Over the weekend, a woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault went on the record with The Washington Post.. Her name is Christine Blasey Ford.
Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
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.
Ford originally did not want to be identified. She spoke to The Post because she felt her “civic responsibility is outweighing [her] anguish and terror about retaliation.”
On Monday morning, Ford’s lawyer, Debra Katz, said that her client would be willing to testify in front of the Senate and she told The Washington Post that Ford had passed a polygraph test. The Post also reviewed records from a therapist that said Ford had discussed this story during a session in 2012.
Republican senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker have said they want to hear more from Ford before there’s a vote on Kavanaugh.
Sexual harassment allegations did not stop the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the high court. But in the midst of the #MeToo movement, could these claims derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation?
Produced by Paige Osburn. Text by Gabrielle Healy.
GUESTS
Eliana Johnson, White House reporter, Politico; @elianayjohnson
For more, visit https://the1a.org.
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