Tom Udall: “first let me begin by saying this: I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Her raw courage in coming forward will change…”

“first let me begin by saying this: I believe Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Her raw courage in coming forward will change the national culture and discussion. She has given voice to millions of women and men who are survivors of sexual assault, who are afraid to tell their stories, who felt powerless. Some of these women have contacted my office with their own stories. I have read them and they are heart-wrenching. At its core, sexual assault is a crime of power. Dr. Ford has confronted some of the most powerful in our Nation and told the truth. I thank her for her courage in coming forward and for empowering other survivors to do the same. At this point, with so much unknown, there are serious consequences to elevating Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. We the Senate need to continue our search for the truth about this nominee, his background, and his record, and, hopefully, we can do that in a bipartisan way. Yet everything about the nomination process for this nominee has been deeply flawed, from the President's outsourcing the nomination to the Federalist Society, to the majority leader's violating his own new rule to delay consideration of a Supreme Court nominee until after an upcoming election, to a highly partisan lawyer's screening Judge Kavanaugh's documents for public disclosure instead of the nonpartisan National Archives staff, to the Judiciary chair's rush to hearings, even though only 7 percent of Judge Kavanaugh's record is in the public domain.…”