The woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her decades ago vowed in a letter to the Senate she will testify and answer questions from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, despite her fear of doing so.
“While I am frightened, please know, my fear will not hold me back from testifying and you will be provided with answers to all of your questions,” Christine Blasey Ford wrote in a newly released letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. “I ask for fair and respectful treatment.”
The letter from Ford to Grassley was dated Saturday and made public Monday, after Ford’s lawyers authorized its release.
Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party 36 years ago when the two were in high school.
Ford first detailed the alleged incident involving Kavanaugh in a letter to Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., her representative in Congress. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also received a confidential letter from Ford.
“Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions, while many years ago, were serious and have had a lasting impact on my life,” Ford told Grassley. “I thought that knowledge of his actions could be useful for you and those in charge of choosing among the various candidates. My original intent was first and foremost to be a helpful citizen — in a confidential way that would minimize collateral damage to all families and friends involved.”
Ford offered to meet with Grassley and other senators one-on-one to detail her alleged encounter with Kavanaugh and said she would answer any questions they may have.
“I hope that we can find such a setting and that you will understand that I have one motivation in coming forward — to tell the truth about what Mr. Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge did to me,” she wrote. “My sincere desire is to be helpful to persons making the decision.”
Ford said Judge, a classmate of Kavanaugh’s, was in the room when the alleged sexual assault occurred. Judge, however, has said he has no memory of the encounter and never saw Kavanaugh act as Ford described.
Ford told Grassley that she felt she had a civic duty to notify Eshoo of the alleged assault, and said she “felt that this was something that a citizen couldn’t not do.”
Kavanaugh has vehemently denied Ford’s allegation and vowed in his own letter to Grassley and Feinstein he would “not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process.”
After Ford spoke publicly about the alleged incident with Kavanaugh last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee invited her and Kavanaugh to testify during a hearing scheduled for Monday.
But Ford’s lawyers and committee staff engaged in a series of negotiations over the last few days, which ultimately resulted in an agreement for Ford and Kavanaugh to appear Thursday.
Ford detailed to the committee the consequences of her decision to speak out about the alleged sexual assault, and said she has faced death threats, and had people follow her on highways, media vans parked outside her home, and “unauthorized persons” enter her classroom.
“My goal is to return soon to my workplace, once it is deemed safe for me and important, for students,” she wrote. “Currently, my family has physically relocated and have divided up separately on many nights with the tremendous help of friends in the broader community. Through gracious persons here and across the country, we have been able to afford hiring security.”
In addition to Ford, another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has also leveled an allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.
Ramirez said Kavanaugh, during a party at Yale University in the early 1980s, exposed himself, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it.
Kavanaugh has denied that allegation as well, calling it a “smear, plain and simple.”
