In comments that tore up days of a relatively cautious approach, Donald Trump rejected the credibility of the university professor who claims she was sexually assaulted by a drunken Brett Kavanaugh in the 1980s
The woman whose sexual assault allegation threatens to bring down Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee was given until Saturday afternoon to decide on testifying in the Senate, after the US president claimed her accusation could not be true.
Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who says conservative judge Brett Kavanaugh carried out a violent sexual assault against her when he was 17 and she was 15, insists she is ready to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But she rejected a Friday evening deadline imposed by the committee's Republican leader, Chuck Grassley, to agree to his terms for the hearing, which he said should take place next Wednesday.
Friday night, in a tweet addressing Kavanuagh directly, Grassley said he had given Ford more time to decide -- until 2:30 pm (1830 GMT) Saturday, US media said.
"Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford", Grassley wrote, adding Ford should decide "so we can move on."
"I want to hear her. I hope u understand," he added. "It's not my normal approach to b indecisive."
Ford has said she wants to testify Thursday at the earliest and to be able to call as a witness a man who she says was present during the assault, when they were all teenagers attending private schools near Washington.
But the committee's Republican leadership has turned down those demands.
- Presidential pressure -
After several days of maintaining a relatively neutral posture, Trump took off the gloves Friday to declare that Ford could not be believed.
The aggressive stance reflected Trump's fear that time is running out to get his hand-picked judge confirmed -- thereby tilting the Supreme Court firmly to the right for years to come -- before November elections when Republicans risk losing control of Congress.
"TAKE THE VOTE!" Trump tweeted, blaming "radical left wing politicians" for the controversy.
Trump rejected the credibility of Ford's claim that a drunken Kavanaugh tried to pin her down and remove her clothes, muffling her cries, in the early 1980s.
According to Trump, the fact that Ford remained silent until now shows the incident probably never happened -- even if this runs counter to what experts say is the typical reaction of sexual assault victims afraid or too embarrassed to report.
"I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says," Trump wrote, "charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents."
The senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, called Trump's logic "a highly offensive misunderstanding of surviving trauma," while Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein said: "We must treat sexual assault survivors with respect, not bully or try to silence them."
More concerning for Trump might have been the angry reaction of one of his own Republican senators, Susan Collins, who sits on the Judiciary Committee.
"I was appalled by the president's tweet," she told US media.
"We know that allegations of sexual assault are some of the most under-reported crimes that exist. So I thought that the president's tweet was completely inappropriate and wrong."
Trump's outburst saw a new #MeToo era hashtag storm the internet, with people -- mostly women -- sharing why they did not report being assaulted under the Twitter hashtag #WhyIDidntReport.
- High stakes -
Republicans are frustrated over what they say was the deliberate timing of the last-minute revelation of Ford's allegation, accusing Democrats of seeking to prevent the process from finishing before the midterms, when they hope to recapture at least one chamber of Congress in the vote.
For their part, Democrats say Republicans are mounting an unseemly rush to get Kavanaugh into the nine-member Supreme Court while they still control the legislature.
Kavanaugh has repeatedly agreed to testify before the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee, saying he wants to clear his name.
While he has seen his near coronation transformed into a fight for his basic reputation, Ford has found herself thrown into the harsh light of an all-out Washington political dogfight.
Her lawyers say the professor's life has been turned upside down, having received death threats and been forced out of her home.
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