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By Gregg Re | Fox News
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The woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault came forward with her explosive allegations on Sunday, saying the supposed attack "derailed me substantially for four or five years" and claiming that the episode rendered her "unable to have healthy relationships with men."
The woman, Christine Blasey Ford, is a professor at Palo Alto University, according to The Washington Post, which published her account on Sunday. Her decision to go public has capped a whirlwhind week that began when Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., sent shockwaves through Washington by announcing she had sent the FBI information about Kavanaugh she received from an anonymous accuser in July. It's also threatened to upend Kavanaugh's confirmation, as top Democrats call for a full investigation.
Many Republicans immediately pushed back Sunday, saying it was "disturbing" that the decades-old allegations surfaced just days before the Judiciary Committee is set to vote on whether to advance Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Senate floor. Republicans have given no indication that they intend to delay Thursday's key vote, as a series of Democratic senators demanded throughout the day; however, Senate Judiciary Committee spokesman Taylor Foy said Chairman Chuck Grassley was working to set up follow-up calls with Kavanaugh and Ford in light of the Post report.
"It’s disturbing that these uncorroborated allegations from more than 35 years ago, during high school, would surface on the eve of a committee vote after Democrats sat on them since July," Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement.
"If Ranking Member Feinstein and other Committee Democrats took this claim seriously, they should have brought it to the full Committee’s attention much earlier," he continued. "Instead, they said nothing during two joint phone calls with the nominee in August, four days of lengthy public hearings, a closed session for all committee members with the nominee where sensitive topics can be discussed and in more than 1,300 written questions."
Grassley called on Feinstein to publicly release the letter she received in July, "so that everyone can know what she’s known for weeks." He added that the sudden reveal of the allegations "raises a lot of questions about Democrats’ tactics and motives" and noted that no similar allegations had surfaced in Kavanaugh's past despite six separate federal background checks throughout his career.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the committee, said late Sunday he'd "gladly listen" to Ford so that he could compare her accusations "against all the other information" the panel has on Kavanaugh. But, he said, if Ford does testify, "it should be done immediately" so as not to delay the confirmation vote.
Another GOP member of the committee, Jeff Flake of Arizona, told Fox News that he was "uncomfortable moving forward with a 'yes' vote until we hear from" Ford.
Feinstein tweeted late Sunday that she agreed with Flake that the committee vote should be delayed. "There's a lot of information we don't know and the FBI should have the time it needs to review this new material," she wrote. "Staff calls aren't the appropriate way to handle this."
Republicans hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate and can afford only one defection to keep the nomination alive.
Ford, a 51-year-old registered Democrat who has published in academic journals and has trained students in clinical psychology, described the alleged incident in The Washington Post on Sunday, saying it occurred during a summer day in the 1980s at a Maryland house where teens had gathered. Ford claimed she headed upstairs to a bathroom when she was suddenly pushed onto a bed, as rock-and-roll music blared.
However, Ford told The Post she did not recall exactly who owned the house, how she came to be at the house, or how the gathering was arranged. She remembered only that the house was in Montgomery County, near a country club, and that parents were not present.
Ford said Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, were "stumbling drunk" and laughing "maniacally" when Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to forcibly remove her one-piece bathing suit, as well as the clothes she was wearing. According to Ford, Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth when she attempted to scream.
"I thought he might inadvertently kill me," said Ford, who works as a research psychologist in California. "He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing."
Ford claimed she was able to escape to a bathroom and then outside of the house when Judge jumped into the fray and sent everyone in the room "tumbling."
Judge strongly denied the allegations on Friday, when they were anonymous, saying the claims were "just absolutely nuts" and insisting that "I never saw Brett act that way."
After Ford went public on Sunday, Judge repeated his denial.
"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," Judge said. A classmate of Kavanaugh's at Georgetown Preparatory School, Judge has gone on to write for a variety of conservative publications, including The Daily Caller.
Debra Katz, a D.C. attorney specializing in sexual harassment cases, provided The Post with results of an August 2018 polygraph test showing Ford was truthful when she said a summary of the allegations was accurate, the newspaper reported.
Also on Friday, Kavanaugh released a statement through the White House as the allegations surfaced: "I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time."
The White House stood by that denial on Sunday in the wake of The Post's report.
"As the story notes, we are standing with Judge Kavanaugh’s denial," White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Raj Shah told Fox News.
The Post reported that she had contacted the newspaper in July, along with Feinstein. According to Ford, she kept the episode mostly to herself until 2012, when she mentioned it in a couple's therapy session.
The therapist's contemporaneous notes, provided to The Post, reportedly confirmed that Ford maintained she had been attacked by four individuals "from an elitist boys’ school" who are now "highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington." The therapist, Ford said, had confused the number of people involved in the alleged attack with the total number of people in the house.
Although Ford said she initially wanted to remain anonymous, she later changed her mind after Kavanaugh's defenders argued that the allegations were unfair.
"Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation," Ford told The Post. She added that the incident "derailed me substantially for four or five years" and that "I was very ill-equipped to forge those kinds of relationships" going forward.
Republicans had accused Feinstein of orchestrating a last-minute smear after she announced she had forwarded the then-anonymous account of sexual assault to the FBI.
After Ford's interview was published Sunday, Feinstein said Kavanaugh's confirmation should be delayed pending a federal investigation -- a move that would potentially push a confirmation vote until after the midterm elections.
"From the outset, I have believed these allegations were extremely serious and bear heavily on Judge Kavanaugh’s character," Feinstein wrote. "I support Mrs. Ford’s decision to share her story, and now that she has, it is in the hands of the FBI to conduct an investigation. This should happen before the Senate moves forward on this nominee."
That sentiment was echoed Sunday by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has previously suggested Kavanaugh's hearings should be delayed for other reasons.
“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."
Last week, the FBI, which conducts background checks on judicial nominees, said that it already had reviewed the allegations.
"Upon receipt of the information on the night of September 12, we included it as part of Judge Kavanaugh’s background file, as per the standard process," the FBI said in a statement. Fox News has learned that the White House would have to request that the bureau follow up on the letter for the matter to be investigated further.
On Sunday, before Ford's name came to light, Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said he was embarrassed for Congress by the unsubstantiated accusations of decades-old sexual misconduct leveled at the Supreme Court nominee.
"So far, it’s pretty much been an intergalactic freak show," Kennedy, a member of the judiciary committee, told Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday." "Most Americans are looking at this – most mainstream Americans – and they’re thinking that Congress has hit rock bottom and started to dig."
Kennedy said Kavanaugh's vote before the Senate Judiciary Committee would continue as planned on Thursday.
And on Friday, more than five dozen women came forward to defend Kavanaugh, calling him "a good person" in a letter to the committee.
"We are women who have known Brett Kavanaugh for more than 35 years and knew him while he attended high school between 1979 and 1983. For the entire time we have known Brett Kavanaugh, he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect," the letter read. "We strongly believe it is important to convey this information to the Committee at this time."
Out of control.
And come to find out, now that she's released her name, she's involved in anti-Trump demonstrations...coincidence?
https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...r-enforcement/
https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...t-trump-march/
:shocker:
And that's stuff you definitely won't see reported on the MSM because of course #BelieveAllWomen
I think the title should have been Feinstein released from her crypt
By Ben Shapiro - The Daily Wire
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Last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) threw a last-minute Hail Mary attempt to stop the ascension of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court: an anonymous letter accusing Kavanaugh of sexual impropriety. The accuser was anonymous; the charge was unclear. On Sunday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s sexual assault accuser came forward in the pages of The Washington Post. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, apparently first contacted the Post in July after Kavanaugh began being discussed as a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy, but she didn’t talk with the paper on the record until now. “Now I feel like my civic responsibility is outweighing my anguish and terror about retaliation,” she stated.
According to Ford, when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17, they were at a pool party where both got drunk. Her story continues in her letter:
Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early 1980's… The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others. Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stairwell from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help. Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with [Mark Judge], who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh's hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me. From across the room a very drunken [Judge] said mixed words to Kavanaugh ranging from "go for it" to "stop."
At one point when [Judge] jumped onto the bed the weight on me was substantial. The pile toppled, and the two scrapped with each other. After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me. Both loudly stumbled down the stair well at which point other persons at the house were talking with them. I exited the bathroom, ran outside of the house and went home…. I have received medical treatment regarding the assault.
Originally, Ford contacted Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), who sent Ford’s letter on to Feinstein.
Kavanaugh has said this never happened. “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” he said. Judge says the same. Judge told The Weekly Standard, “I can recall a lot of rough-housing with guys. It was an all-boys school, we would rough-house with each other. I don’t remember any of that stuff going on with girls.” He strongly denied witnessing an attempted assault.
On its face, the allegations aren’t non-credible. Ford has come forward, and she’s told a story with specifics. But serious questions remain. Here are six:
1. Why Didn’t Feinstein Come Forward Earlier? Feinstein had every opportunity to ask Kavanaugh about the allegations. She didn’t. She didn’t even share the letter, which she had for weeks, with her Democratic colleagues. Instead, she waited until days before the vote to dump the allegations publicly, and did so without revealing the name, choosing to release this absurd statement:
"I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” she wrote. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities."
Furthermore, she referred the matter to the FBI only at that point. All of this looks heavily political – in the interests of justice, she should have come forward earlier.
2. Why Isn’t The FBI Investigating? Feinstein passed along the charges to the FBI. The FBI immediately passed the charges on to the White House instead of investigating. Why? Perhaps it's because the charges are four decades old, non-specific, and impossible to verify.
3. Why Didn’t Ford Tell Anybody About This Incident Until 2012? In many cases of accused sexual assault (see Moore, Roy), accusers told their friends, family, or medical workers about the accusations at the time. This at least time-stamps the accusations. That didn’t happen here: the accuser says she first told no one for three decades. That makes it questionable as to when this even happened, and difficult to track down.
4. Why Do Her Therapist’s Notes Conflict With Her Account? Ford showed her therapist’s notes to The Washington Post. Those notes conflict with her account. The notes don’t include names, instead stating that the alleged perpetrators were “from an elitist boys’ school,” and had since become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes also state that four boys were involved, not two; she says her therapist got it wrong, and that there were four boys at the party but only two boys involved. Another therapy session the following year includes the charge that Ford underwent a “rape attempt” in “her late teens,” but she was allegedly 15 – not late teens – when this incident occurred. Her husband, who was present for the first therapy session, said Kavanaugh’s name was raised, but the Post account doesn’t say that Kavanaugh was called the alleged perpetrator.
5. She Doesn’t Remember Key Details. According to the Post, she doesn’t remember key details:
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.
6. Why Aren’t Any Other Women Coming Forward? In other cases, many women come forward. In fact, it’s difficult to think of another high-profile #MeToo case without multiple accusers. In this case, it’s one woman making an unsubstantiated three-decade-old allegation – the ultimate he-said, she-said. In this case, of course, it’s actually a he-said-he-said-she-said, since there were two men accused of involvement.
You don't have to believe that Ford is lying to believe that these allegations require more substantiation. Thirty-year-old events are difficult to reconstruct; memories change over time. Witness testimony is notoriously unreliable in many cases. And she could be telling the absolute objective truth, of course.
With all of that said, it’s not out-of-bounds for Republicans to call Ford to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee – we need to know more about these allegations. It’s also not inappropriate to delay the vote on Kavanaugh until after such a hearing, or at least until Ford has turned down such an invite. Kavanaugh has already offered to come back and testify on this matter. But allegations alone, without further supporting evidence – even contemporaneous accounts, witness accounts, or corroborating details – should not destroy someone’s life. Kavanaugh deserves more, and so does the appointments process.
Sit down Uncle Tom.. :hand:
I am thinking that women come forward in these situations precisely in order to inflict maximum damage with the minimum personal inconvenience.
This is probably, in part, because the justice system is likely to fail them and they don't want to go through a long court proceeding.
In this case, it's because she's completely full of shit. Think Anita Hill.Quote:
Originally Posted by lost in melb.