‘I thought he was going to rape me’
But Kavanaugh tells Senate Committe that he is innocent
Christine Blasey Ford has told a US Senate committee and a riveted nation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in a locked room at a 1980s high school gathering.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” said Ms Ford, 51, during the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Indelible... is the laughter, the uproarious laughter of the two. Christine Blasey Ford describing the alleged attack.
CHRISTINE BLASEY Ford has told a US Senate committee and a riveted nation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in a locked room at a 1980s high school gathering.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” said Ms Ford, 51, her voice breaking during the extraordinary hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But Brett Kavanaugh “unequivocally” denied sexually assaulting Christine Blasey Ford.
“I was not at the party described by Dr Ford,” Kavanaugh told the Committee.
“I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process,” Kavanaugh said. “I am innocent of this charge.”
Expressing certainty that Mr Kavanaugh was her alleged attacker, the California psychology professor explained how the brain remembers traumatic events.
“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter of the two,” she said, referring to Mr Kavanaugh and a friend who was with him.
Ms Ford told the committee that, one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Mr Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, “groped me and tried to take off my clothes”, then clamped his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream before she was able to escape.
Mr Kavanaugh, 53, has denied Ms Ford’s and other women’s allegations of sexual misconduct in a clash that has underscored America’s political and cultural fault lines.
But the accumulating accusonal sations have raised questions about whether Republican leaders will be able to hold Republican senators behind President Donald Trump’s nominee.
With millions watching on television, Ms Ford told the top committee Democrat, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, that she had “agonised daily” over coming forward about the alleged decades-old attack.
She said she feared the per- consequences would be akin to “jumping in front of a train”.
In fact, both she and Mr Kavanaugh have received death threats. Republicans have challenged Ms Ford’s and the other women’s allegations, in part because it took them years to come forward.
But when Ms Feinstein asked her how she could be sure that Mr Kavanaugh was the alleged attacker, Ms Ford said: “The same way I’m sure I’m talking to you right now.”
The judiciary panel’s 11 Republicans – all men – let Rachel Mitchell, a veteran sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona, ask their questions.
She began by expressing sympathy for Ms Ford, saying: “I just wanted to let you know, I’m very sorry. That’s not right.”
Ms Mitchell led Ms Ford through a detailed recollection of the events she says occurred on the day of the alleged incident.
But under the committee’s procedures, the career prosecutor was limited to five minutes at a time, interspersed between Democrats’ questions, creating a choppy effect as she tried piecing together the story.
Before she began, committee chairman Chuck Grassley defended the Republicans’ handling of the confirmation proceedings so far.