Christine Blasey Ford will tell senators Thursday that she’ll “never forget” the night in 1982 when she was sexually assaulted and that Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh did it. She says when he stifled her cries for help, she thought he would accidentally suffocate her.
She admits in her prepared testimony, shared by multiple news outlets, that she doesn’t remember every detail about the house party, including where or when it was — but she is adamant it was Judge Kavanaugh who attempted to force himself on her and covered her mouth to stop her screams.
While not adding much to the account she gave to The Washington Post earlier this month, her testimony does convey the lasting effect she says the incident has had on her, including panic attacks after she first recalled the incident during couples therapy with her husband in 2012.
The details, she said, “have been seared into my memory and have haunted me episodically as an adult.”
She will say she is “terrified” to testify but felt she had to come forward after her July letter became publicly known and reporters began to show up at her home and her teaching job as a professor.
“It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell the truth,” she says.
Judge Kavanaugh, in his opening statement, will admit to “juvenile misbehavior” — but will vehemently deny ever sexually assaulting Ms. Blasey Ford or anyone else.
“I drank beer with my friends, usually on weekends. Sometimes I had too many. In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now. But that’s not why we are here today. What I’ve been accused of is far more serious than juvenile misbehavior. I never did anything remotely resembling what Dr. Ford describes.”
In interviews with the Senate Judiciary Committee, transcripts of which were released late Wednesday, he also denies four other accusations including that he exposed himself to a Yale classmate at a college party in 1983, that he was complicit in gang rapes during high school, that he pushed a woman up against a wall in a sexually aggressive manner in 1998, and that he was involved in a rape on a boat in Rhode Island in 1985.
He told investigators the accusations were an “outrage” and repeatedly pointed to his high public profile and multiple background checks across 20 years, which didn’t turn up any of the new claims.
In the interview, he was vehement in denying the “gang rape” allegation, which at the time had been made obliquely by anti-Trump lawyer Michael Avenatti, representing an anonymous client.
On Wednesday that client, Julie Swetnick, went public, releasing a signed affidavit saying she witnessed Judge Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge present at parties in the early 1980s in which girls were plied with drugs or alcohol and then pressured into unwanted group sex.
“I’ve never participated in a gang rape. I’ve never participated in sexual activity with more than one woman present and me,” the judge told Senate investigators in the Tuesday interview.
Neither Ms. Swetnick nor Deborah Ramirez, the Yale classmate, will be part of Thursday’s hearing.
But the accusations, added to Mrs. Blasey Ford’s, led Democrats to again call for Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote to be canceled or at least put on hold so an FBI investigation can be completed.
“Republicans need to immediately suspend the proceedings related to Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, and the president must order the FBI to reopen the background check investigation,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, Oregon Democrat, went to the courts in a long-shot bid to try to force a delay. He filed a lawsuit against President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley demanding a judge block any vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation until the administration turns over more documents.
He said Mr. Trump is violating the Senate’s constitutional duty to give “advice and consent” on nominees by not turning over millions of pages of documents Democrats want to see.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has a vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination tentatively scheduled for Friday, though that will only move forward if Republican senators have heard enough to make a decision.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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