Professor Christine Blasey Ford stepped forward on Sunday to identify herself as the woman who had written a letter in July alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh had assaulted her when Ford and Kavanaugh were both high school students.
Here are the details of the allegation, as told by Ford to the Washington Post:
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.
“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”
Ford said she was able to escape when Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, Mark Judge, jumped on top of them, sending all three tumbling. She said she ran from the room, briefly locked herself in a bathroom and then fled the house. […]
She alleges that Kavanaugh — who played football and basketball at Georgetown Prep — held her down with the weight of his body and fumbled with her clothes, seemingly hindered by his intoxication. Judge stood across the room, she said, and both boys were laughing “maniacally.” She said she yelled, hoping that someone downstairs would hear her over the music, and Kavanaugh clapped his hand over her mouth to silence her.
At one point, she said, Judge jumped on top of them, and she tried unsuccessfully to wriggle free. Then Judge jumped on them again, toppling them, and she broke away, she said.
In an email Sunday afternoon to THE WEEKLY STANDARD, Judge responded to the Washington Post report: “Now that the anonymous person has been identified and has spoken to the press, I repeat my earlier statement that I have no recollection of any of the events described in today’s Post article or attributed to her letter. Since I have nothing more to say I will not comment further on this matter. I hope you will respect my position and my privacy.”
In response to an earlier New Yorker story alleging that Kavanaugh as minor had “attempted to force himself” on an unnamed female high school student in Judge’s presence, Judge told TWS on Friday: “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way.”
According to the Post, “Ford said she does not remember some key details of the incident. She said she believes it occurred in the summer of 1982, when she was 15, around the end of her sophomore year at the all-girls Holton-Arms School in Bethesda. Kavanaugh would have been 17 at the end of his junior year at Georgetown Prep.”
Kavanaugh, who is now 53 years old, was confirmed as a federal appeals court judge in 2006. The Post reports that there are not contemporaneous accounts of the allegation, but Ford recalled the story to a therapist for the first time in 2012: “Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by the Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students ‘from an elitist boys’ school’ who went on to become ‘highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.’ The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room.” In an interview with the Post, Ford’s husband “said he recalled that his wife used Kavanaugh’s last name and voiced concern that Kavanaugh — then a federal judge — might one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.”
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer responded to the Post‘s report on Sunday, saying that the Judiciary Committee vote scheduled for Thursday must be delayed. “Senator Grassley must postpone the vote until, at a very minimum, these serious and credible allegations are thoroughly investigated,” Schumer said. “For too long, when women have made serious allegations of abuse, they have been ignored. That cannot happen in this case.”
Ranking Judiciary Committee Democrat Dianne Feinstein possessed Ford’s letter detailing alleged misconduct since July but did not bring it up prior to Kavanaugh’s public confirmation hearings or at a closed members-only hearing. On Thursday, September 13, Feinstein sent the letter to the FBI, with Ford’s name redacted, and issued a public statement acknowledging that she had done so. Feinstein’s statement was followed Friday by the New Yorker story providing greater details of the allegation.
On Sunday, a spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley said the Thursday vote has not been delayed. The White House reiterated that Kavanaugh is standing by the statement he issued on Friday: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
