryland in the early 1980s.
Ford announced on Tuesday through her lawyer that she will not testify next Monday until the FBI "properly investigates" her allegation.
"Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough said he understands why Ford is hesitant to attend the hearing and why she would like there to be an FBI investigation, but he decried Democrat's handling of the letter Ford wrote detailing the allegations. Scarborough castigated Democratic staffers from the Senate Judiciary Committee for "most likely" releasing the letter against her will "just like Democratic staffers released Anita Hill's information against Anita Hill's will and then demand that she has her time in front of the committee." Hill made accusations in 1991 of harassment against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who was then a nominee to the high court.
He slammed Democratic senators for trying to claim Republicans were setting Ford up to sit through an "unfair" hearing, saying Democrat in the days prior were pushing for a hearing like the one scheduled for Monday.
Brzezinski agreed with Scarborough, saying it was a valid argument that Democrats were moving the goalpost by calling for a FBI investigation to be completed first, despite the fact their original calls were specifically for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing with Ford and Kavanaugh.
"There's a gazillian reasons why Dr. Ford must not want to be moving this forward with this at all. And I totally understand every single one," Brzezinski said.
But she said "everyone," including Ford, were arguing for the hearing until Republicans agreed to it.
"Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of this, so everyone said, 'let her speak. Let her testify. Give her a moment to have her voice. Let's hear her story.' I think she even said she would testify. So I guess some could argue and some Republicans could argue this is moving the goalpost, and it's moving the goalpost in an impossible direction, because every legal analyst we have had on the show – you're a lawyer, you know the law - there’s no way of finding out what happened in high school," Brzezinski said. "There are statutes of limitations for a reason, so we need to hear from her. That’s why everybody is open to hearing from a woman."
"But if she doesn’t want to speak, if she doesn’t want to testify, you have to wonder what the Republicans really are supposed to do except demand a vote," Brzezinski concluded. "This is something that happened in high school. This is going to need her voice. There’s no other way around it. No one can do it for her."