CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview With With D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton

Interview

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BALDWIN: If -- this is the if still -- if Christine Blasey Ford decides to testify about her accusations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, it would set the stage for a dilemma the Senate Judiciary Committee has faced before. In 1991, Anita Hill accused then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment. And the events that followed became a pivotal moment for women on Capitol Hill.

[15:25:07]

Today, Anita Hill penned an opinion piece in "The New York Times." And in part, she wrote this: "There is no way to redo 1991, but there are ways to do better."

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton was among a group of key female lawmakers who famously walked over from the floor of the House to demand their colleagues on the Senate side here Anita Hill out.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is with me now. She was also the first female head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and helped write the original guidance on workplace sexual harassment.

So, Congresswoman, a pleasure. Welcome.

DEL. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D), WASHINGTON, D.C.: Of course.

BALDWIN: So the Republicans so far have yet to get a response from professor Ford. They're offering up to hear her out privately or publicly. Her lawyer had said she would testify. Do you get the sense she is trepidatious, having second thoughts?

NORTON: No, I get the impression she's being advised by counsel.

If I were her counsel, I would tell her that she should not do Clarence Thomas or what may be clear Anita Hill 2.0. And that's what she's walking into. She's walking into a swearing contest.

With a swearing contest, Dr. Ford against Kavanaugh, she's bound to lose, the way Anita Hill lost in the beginning, although we reaped the benefit of her loss with the year of the woman and more women coming to the House and the Senate than ever before.

But Anita Hill became a victim. This woman has thought through -- in fact, did not come forward until she had thought through what this would be like. She is willing to testify, I am sure, but that would be a real hearing, not a sham hearing.

We don't have hearings in the House or the Senate where there's one hearing -- one witness on your side and one witness on their side. The minority -- I have been in the minority in most of the time in the Congress -- gets to call its witnesses, and you get to call you -- you are the majority -- you get to call yours.

That isn't the way this is being set up. The only reason we're having a hearing in the first place is because of the Anita Hill debacle.

BALDWIN: But...

NORTON: They were supposed to have their hearing on Thursday. You see they moved back to Monday. So they already -- we have already got them on the run when it comes to fairness.

BALDWIN: But it sounds like -- we just -- I just got some intel -- intel from Senator Jeff Flake, who had initially said, if she doesn't testify, I'm a no. Of all Republicans to evolve on, it sounds like they're having this hearing on Monday, and if she doesn't show up, he is saying there should be a vote.

So if he -- if she is listening to her counsel, on her counsel is saying no, how is she speaking up and using her voice to keep who she believes as her perpetrator from becoming the next member of the Supreme Court?

NORTON: Oh, I don't believe her counsel is saying no. I believe people are talking.

I have no information whatsoever. But I believe her counsel is talking with the Republicans about how this hearing should be in fact -- in fact held, and how to make it fair. I don't think she is just saying, no, I'm not going to show up, after having said she's going to show up.

We have got to make sure that it's a real hearing, not a rump hearing.

BALDWIN: Back in '91, we know that Anita Hill had one day to prepare.

Can you talk to me about her preparation and her mind-set going into that hearing?

NORTON: Well, she was a perfect witness. And I don't know how she managed to do it.

But she was a perfect witness, only when you consider it was Clarence Thomas against her. And yet they required her to testify first, though she in fact became the rebuttal witness, and when in fact it should have been just the opposite.

But we learned from the Anita Hill hearing that you can't do a hearing that quickly, that if you're going to do a hearing, it has to be a real hearing with all the preparation you do with every other hearing.

That's not what we're getting here. And I think that's what her side is trying to force, not saying, I won't come. And maybe she will come in any case.

But if I were her counsel, I would say, let's negotiate how this hearing is going to take place. If they want you, they want you badly, Kavanaugh needs you badly, then let's do it well. And way to do it well is to let's sit down and talk about how the hearing should be held.

Now, I am saying that only based on the kind of strategy I would use, not based on any information I have whatsoever.

BALDWIN: Sure. Sure. Sure.

So perhaps -- we don't know -- perhaps negotiations are happening. In the meantime, I just wanted to ask you about comparing the atmosphere then to now, because we know then nominee Clarence Thomas' hearings, you know, they had been concluded, as have Kavanaugh's.

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