Christine Blasey Ford, the first of three women to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, will tell the Senate Judiciary Committee in Thursday’s hearing that politics was not a factor in her decision to testify, and that she only wants to give the Senate information about the candidate.
“I have been accused of acting out of partisan political motives. Those who say that do not know me. I am a fiercely independent person, and I am no one’s pawn,” she said in her prepared remarks to the committee. “My motivation in coming forward was to provide the facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that you can take that into serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed.”
“Apart from the assault itself, these last couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life. I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and have seen my life picked apart by people on television, in the media, and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me,” Ford added in her remarks.
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Ford’s testimony was released Wednesday ahead of her scheduled appearance Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee to address her claim Kavanaugh drunkenly forced himself on her in the 1980s at a Maryland high school party when she was 15 and he was 17. Her accusation is one of three leveled at the judge as the panel weighs his nomination to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied all the claims.
Ford has been criticized for not telling anybody about the alleged attack until a 2012 couples therapy session with her husband Russell Ford.
“The reason this came up in counseling is that my husband and I had completed an extensive remodel of our home, and I insisted on a second front door, an idea that he and others disagreed with and could not understand,” she writes. “In explaining why I wanted to have a second front door, I described the assault in detail. I recall saying that the boy who assaulted me could someday be on the U.S. Supreme Court and spoke a bit about his background.”
