Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said that he would be willing to speak with lawmakers to refute an allegation of physical and sexual assault by a woman who has come forward publicly with the accusation, CNN reports.

Said Kavanaugh: “This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday. I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity.”

According to multiple sources, Kavanaugh has also hired an attorney.

David Frum: “The Kavanaugh nomination will now be assessed by people all of whom voted for the presidential candidate who confessed to grabbing women. On present indications, the allegations against Kavanaugh will not to be assessed in any meaningful sense at all. But ‘assessed’ is the wrong word. They are not going to be assessed in any meaningful sense of that word. The Senate Judiciary Committee has already released a statement dismissing the allegations as unworthy of further attention, and in fact, as an abuse of the hearing process. The candidate has been vetted, there is nothing more to learn or say.”

“‘The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.’ So said Mitch McConnell about the Merrick Garland nomination nine months before the 2016 elections. It’s now less than eight weeks to elections that may remake the Senate. What’s the case that this group of men should be the one to speak for the American people about this nomination?”

“It will be not be easy to ascertain what happened all those years ago. It will not be much easier to judge the relevance of those events, whatever they were, to a confirmation vote 36 years later. But we can judge the judges — and they are the wrong men in the wrong job at the wrong time. This vote should be delayed until more facts are in, and until a broader public has made its voice heard.””

Debra Katz, the attorney for Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in the 1980s, told NBC News that Ford believes the incident was “attempted rape” and is willing to testify publicly before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Said Katz: “She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get her story forth.”

Jonathan Swan: “Strategists advising Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh plan to use aggressive tactics this week in response to the public accusation of a ‘stumbling drunk’ sexual assault in high school that instantly imperiled his confirmation.”

“Some involved in the process are going to urge Senate leaders to call on the accuser — Christine Blasey Ford, who went on the record with The Washington Post‘s Emma Brown — to testify publicly this week, ahead of Thursday’s scheduled Judiciary Committee vote. This gambit basically bets that she will decline, and Republicans can then say that they tried to investigate further.”

“A source close to the process said that if Democrats sink Kavanaugh ‘we’ll just bring in someone moreconservative.'”

Debra Katz, Ford’s attorney, told CBS News that Senate Republicans intend to “play hard ball” with her client as they prepare to move ahead with Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Playbook: “In normal times, Brett Kavanaugh would be under tremendous pressure to abandon his bid for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. His accuser — Christine Blasey Ford — has spoken on the record, detailing allegations of sexual assault when they were in high school.”

“But, quite obviously, these are not normal times. And, as of now — that is, early Monday morning — Kavanaugh is still a nominee for the highest court in the land. Republicans say they are still weighing their options, and will figure out if there is a path forward today. (Yes, we are acutely aware that this entire situation can change at the drop of a hat.)”

“If you’re McConnell,  the squeaky-clean, fairly easy Supreme Court nominee just made life a lot more complicated. McConnell’s political legacy will be his dogged pursuit of getting more conservative justices. But McConnell knows his members as well as any political leader. If he gets the sense that this is too tough a vote for his members to take, he’s not going to go through with it. And he also certainly is not going to put up a SCOTUS vote that isn’t going to pass.”

Reason: “Some are making a big deal out of the fact that Christine Blasey Ford took a polygraph, and the allegation was deemed credible. This is actually a comparatively weak piece of evidence in Ford’s favor. Lie detectors can be gamed, and the scientific community is conflicted on their overall reliability.”

“But other circumstantial evidence gives some weight to Ford’s claims. Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge, is a conservative commentator who strongly denied Ford’s accusation when it was made anonymously… Judge is also the author of two books that address his own alcoholism throughout his teen years — Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk and God and Man at Georgetown Prep.”

Meanwhile, Mother Jones “suggests that Judge might simply not remember the incident in question. The article also draws attention to another passage from the Georgetown Prep book, in which Judge makes reference to friend, ‘Bart O’Kavanaugh,’ who ‘puked in someone’s car the other night’ and passed out on the way back from a party. And the Georgetown Prep yearbook entry for Kavanaugh makes reference to his membership in the ‘Keg City Club.'”

“That the teenage Kavanaugh was a notorious drinker and party boy while in high school does not confirm what Ford has said about him. But it does make it somewhat easier to believe Ford’s claim.”