Trump judge laughed as he tried to rape me, says professor
Dramatic testimony at Senate hearing
A WOMAN who accuses Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court of trying to rape her when she was 15 told a hearing yesterday how he laughed drunkenly as he carried out the attack.
Her voice breaking with emotion as she gave evidence to a high-stakes hearing at the Senate in Washington DC, Christine Blasey Ford said the alleged assault by Brett Kavanaugh ‘damaged my life’.
Dr Ford, a 51-year-old university professor, said she was ‘terrified’ to be questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but felt she had to do her ‘civic duty’ by revealing how Mr Kavanaugh had once thrown her on a bed and tried to rip off her clothes.
He attacked her so forcefully she had feared he might accidentally kill her, she claimed. Senators were seen wiping their eyes in the Capitol Hill hearing room as Dr Ford spoke powerfully about the 1982 incident she said was ‘seared into my memory’.
Giving his own testimony later, Mr Kavanaugh also fought back tears as he branded the allegations a ‘ grotesque and obvious character assassination’.
Dr Ford was speaking in public for the first time since she dramatically upended Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to America’s highest judicial body by alleging he sexually assaulted her at a high school party.
Two other women have since come forward with their own claims about Mr Kavanaugh, which he has vigorously denied.
His nomination to a nine-member court that has the final say on key issues such as abortion, immigration and gun rights must be approved by the US Senate, where the Republicans have only a slim majority.
With crucial congressional elections Republican looming in senators November, have some wavered in their support for the conservative judge and were waiting to see how convincing Dr Ford – and Mr Kavanaugh – would prove to be in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Mr Trump has accused Democrats of exploiting the claims for political ends but he has also said he could be swayed by the hearing into withdrawing the judge’s nomination. Although the only other witness to the attack – Mr Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge – has rejected her claims, Dr Ford proved a convincing witness.
She said: ‘I don’t remember as much as I would like to. But the details about that night that bring me here today are ones I will never forget. They have been seared into my memory.’
Like Mr Kavanaugh, who was then 17, she was a pupil at a singlesex private school in suburban summer Maryland who was on her holidays at the time.
Dr Ford, a married mother of two and respected psychology professor in California, said she had spent the day swimming at a local country club before she and a girlfriend joined four boys at a small house party that evening
When she went upstairs to the
lavatory, Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Judge followed her, she said.
While she had drunk just one beer, both of them were ‘visibly drunk’. One of them pushed her into a bedroom and they followed, locking the door and turning up the music.
‘I was pushed on to the bed and Brett got on top of me. He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me,’ she said, reading from a prepared statement. ‘I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy.’
She went on: ‘Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes. I believed he was going to rape me.’
When she tried to scream, Kavanaugh clamped his hand over her mouth, she recalled. ‘This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life,’ she said. ‘It was hard for me to breathe and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.’ Both boys were laughing drunkenly throughout the attack, she said. ‘They both seemed to be having a good time.’
Dr Ford finally escaped when Mr Judge jumped on top of them, sending all three of them sprawling and allowing her to flee.
She said she locked herself in the bathroom, waiting until she could hear the pair walking back downstairs before leaving.
Republicans, who have dismissed the allegations against Mr Kavanaugh as a smear campaign, questioned why the accusations did not come to light earlier.
Dr Ford said she didn’t tell her parents because she was scared to admit she had been ‘drinking with boys’. She said she had tried to move on and ‘pretend that it had never happened’, but its effects had stayed with her, and she had suffered panic attacks, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘Brett’s assault on me drastically altered my life,’ she added. ‘For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone the details.’
She eventually told a few close friends she had been sexually assaulted by a prominent judge but only identified him to her husband, Russell, during a 2012 couples counselling session.
She said what etched itself ‘indelibly’ in her memory was the sound of the pair’s laughter. ‘The uproarious laughter between the two. They’re having fun at my expense.’
It wasn’t until July this year that she alerted her local senator to the assault, when she read how supporters of Mr Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination were portraying him as a champion of women’s rights.
The hearing was riven by naked political partisanship, with grandstanding Republicans and Democrats battling for the moral high ground. Dr Ford flatly denied claims she was politically motivated. She said: ‘ It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell the truth.’
With even some Republican politicians admitting Dr Ford’s testimony was compelling, Mr Kavanaugh was left an uphill battle rescuing his nomination when he addressed the committee after her, having arrived with his wife Ashley.
Reading out his own statement, he unequivocally rejected Dr Ford’s claims, describing them as ‘lastminute smears’.
He fought back tears as he spoke of the ‘grotesque and obvious character assassination’ against him.
‘My family and my name have been permanently destroyed,’ he said, but vowed to fight on even if the final Senate vote goes against him’. He added: ‘I’m here today to tell the truth. I have never sexually assaulted anyone – not ever.’
Mr Kavanaugh became particularly emotional when he talked about what his youngest daughter told his wife the night before he testified. ‘Little Liza, all of 10 years old, said to Ashley, “We should pray for the woman”. That’s a lot of wisdom from a 10-year-old.’
He was scathing when asked about claims made by another accuser, Julie Swetnick, he drugged girls at high school then took part in gang- raping them. He said angrily: ‘The Swetnick thing is a joke. It’s a farce.’
Mr Kavanaugh, who cannot recall if he ever encountered Dr Ford as a teenager, added that he and his family meant her ‘no ill will’. The hearing was continuing last night.