Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is one of three senators still serving on the Judiciary Committee who played a role in the Anita Hill hearings during Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Congress Grassley in firing line on Kavanaugh assault allegation The curmudgeonly Iowa Republican's legacy is at stake as he navigates both sides of the Supreme Court nomination chaos.

Sen. Chuck Grassley has cultivated a decadeslong reputation for protecting whistleblowers and fighting for government transparency. Now he’s plunging into the harrowing task of probing a sexual assault allegation while advancing a Supreme Court nominee that could define him and the GOP for years to come.

The 85-year-old Iowa Republican is trying to stay sensitive in coaxing Christine Blasey Ford to talk to his Senate Judiciary Committee next week, and leading the charge to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whom Ford alleges assaulted her. It’s a delicate juggling act that serves as the climax to a conservative career spent alternately battling Democrats and working with them against his party leadership.


On Wednesday, Grassley’s challenge was on vivid display as he sympathized with Ford for facing death threats that he said “disturbed” him in a letter to her attorneys. Then, a few paragraphs later in that letter, Grassley served up a fastball: Ford’s testimony and biography are due by Friday morning if she intends to show up on Monday.

Grassley says he’s going to great lengths to be fair to Ford, offering to fly a staffer to California to interview her and making repeated attempts to contact her lawyers. But his dilemma is the same as the rest of his party’s: Being as delicate as possible with an alleged sexual assault victim while keeping Kavanaugh headed toward the bench.

“Where I am focused right now is doing everything that we can to make Dr. Ford comfortable with coming before our committee, either in an open session or a closed session or a public or a private interview. That’s four different ways she can choose,” Grassley told reporters on Wednesday. He said the hearing would be “fruitful” only if both Ford and Kavanaugh show up.

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The famously curmudgeonly Grassley faces competing imperatives as he works through one of the most fraught periods of his 43-year political career. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is trying to get Kavanaugh confirmed before the midterm elections, and many of Grassley’s colleagues are arguing there should be no delay.

But for Democrats and advocates fighting sexual violence, Grassley is in too much of a rush given his long-running history of urging people to come forward on their own terms about malfeasance. They say he needs to stop and assess his place in history before going forward.

“I’ve known him at times to really be a victim advocate, so I’m surprised that he seems to be rushing and setting it up in a way that we don’t think is trauma-informed,” said Terri Poore, policy director for the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence. “Sen. Grassley is a man who cares about doing the right thing. And I think that sometimes doing the right thing can rise over politics.”

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), a liberal member of the Judiciary Committee, said Ford has received “unacceptable treatment” from Grassley: “I expect more.”

"I would expect Sen. Grassley to be much more even-handed and fair-minded in how he’s treating Dr. Ford,” Hirono said in an interview. “She’s just told, ‘here, we are having a hearing on Monday. Take it, or leave it.’ This is not the treatment I’d expect from Chairman Grassley. [It] traumatizes her all over again.”

Republicans see Grassley, now in his seventh term, as continuing his long history of autonomy and trying to accommodate those he disagrees with. He quickly proposed a public hearing with Ford and canceled a planned Thursday committee vote to move forward on Kavanaugh after the California-based professor went public with her allegation.

And there’s no one the GOP would rather have helming such a frenetic confirmation fight than the senior senator from Iowa. Judiciary Committee member John Kennedy (R-La.) said he’s been a “senatorial rock star” dealing with protesters, Democratic interruptions and difficult political decisions.

“He is very sensitive to the issues of survivors and whistleblowers that come forward,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), one of six GOP female senators. “We want to approach this in a fair and balanced manner. And I do believe Chairman Grassley will do an exceptional job.”

Over the past three years, Grassley has occasionally delighted but more often confounded his Democratic colleagues. Most notably, he blocked President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, from even getting a hearing under the direction of McConnell. He also has moved forward on lower-level court nominees without buy-in from Democrats, in their view breaking with tradition.

But Grassley can surprise: He worked with liberal Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — who praised him during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings for having “the patience of Job” — on a bill to help protect special counsel Robert Mueller, which McConnell opposes. And he aligned with liberal Democrats on a bill to change the way the United States handles military sexual assault.

What he will do if Ford decides not to show up is the question on everyone’s mind in the Senate. On Wednesday evening, Ford's attorneys asked that Grassley allow more witnesses.

“I don’t know what Chairman Grassley will do,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), an undecided senator Republicans need to vote for Kavanaugh, said on WVOM radio. “The effort right now is to convince Professor Ford to come forward, which she said she wants to do. And I think it would be better for her to do so.”

Grassley is more seasoned than most senators when it comes to sexual misconduct allegations being leveled against a Supreme Court nominee. He is one of three senators still serving on the Judiciary Committee who played a role in the Anita Hill hearings during Clarence Thomas’ confirmation to the high court. And he defended Thomas strongly against allegations he felt were unproven.

“She accused Judge Thomas of sexual harassment and she had to establish the truthfulness of these charges. Judge Thomas stands accused, but he need not prove his innocence. And to the extent that any of my colleagues find the situation continued to be cloudy, murky and unclear, Judge Thomas must be given the benefit of the doubt,” Grassley said in 1991.

But Grassley also seized on the experience of the Anita Hill hearing to craft legislation giving Capitol Hill employees a system for reporting sexual harassment. He was a chief author of the 1995 Congressional Accountability Act, which effectively created the legislature’s current workplace misconduct policing system.

And 27 years makes a big difference when it comes to Ford versus Hill, his detractors say. High-profile politicians and businessmen have been ousted over sexual assault allegations, and Grassley’s handling of Ford’s allegations may go a long way to determining how the Republican Party is viewed by women.

“If Grassley is betting that the public will disregard Dr. Blasey [Ford] just because she isn't surrendering to a sham hearing, he is dead wrong. Republicans are going to face a ferocious backlash in November if they insist on steamrolling ahead to install an alleged sexual abuser on the court,” said Brian Fallon, executive director of anti-Kavanaugh group Demand Justice.

Of course, if Ford shows up for Monday’s hearing Grassley will have a different challenge: Controlling what is sure to be the biggest congressional spectacle in years, a woman facing off with her alleged abuser barely a month before the midterms. The atmosphere at Kavanaugh’s first set of hearings was chaotic enough, but Grassley pushed through protester noise and didn’t shut down Democratic dissent as the nominee conducted himself in a manner that seemed only to strengthen his GOP support.

If Monday‘s hearing goes forward, the stakes will be even higher.

“It will get crazy, I’m sure, if it’s like the first” confirmation hearing, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas, a senior member of Judiciary. “But he, I think, was able to muscle through it and give everybody a fair opportunity. So I’m confident.”