Hillary: Kavanaugh’s Accuser Deserves ‘the Benefit of the Doubt’

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton weighed into the controversy over Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who's accusing him of sexual assault 35 years ago, Christine Ford. 

Kavanaugh's accuser, Clinton said, deserves "the benefit of the doubt.

Here's a transcript of her remarks: 

MADDOW: “If the Brett Kavanaugh nomination is now hurdling into the suns, which is what I think, and that’s just my take on it. I don’t know if that will be proven right or wrong, there is the question about how the Senate should handle this matter going forward. I mean, there is this screwy precedent now where Republicans would not let President Obama fill an opening on the supreme Court created by the death of Justice Scalia for nearly a year until they got another shot at the White House in the 2016 election.

"Some Republican senators during the election campaign said that if you were elected in 2016, they fully intended to hold that seat open for all four years if necessary to give a Republican another shot at holding it. Given that extreme recent history, do you think that Democrats should play that kind of hardball too, be prepared to use those kinds of tactics so as not to be sort of the Patsy being pushed around on this, or do you think Democrats should just go through regular order with whoever Trump has to put up next if the Kavanaugh nomination fails?”

CLINTON: “What I would like to see is a democratic majority that actually has the chance to make that choice right now the Democrats have very few tools at their disposal to stop the Republicans from going full speed ahead and engaging in the kind of unprecedented behavior as they did with the Garland nomination. So I’m not in favor of either unilateral disarmament or Defcon-10. I think there has to be some effort to try to get back to regular order, try to get back to having a system, a process in place so that we are not subjected to the hardball behavior of the Republicans that we saw in the Garland nomination, and we’re not subject to the outrageous denial of the information that was requested on Kavanaugh.

"I mean, there can’t be one set of rules for Democrats and one set of rules for Republicans. That’s one of the reasons why people don’t have any confidence in the Congress. How can you? You don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day. I remember back in the Thomas hearing when senator bird was asked what he was going to do, and he said in a situation like this we should give the benefit of the doubt to the court and the country. And that’s what the Republicans should be doing right now, from the White House down Pennsylvania avenue to the Senate, give the benefit of the doubt to the court and the country.

"And that means have an investigation that will then lead to a hearing that will then lead to a vote if appropriate. And instead, they are playing the hardest of hardballs to try to pack the court with, you know, another nominee, regardless of the questions. Remember, Rachel, there were lots of questions raised in the hearing itself about some of his testimony, some of the statements he had made when he was first confirmed for the circuit court, and then additional statements. So there were already reasons to doubt the testimony and the positions that he was taking as well as substantive issues that are fair game for senators to explore.”

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