'That's her truth,' Kavanaugh supporter says of Christine Blasey Ford's testimony

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Republican strategist Suzette Martinez says Christine Blasey Ford was telling "her truth" when she testified against Brett Kavanaugh, but that's not enough to "destroy a man's life."

The U.S. Senate judicial committee voted Friday to recommend Kavanaugh's lifetime nomination to the Supreme Court. But in a last-minute move, Republicans also agreed to ask for an FBI investigation into Ford's sexual assault allegations, delaying the final confirmation vote by one week. 

Martinez spoke to As It Happens host Carol Off on Friday about why she believes both Kavanaugh and Ford are telling the truth.

Here is part of their conversation.

There's nothing that happened yesterday that shakes your confidence that he is the man that should be going to the Supreme Court?

In the spirit of due process, I like the senators' recommendations for continued or further FBI investigation.

I have a husband. I have a father. I have brothers. I believe in the American justice process and political process, and I believe that individuals are innocent until proven guilty.

I, from my moral values and my political values, could never, would never want to convict a man or destroy a man's life based on an accusation that doesn't have any true evidence or corroboration.

Christine Blasey Ford, under oath, describes what happened to her. Horrific details ... and she says with absolute 100-per-cent certainty that the man who did this to her was Brett Kavanaugh at the time that he was a teenager. Did that not mean anything?

I believe that's her truth. And I believe her story, and I have a lot of compassion for what she went through. And I could see it on her face that that is her truth.

But I could also see it on Judge Kavanaugh's face that that is his truth.

I don't think that believing both of their stories is mutually exclusive. I believe that there are additional facts that we may never know that actually paint the truth of the matter.

If that's his truth, that this didn't happen, is it that it didn't happen because he has no recollection — because he was too drunk to remember?

That could be, or it didn't happen. Maybe, you know, the recollection could have been that it was, you know, somebody else, or he wasn't there.

We're at highest process of the American system of appointing and confirming a new justice.... We can't throw away our values and our process as Americans by automatically assuming this man is guilty when there's no evidence.

Do you want this man to be the Supreme Court justice, to have a lifetime appointment where he's making decisions that affect the lives of millions of people, based on what you saw and heard yesterday, in the past days, as we learn this story? Do you want that man to be in the Supreme Court?

Based on the evidence and the facts that I know about the man, yes.

If there was even the slimmest bit of evidence I would say, you know, there is reasonable doubt to me, and let's find somebody better. 

What about the other women? What about Deborah Ramirez? What about Julie Swetnick?

I haven't heard that there is any credible additional information from other women to make a statement on that. 

If nothing else, how hobbled is Judge Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice given that half the people in your country will picture him with his hand over the mouth of a 15-year-old girl, keeping her from screaming?

I feel really sad for him that this is, you know, going to be how people recall him, at least for the next couple of years.

There has to be one truth in the end, though, doesn't there? I mean, everybody doesn't have their own truth. Something happened in a room 30 years ago.

It is two sides and then the truth, right?

But something happened in a room 30 years ago. And that is what is at stake now for this appointment. Something happened in a room 30 years ago, and we have to know what happened there.

Our political and judicial processes are at stake just as much.

I remember learning about being, you know, innocent until proven guilty when I was in elementary school. That's a pillar of our system too. Do we just throw that out the door too?

Is it more important to you to see Judge Kavanaugh become a member of the Supreme Court than to see it discovered whether or not this crime actually happened?

It's more important to me to uphold American values, our justice system, our separation of powers and our due process. 

Written by Sheena Goodyear. Produced by Imogen Birchard. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.