Two former Yale University classmates of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have rescinded their names from a statement casting doubt on Deborah Ramirez’s claim that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a college party in the 1980s.
Ramirez’s allegation against Kavanaugh was detailed in a piece published by The New Yorker on Sunday, where she claimed he thrust his groin in her face and caused her to touch his genitals without her consent. Kavanaugh has rejected the allegation, along with two of his male classmates that Ramirez claimed were present.
Those classmates were named in a joint statement released by Kavanaugh’s attorneys, along with the wife of another male student allegedly involved and another classmate, insisting that they would have seen or heard about the event “and we did not.”
Louisa Garry and Dino Ewing signed that statement, but later contacted The New Yorker following publication of the article and requested their names be removed from the statement.
“I never saw or heard anything like this,” Garry said. “But I cannot dispute Ramirez’s allegations, as I was not present.”
“I also was not present and therefore am not in a position to directly dispute Ramirez’s account,” Ewing said.
Update: 2 Kavanaugh classmates withdrew from a statement his lawyers issued disputing Ramirez’s claims. It is now signed by the 2 men whom Ramirez alleged had egged on Kavanaugh, the wife of the man she said told her to “kiss it,” and one other classmate: https://t.co/o8nTmjw2Vg pic.twitter.com/z6zPRBeR1r
— Ronan Farrow (@RonanFarrow) September 24, 2018
The original statement said: “We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale. He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place. Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale.”
“We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it—and we did not,” the statement continued. “The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett. In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett’s Supreme Court nomination was pending. Editors from the New Yorker contacted some of us because we are the people who would know the truth, and we told them that we never saw or heard about this.”
The New Yorker could not locate any witnesses to corroborate Ramirez’s accusation. One former classmate did claim he had heard about the incident from Ramirez’s account.
Ramirez is the second woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Christine Blasey Ford was the first and alleges that Kavanaugh forced himself upon her at a high school party in the 1980s.
Kavanaugh denies Ford’s account too, and he and Ford are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
