By Thomas McKinless

Eyes are on Republican Sen. Susan Collins as sexual assault allegations roil Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process. Collins’s vote was already considered pivotal for the nominee, as the moderate Maine senator has bucked her party and President Donald Trump on big ticket issues before. Collins said Monday that both Kavanaugh and the accuser, California professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, should testify under oath about the incident. “Obviously if Judge Kavanaugh has lied about what happened, that would be disqualifying,” Collins told reporters. She said that when she spoke to the nominee on the phone last week, Kavanaugh “emphatically denied that the allegations were true.”