‘You Don’t Get to Sexually Assault a Woman - Period’: CNN’s Berman Shuts Down Trump Booster for ‘Blaming’ Kavanaugh Accuser
CNN’s John Berman on Thursday shut down “Women for Trump” co-founder Amy Kremer as she criticized Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, for refusing to testify according to the timeline set forth by the all-male panel of Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members.
Kremer was speaking with CNN’s Berman, as well as attorney Areva Martin and former Republican strategist Ana Navarro. Kremer insisted if Ford does not testify on Monday before the Senate Judiciary Committee “that’s on her” and senators “should go ahead with the vote.”
Berman asked Martin what impact the Senate’s artificial deadline on Ford means “for an alleged victim of sexual assault.”
“First of all, I totally disagree with Amy that it's on [Ford],” Martin said. “It is not on her. It is on these Republican senators. They were elected to serve the country. Dr. Ford is a private citizen. She came forward to tell her story first, privately, to Sen. [Dianne] Feinstein (D-CA). Now she's being forced, she's being bullied into showing up four or five days after this letter is leaked to make a statement, to give testimony before the American people without having any opportunity to prepare for this testimony, without there being a formal investigation, which we know is protocol in cases like this.”
Martin explained the Senate expects Ford “to be questioned by 11 white men, none of whom to our knowledge have any expertise in investigating or questioning sexual assault victims,” arguing “it is not on her.”
“It is on the senators to step up to do their jobs, to investigate this claim properly and to give Dr. Ford the courtesy and the fairness that any sexual assault victim deserves in a case like this,” Martin said.
“She knew that she was going to come forward with this!” Kremer argued. “This is planned. For two months, Dianne Feinstein sat on this. In that two months, [Ford] scrubbed her social media, goes and hires an attorney, a Democratic attorney associated with [former Sen.] Al Franken, [former president] Bill Clinton and others. Then she goes and takes a polygraph test. It's leaked by the Democrats. This has been planned from the get go. She's had every opportunity to come forward.”
“There's going to be no due process in the Senate,” Kremer continued. “She has made a criminal allegation against somebody, and that should be tried in a court of law, not in a court of public opinion. Not in the court of public opinion.”
Martin called out Kremer for “blaming” Ford “for whatever mistakes you want to attribute to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.”
"I'm not blaming her,” Kremer insisted. “I'm not blaming her.”
“You are,” Martin replied. “… Dianne Feinstein handled this matter in the way she handled it. Nothing can be fair when she's being rushed [on] an arbitrary deadline. There are no deadlines set for when this confirmation vote has to take place. They set this arbitrary deadline and said to her you provide us with your statement by Friday, you show up by Monday. If you don't, you will forever be forbidden from telling your story, your truth about attempted rape occurring that is so critical to the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. And the judge should want an FBI investigation do there won't be a taint on his potential confirmation. The fact he hasn't called for one, I think, calls into question his fitness to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“It is really interesting John because they talk about the highest court in the land and so on and so forth,” Kremer shot back. “This man was already appointed a lifetime appointment as a federal judge. He's already written 300 opinions. Where were they when he was appointed to that bench? Why weren't they coming forward then with that?"
"There is one thing you said that I just can't let slide,” Berman began. “When you say professor Blasey Ford, she knew what she was doing when she came forward. Now, she is an alleged victim of sexual assault. Okay?"
“Right,” Kremer replied. “You don't get to accuse somebody of a crime and not answer for it. She accused somebody of a crime.”
“You don't get to sexually assault a woman, okay?” Berman asked. “Period. I don't know if it happened or not. I do know that professor Blasey Ford says it did. I also know that she did not feel comfortable coming forward with it for a number of years, 36 years. I know when she decided to come forward, she felt it was appropriate to come forward with anonymity. All of this fits a pattern of other victims of sexual assault. None of that is unusual at all.”
“So when you say she knew what she was doing, like she's got some obligation here. You know, she says she is the one who was attacked … You are blaming her for the way she chose to do this,” Berman added.
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