The Allegations Against Brett Kavanaugh Add Up to a Deliberate Political Smear

A woman stands and voices her opposition to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on his nomination for Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Earlier today, the formerly anonymous complainant who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of something that may, and most likely may not, have happened some 35 years ago while Kavanaugh and the complainant were in high school has identified herself. This is the story for the complainant, 51-year-old California Democrat Christine Blasey Ford, according to the Washington Post which apparently has been in contact with the woman for several weeks: California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks out about her allegation of sexual assault.

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.

Here are the key points:

The first time there is any record of this allegation is 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.

Kavanaugh was not named in her first “memory” of the event.

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.”

Ford told her therapist she was attacked by four boys.

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.

Ford contacted the Washington Post about the same time she contacted Congressional Democrats.

She contacted The Post through a tip line in early July, when it had become clear that Kavanaugh was on the shortlist of possible nominees to replace retiring justice Anthony M. Kennedy but before Trump announced his name publicly.

Ford is a Democrat donor.

A registered Democrat who has made small contributions to political organizations, she contacted her congresswoman, Democrat Anna G. Eshoo, around the same time. In late July, she sent a letter via Eshoo’s office to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.

Ford was concerned that Kavanaugh might eventually be on the Supreme Court.

[Ford’s husband, Russell] 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.

Ford is not sure what year the event happened, where it happened, or what she did afterward.

After so many years, 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.

…

Ford said she does not remember how the gathering came together the night of the incident. She said she often spent time in the summer at the Columbia Country Club pool in Chevy Chase, where in those pre-cellphone days, teenagers learned about gatherings via word of mouth. She also doesn’t recall who owned the house or how she got there.

Ford said she remembers that it was in Montgomery County, not far from the country club, and that no parents were home at the time. Ford named two other teenagers who she said were at the party. Those individuals did not respond to messages on Sunday morning.

…

She isn’t sure how she got home.

Ford is sure this truly f***ed up her life.

Years later, after going through psychotherapy, Ford said, she came to understand the incident as a trauma with lasting impact on her life.

“I think it derailed me substantially for four or five years,” she said. She said she struggled academically and socially and was unable to have healthy relationships with men. “I was very ill-equipped to forge those kinds of relationships.”

She also said she believes that in the longer term, it contributed to anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms with which she has struggled.

Ford has taken a polygraph.

On the advice of Katz, who believed Ford would be attacked as a liar if she came forward, Ford took a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent in early August. The results, which Katz provided to The Post, concluded that Ford was being truthful when she said a statement summarizing her allegations was accurate.

In short, if this is the standard to be used in a confirmation hearing then literally no Republican male will ever be safe again. I say Republican because we know, via police report, that Keith Ellison physically abused at least two former girlfriends and no one cares.

Fortunately, there is zero reason to believe that this is anything other than what it appears to be at first blush, that is, a cheap partisan smear of an exceptional nominee to the Supreme Court.

There is literally zero evidence that Ford ever told anyone about Kavanaugh until she decided to write her letter a few weeks ago. She didn’t mention his name to her therapist. The story she told her therapist was different that the story in her letter. She’s now claiming that the therapist got that wrong? Really? And we’re supposed to believe everything else? Why shouldn’t we assume the therapist’s notes are accurate or not? Missing from the story, at least as far as I can see, is any evidence of a chain of custody from the therapist to the Post. By that I mean Ford gave the notes to the Post, we have to take it on faith that those notes originated with a therapist. We also have to note that it doesn’t seem like Ford has named the second person in the room. The Post names him as a guy named Mark Judge. But in all cases where Ford refers to him he is Kavanaugh’s “friend.” This, I think, is no accident. Ford can accuse Kavanaugh of literally anything and everything and because he is a “public figure” she is on safe legal ground. Judge is not a “public figure” and if she names him, as opposed to the Post naming him, then she may be involved in a very expensive lawsuit.

Dianne Feinstein held onto this allegation when she had every opportunity to question Kavanaugh about it. There is a reason for that. She knows it is weak sh** and she wanted to start a smear campaign.

More to the point, as a society we need to get a grip. If this is the sum total of the allegation, then let me say right here I could give a fat rat’s ass whether or not Kavanaugh did it. I. Just. Don’t. Care. Moreover, the idea that a 35-year-old allegation is credible is laughable. As is the idea that people who claim they were attacked should be given the benefit of the doubt. The rape allegations leveled at a University of Virginia fraternity and the Duke lacrosse team show the folly of that position. And no amount of the left calling Ford “professor” makes her allegations the least bit credible or even believable.

There is nothing in this woman’s statement that merits taking it seriously and a damned sight that fairly screams that it is a political hit. This nomination needs to go ahead on schedule.