John Clune Blasts GOP "Game-Playing" Against Colorado Kavanaugh Accuser

The White House may be open to testimony by Boulder's Deborah Ramirez, who says that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh "thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent" 35 years ago at a drunken college party, even though President Donald Trump has characterized her as a forgetful drunk who "has nothing." But according to John Clune, Ramirez's attorney, who's been on a major media blitz over the past twelve hours or so, it doesn't appear that Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel holding hearings about Kavanaugh, feel the same way.

Last night, Clune chatted with CNN's Anderson Cooper and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and this morning, he took part in a conversation on National Public Radio. And his message was the same during each stop: The GOP senators on the committee have made ridiculous demands that put his client in an untenable situation and refuse to talk about how to make the situation work for all parties.

To Cooper, Clune said that he spent much of yesterday communicating with the committee, "but the difficulty is, every time we try to set up a phone call, the majority party either changes the rules of the phone call or they want additional information as a condition of even having a phone call with us."

He added: "We finally had a phone call scheduled for 7 o'clock Eastern this evening. We got on the phone, and only the minority party showed."

He made the same points in conversation with Maddow, as seen in this clip.


Specifically, Clune maintained that the committee wanted him to simply send them all the evidence he had pertaining to Ramirez's account before Republican senators would have a conversation — something he finds objectionable. He also said that Ramirez continues to want the FBI to look into the matter, and if the agency doesn't do so, or if other accommodations aren't made to make the process of testifying safe and fair for her, he'd advise her against participating.

Not that her taking part in a hearing set for tomorrow, September 27, looks like it's in the realm of possibility at this point.

Committee chair Senator Chuck Grassley has set a tight schedule for the session, with senators given only five minutes to quiz Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the first person to come forward with explosive charges against Kavanagh; she says he tried to rape her while they were in high school.

Moreover, the questioning for the Republican side will be handled by Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell — a move apparently made because the GOP members are all men. Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh, who'll speak separately, are the only witnesses scheduled. And the committee is slated to vote on Kavanaugh's nomination early Friday morning, essentially leaving no time for Ramirez to be heard.

Meanwhile, President Trump's assertion that Ramirez was "totally inebriated" at the party in question was rendered ironic by fresh comments from Kavanaugh's freshman-year roommate, who described him as a "heavy drinker" who became "aggressive and belligerent" when blitzed. And that's not to mention the committee's decision not to quiz Mark Judge, the other person who Ramirez says was in the room with her when Kavanaugh attacked her, even though his 1997 memoir, Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk, includes a character named "Bart O'Kavanaugh" who's described as vomiting in a car and passing out on his way back from a party.

Clune, for his part, said this to Maddow about the GOP senators: "The demand that they keep making to us is, ‘Give us every piece of information that you have now, and then we can talk about scheduling a phone call.’ And that’s just not the kind of partisan game-playing that our client deserves."