I am ‘100% certain it was Kavanaugh’
CALIFORNIA PROFESSOR IN GRIPPING TESTIMONY ABOUT SEX ASSAULT
Christine Blasey Ford told senators yesterday that she remains “100 per cent” certain that Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the US Supreme Court, was the person who sexually assaulted her at a party decades ago.
In extraordinary and at times emotional testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blasey Ford, a psychology professor in California, said it was “absolutely not” possible that she had mistakenly identified Kavanaugh as her attacker.
Some conservative scholars have suggested Blasey Ford’s accusation was a case of mistaken identity, but Blasey Ford, 51, insisted she has a “100 per cent” level of certainty that it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her.
The testimony — made under oath at a high-stakes hearing — is damning for Kavanaugh, whose nomination is facing intense scrutiny, as two other women also have come out identifying themselves as victims of sexual misconduct by the federal judge.
Blasey Ford claims Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party in 1982 when he was a 17-year-old high school student and she was 15.
Asked how she could be so sure it was Kavanaugh who attacked her, Blasey Ford responded with confidence: “The same way that I’m sure that I’m talking to you right now. Just basic memory functions.” The “trauma-related experience” was seared into her brain, she said.
Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in high school, testified emotionally and hesitantly yesterday about her memories of the 1982 evening.
“I am here not because I want to be,” she told the Senate Judiciary Committee, her voice at times cracking. “I’m terrified.”
Responding to the accusations, Kavanaugh told the panel that his family and his name “have been totally and permanently destroyed.” and that he ‘will not be intimidated’ into withdrawing nomination to the Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh spoke after Ford testified that he sexually assaulted her when both were in high school. She said she was terrified to come forward but did so because she felt it was her civic duty.
He says his confirmation process has become “a national disgrace” and a “character assassination.”
Earlier, in describing the alleged assault, Ford said she recalled how a drunken Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, laughed as they locked her in a bedroom and pinned her to a bed. “They both seemed to be having a good time,” she said.
Both Kavanaugh and Judge have denied the allegations.
Asked later by Sen. Patrick Leahy about her most vivid memory of the alleged assault, Ford returned to what she called the “uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”
As Ford testified, her training as a research psychologist periodically became obvious. Asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein about the impact that the alleged attack had on her life, Ford referred to the “sequelae” of the attack, a psychology term that refers to the symptoms that can follow a traumatic event. Ford has a doctorate in educational psychology from the University of Southern California.
But her responses were not entirely clinical. Asked by Feinstein if there was a possibility that this could be a case of “mistaken identity,” Ford’s response was simple. “Absolutely not.”
Ford says she doesn’t have any political motivation for coming forward with accusations of sexual assault Kavanaugh when they were teenagers.
Democrats praised Ford’s “courage” for testifying. “You have given America an amazing teaching moment,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told Ford. The highly anticipated showdown has upended the plans of Senate Republicans who, clinging to a narrow majority, hoped to swiftly confirm a staunchly conservative jurist for a lifetime seat on the high court.
People lined up for hours yesterday morning to get into the Dirksen Senate Office Building where the hearing was held, but fewer than 50 seats were available inside the small committee room. Many said on social media they came with plans to protest in the nearby Hart office building, where their voices will carry through the soaring atrium, before marching over to the Supreme Court.
Inside the committee room, actress Alyssa Milano waited for the proceedings to start. She was attending as a guest of Feinstein. Milano has been an outspoken activist in the #MeToo era.
The committee has 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats.