BREAKING - 7:00 PM EDT
Sen. Jeff Flake, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an interview Sunday evening that until he learns more about the sexual assault allegation regarding Brett Kavanaugh, he is "not comfortable voting yes" on Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court at a scheduled Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday.
The Arizona senator is one of 11 Republicans on the narrowly divided panel, and without his support, the nomination cannot move forward given Democratic opposition. "We need to hear from her. And I don't think I'm alone in this," Flake told POLITICO.
EARLIER
Christine Blasey Ford, a 51-year-old professor at Palo Alto University in California, has identified herself as the woman who wrote a confidential letter that detailed allegations of sexual assault against the Supreme Court nominee.
Ford is speaking publicly about her allegations against Kavanaugh for the first time, according to a Washington Post investigation published Sunday afternoon.
The Post wrote:
Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend -- both "stumbling drunk," Ford alleges -- corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.
"I thought he might inadvertently kill me," said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. "He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.
The Washington Post reports that Ford has already submitted to a polygraph and passed.
Read the whole Washington Post report here.
