During Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony on Thursday, he was asked by prosecutor Rachel Mitchell about a July 1, 1982 gathering listed on his calendar from high school. Some journalists and one Democratic senator on the Judiciary Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, have suggested this party could be the party where Christine Blasey Ford believes she was allegedly assaulted by Kavanaugh in the summer of 1982.
Kavanaugh wrote on his calendar for Thursday, July 1, 1982: “Tobin’s house — Workout/Go to Timmy’s for skis w[ith] Judge, Tom, P.J., Bernie, Squi.”
During his testimony, Kavanaugh identified those attending the gathering at “Timmy’s” as all male friends: Tim Gaudette, Mark Judge, Tom Kane, P.J. Smyth, Bernie McCarthy, and Chris Garrett (whose nickname was “Squi”). And “skis” meant “brewskis,” a reference to beer.
The potential significance of this event is that it is the only party or gathering listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar at which both Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth were listed as present, and Judge and Smyth are two people alleged by Ford to have been in attendance at the gathering where she was allegedly assaulted.
But the house where this gathering took place (according to Kavanaugh’s calendar) does not appear to match the description offered by Ford in her recollection of events, and there are other reasons to be skeptical of the theory put forward by Senator Whitehouse and several left-leaning journalists.
Ford recalled that the home where the alleged attack occurred was, according to the Washington Post, “not far from the country club” in Chevy Chase, Maryland, where she had likely spent the day swimming prior to the alleged attack.
Tom Kane, one of the Kavanaugh friends who was listed in attendance, told CNN’s New Day on Friday that Tim Gaudette’s house was in Rockville, Maryland, 11 miles away from the country club.
“I saw it published today that someone’s floating the notion that there was something on July 1 at Tim Gaudette’s house,” Kane told CNN. “Tim Gaudette lived in Rockville. It’s 11 miles away from Columbia Country Club. And it wasn’t a single-family home. It was a townhouse.” The Washington Post reports: “There was no answer at the brick home on Friday.”
Tim Gaudette has not replied to a message requesting an interview. But Tom Kane, reached by phone later Friday morning by THE WEEKLY STANDARD, provided the address of the townhouse where Gaudette lived, which is a 16-minute drive from the Columbia Country Club if one were to take the fastest route, using the I-270 interstate without significant traffic. Asked if he ever recalled Blasey Ford attending a party at Tim Gaudette’s house, Kane told TWS: “No.”
Kane knew of Ford but couldn’t recall any specific time he spent together with her. Asked if he ever recalled being at a party or gathering with Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh, Kane replied: “Those two together, I can’t say. Probably not. She went in and out of our lives, I don’t remember spending time with her at all. I remember her name, but I don’t remember spending time with her at all.” Kane said he knew of Christine Blasey Ford both because he knows her brother and another one of his friends, Chris Garrett, briefly went out with her in high school.
During Ford’s testimony Thursday, she explained that Garrett (whose nickname was “Squi” and who also is listed on Kavanaugh’s calendar as attending the July 1 party at Tim Gaudette’s townhouse) was the only social connection to Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge she can recall. Ford said during testimony that she had socialized with Garrett for “maybe a couple months” before the alleged party occurred and that Garrett was someone she “went out with for a few months.” She added: “After that we were distant friends and ran into each other periodically at Columbia Country Club, but I didn’t see him often.” If one of the people at the same small gathering was someone she “went out with for a few months,” wouldn’t there be a good chance she would recall his presence? The Post reports that Garrett has not responded to an interview request regarding the July 1 party.
Kavanaugh’s calendar lists seven boys in attendance at Tim Gaudette’s, but Ford recalls a party at which four boys and two girls (including herself) were present. During testimony Thursday, Ford said that she recalls that Kavanaugh, Leland Keyser, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and “one other boy whose name I cannot recall” attended the party. Everyone identified by Ford has denied recollection of a party like the one she described to the Washington Post, including her lifelong female friend and classmate Keyser.
“Simply put, Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford,” Leland Keyser’s lawyer said in a statement on September 22.
“I never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford describes in her allegation. I’ve never sexually assaulted Dr. Ford or anyone,” Kavanaugh testified on Thursday. “She and I did not travel in the same social circles. It is possible that we met at some point at some events, although I do not recall that. To repeat, all of the people identified by Dr. Ford as being present at the party have said they do not remember any such party ever happening.”
While Ford described a party in pre-written and pre-released testimony as one at which four boys and two girls were in attendance, she said under questioning Thursday that she “can’t guarantee that there weren’t a few other people there, but they are not in my purview of my memory.” The occurrence of the Thursday, July 1, 1982 gathering of seven boys in Rockville was first revealed a couple days before the hearing when Kavanaugh’s calendars were released to the public.
When Ford first described the details of the alleged assault at a couple’s therapy session in 2012, the therapist’s notes indicate that she was attacked by four males—a discrepancy Ford attributes to an error by the therapist. Ford’s lawyers have not provided the notes, even in redacted form, to the Senate Judiciary Committee. According to the Washington Post, the notes don’t mention Kavanaugh by name, but Ford’s husband told the Post that she mentioned Kavanaugh at the time of the May 2012 therapy session and expressed concern he might be nominated to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh had been profiled in the New Yorker in March 2012 as the “most likely first nominee” to the Supreme Court if a Republican won the 2012 presidential election.
There is also reason to think the timing of the July 1, 1982 party could be inconsistent with Ford’s description of events. Kavanaugh testified that his calendar indicates that prior to the gathering at Tim Gaudette’s he had been doing a football workout, which was “usually 6:00 to 8:00 or so, kind of—until near dark. And then it looks like we went over to Timmy’s.”
Ford testified that she likely arrived at the party after a day of swimming at the country club, the alleged assault occurred “early in the evening,” and Kavanaugh and Judge had been drinking heavily before she first saw them at the small gathering.
“Mr. Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge were extremely inebriated, they had clearly been drinking prior,” Ford testified. “It was just a gathering that I assumed was going to lead to a party later on that those boys would attend, because they tended to have parties later at night than I was allowed to stay out. So it was kind of a pre-gathering.”
We don’t know for sure if Kavanaugh worked out until 8:00 p.m. that evening, but if he did, that fact would be inconsistent with Ford’s description of an assailant who was “extremely inebriated” from drinking beer by the time the alleged assault occurred “early in the evening” at a “pre-gathering.”
More information could come to light this week about what did or did not happen on July 1, 1982 at Tim Gaudette’s house, but for now there is good reason to be skeptical of the theory being promoted by Senator Whitehouse and others about that party.
