Woman accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault will provide senators to corroborate her allegations

A woman who has accused President Donald Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexual assault will provide senators with sworn statements from four people to corroborate her allegations, her lawyers said on Wednesday.

The declarations, first reported by USA Today, include signed documents from Christine Blasey Ford's husband and three friends that her lawyers sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford and Kavanaugh are due to testify before the panel on Thursday ahead of a vote scheduled in the committee on Friday vote on his nomination.

Trump on Wednesday faulted his fellow Republicans who control the Senate for not pushing the nomination through the Senate, which must confirmation Supreme Court appointments, more quickly.

"They could have pushed it through two and a half weeks ago, and you wouldn't be talking about it right now, which is frankly what I would have preferred. But they didn't do that," Trump told reporters in New York, where he is attending the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders.

If the Republican-led committee approves Kavanaugh, the conservative federal appeals court judge's nomination then faces a confirmation vote in the full Senate, where Trump's party holds a narrow 51-49 majority. That vote could happen as early as Tuesday, according to senior Senate Republicans.

Ford's allegation and another accusation by a second woman have imperiled Kavanaugh's chances of confirmation to the lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court. The controversy has unfolded ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections in which Democrats seek to take control from the Republicans.

Ford, a university professor in California, has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they were high school students in Maryland. Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused him of exposing himself during a drunken dormitory party during the 1983-84 academic year when both attended Yale University.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

'NOT THE ISSUE'

His attorney, Beth Wilkinson, in televised interviews on Wednesday said Ford's declarations cited recent interactions, not discussions at the time of the alleged incident. She said Thursday's hearing was not about Kavanaugh's behavior as a youth.

"I don't think there's any dispute that he drank when he was in high school and when he was in college but that's not the issue here," Wilkinson told CNN.

Senators will be keenly aware of the impact the potentially explosive hearing on Thursday could have on voters, particularly women, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault.

Ramirez's lawyer, John Clune, said in interviews on NBC and CBS on Wednesday that she has not been invited to speak to senators but likely would be willing to appear.

Trump, who himself faced allegations of sexual misconduct during the 2016 presidential campaign, intensified his defense of Kavanaugh in recent days and has pointedly questioned the accounts provided by Ford and Ramirez.

On Wednesday, he again accused Democrats of "a con game" and praised how Republicans have handled Ford's allegation.

"The Republicans could not be nicer, could not be more respectful to the process, certainly could not be more respectful to the woman. And I'm OK with that. I think I might have pushed it forward a lot faster," Trump said, calling Kavanaugh "an absolute gem."

Of the Democrats, Trump said, "They go into a back room and they talk with each other, and they laugh at what they're getting away with."

The Judiciary Committee said on Tuesday it had hired a female lawyer to question Ford on behalf of the 11 Republicans on the panel, all men. The decision drew criticism from Democrats, whose 10 committee members include four women, given that senators typically do the questioning themselves.

Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona, will conduct the questioning, the Wall Street Journal reported.

"I don't know that this will be a discussion of the truth as much as it will be an analysis of the memory," Republican Senator John Kennedy, a panel member, told MSNBC on Wednesday.