WHAT THEY REMEMBER
CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD I’m ‘100 percent’ sure he assaulted me.
Christine Blasey Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that she was “100 percent” certain a drunken young Brett Kavanaugh had pinned her to a bed, tried to remove her clothes and clapped a hand over her mouth as she tried to yell for help.
After Ford and Kavanaugh finished their testimony Thursday, senators said the panel is expected to vote this morning on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, with a final vote possible early next week.
In her three hours of testimony, Ford’s tone was polite but firm as she detailed her accusations but offered no major new revelations. Rachel Mitchell, a veteran sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona who asked all questions of Ford for the committee’s allmale GOP senators, seemed to elicit no significant inconsistencies.
During her testimony, Ford, now 51, said of Kavanaugh, “I believed he was going to rape me.”
Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont for her strongest memory of the alleged incident, Ford mentioned the two boys’ “laughter — the uproarious laughter between the two and they’re having fun at my expense.”
Ford said Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge, was in the room during the attack.
When the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, asked how she could be sure that Kavanaugh was the attacker, Ford said, “The same way I’m sure I’m talking to you right now.” Later, she told Durbin her certainty was “100 percent.”
Ford, a California psychology professor, said the incident has “haunted me episodically as an adult.” She said she was “terrified” to testify before the committee and that she “agonized daily” about whether to come forward.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., brought Ford to tears when he thanked her for coming forward.
“If we agree on nothing else today, I hope on a bipartisan basis we can agree on how much courage it has taken for you to come forward, and I think you have earned America’s gratitude,” Blumenthal said.
Ford silently mouthed, “Thank you.” Ford cried again when Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., called her “heroic.”
Questioning of Ford proceeded in five-minute chunks. Other than committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the committee’s Republicans stayed mum, each instead having Mitchell ask questions during his allotted minutes. The 11 Republicans on the committee are all men.
“I found no reason to find her not credible,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said after Ford completed her testimony, though he said Kavanaugh’s “reputation is on the line, his career as well.”
Mitchell’s questioning presented a stark contrast to the sweeping statements of support from Democrats. Mitchell spent most of her time trying to clarify details of Ford’s story, covering the night of the alleged assault and the professor’s decision to come forward by confidentially telling her congressional representative and the Washington Post.
Ford said that though they went to different high schools, she had been friendly with a classmate of Kavanaugh’s and attended a number of parties that the future judge also attended.
Ford said she did not recall whether she had expected Kavanaugh to be at the gathering. She did expect Kavanaugh’s friend Judge and her close friend Leland Ingham to be present, she said.
Kavanaugh and Judge, she said, “were extremely inebriated. They had clearly been drinking prior [to the gathering], and the other people at the party had not.”
She said the attack occurred after she went upstairs to use the bathroom. She said she was pushed into a bedroom and onto a bed and that Kavanaugh got on top of her. Judge was in the room and encouraged the attack, she said.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” Ford said. Kavanaugh put his hand on her mouth to keep her from screaming, she said, and because it was hard for her to breathe, “I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.”
She said Judge, who has denied any part in such an attack, jumped on them and she was able to escape.
Asked what she remembers from that night, Ford responded: “The stairwell, the living room, the bedroom, the bed on the right side of the room as you walk into the room — there was a bed to the right — the bathroom in close proximity, the laughter — the uproarious laughter — and the multiple attempts to escape and the final ability to do so.”
Under questioning from Mitchell, Ford said she didn’t know how she got home that night. She said the party took place “somewhere between” her home and the Columbia Country Club, about 7 miles away. The Washington Post previously reported she told the paper the party took place near the country club.
“Has anyone come forward to say to you, ‘Hey, remember, I was the one that drove you home’?” Mitchell asked.
“No,” Ford responded. She said she didn’t have her driver’s license at the time.
In opening the hearing, Grassley said, “I want to apologize to you both for the way you’ve been treated,” referring to threats made against Ford and Kavanaugh after her allegation became public.
As she prepared to leave, he thanked her “for your bravery coming out and trying to answer our questions as best you could remember.”
Feinstein thanked Ford for her “strength and bravery in coming forward.”
“This is not a trial for Dr. Ford,” Feinstein said. “It’s a job interview for Judge Kavanaugh.”
After Ford’s testimony, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said her testimony had not shaken his support of Kavanaugh. He called her “a nice lady who has come forward to tell a hard story that is uncorroborated.”