After a week of reportedly taking the advice of his White House aides and treading carefully around sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to have had enough.
With Kavanaugh’s confirmation on the ropes and the judge’s support among voters plummeting, the president shifted into full-blown attack mode against Kavanaugh’s alleged victim, Christine Blasey Ford.
“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents,” he wrote on Twitter Friday. “I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”
Blasey Ford was 15 years old at the time, and she has since said she didn’t tell anyone about the alleged attack, not even her parents, until decades later.
The White House has so far declined to comment on Trump’s tweets attacking Ford, or to answer questions about how they will help to further its monthslong effort to get Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court.
But the prospect of Trump on the warpath against Ford has created a nightmare scenario for Republicans in Congress.