Updated at 8:20 p.m. ET
Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high school party in the 1980s, have begun discussing terms of her appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week.
“She wishes to testify, provided that we can agree on terms that are fair and which ensure her safety,” Debra Katz, Ford’s lawyer says in an email to committee aides first reported in the New York Times and confirmed by NPR.
Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, set a Friday deadline for Ford to respond to the committee in advance of a hearing he scheduled for Monday. Kavanaugh, who has strongly denied the claims, has already agreed to appear.
But Katz says that a Monday hearing “is not possible and the committee’s insistence that it occur then is arbitrary in any event.”