Reporter who broke Kavanaugh story explains how accuser's account got delayed
9/18/2018
Intercept reporter Ryan Grim, who broke the news of the letter detailing allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, on Tuesday explained why Christine Blasey Ford's accusations were delayed in becoming public.
"As she [Ford] watched how the Democrats and Republicans both handled the confirmation process, she started to get the sense that nothing she was going to say was going to matter, and so she began to have second thoughts about coming forward," Grim told Hill.TV's Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on "Rising."
"At that point, [Sen. Dianne] Feinstein (D-Calif.) did not share with any of her colleagues or with the FBI that there was this allegation of an attempted rape," he continued, referring to the letter, which Feinstein reportedly received on July 30.
Grimm said that news of the allegation eventually leaked to other senators on the Judiciary Committee and they told Feinstein that they wanted to review the letter and determine whether it should be turned over to authorities, to which Grim said Feinstein refused.
"Once you have a disagreement among senators on the committee about something as significant as this, that's eventually going to get out to the press, and so that's how my story eventually came out," he continued.
"The night that my story ran, then Feinstein met personally with a bunch of her committee colleagues, some of whom hadn't known about the letter, and others who had, and they apparently pressured her to turn it over to federal authorities, and so this is where we are now," he said.
A spokesman for Feinstein told CNN that the leaks did not come from the senator's office and that the letter was provided to the FBI after leaks to the media on the issue reached "fever pitch."
Ford went public with her accusation against Kavanaugh in an interview with the Washington Post published on Sunday.
She told the Post that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and forced himself on her in the early 1980s, when the two were attending neighboring high schools in Montgomery County, Md.
Ford and Kavanaugh are both scheduled to appear publicly before the Judiciary Committee on Monday.
— Julia Manchester
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/407190-reporter-who-broke-kavanaugh-story-explains-how-accusers-account-got-delayed
