Professor Christine Blasey Ford has long worried about the personal cost that would accompany her honesty if she voiced her sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, according to a Monday Mercury News report.
“I’ve been trying to forget this all my life, and now I’m supposed to remember every little detail,” Jim Gensheimer, Ford’s friend in whom she confided this summer, recalled her saying. “They’re going to be all over me.”
Another friend, Rebecca White, said that Ford told her about the alleged assault in 2017 when White tweeted her own “#MeToo” story about being raped as a teenager.
“She reached out to me afterward, supporting me and my story and that she had something happen to her when she was really young and that the guy was a federal judge,” White told the Mercury News. “She said she had been assaulted. She said hers had been violent as well, physically scary, fighting for her life.” She added that it was difficult for Ford to reconcile the idea that her attacker was a “super powerful guy” who could be a “Supreme Court contender one day.”
One friend, Kirsten Leimroth, told the Mercury News that Ford had told her that she’d been “almost raped by a high school acquaintance” long ago, calling the suggestion that Ford was lying “preposterous” and noting that Ford has had to temporarily relocate her family and shut down all of her social media accounts.
Leimroth added that Ford vacillated on coming forward for a long time, worrying that since the alleged attack was not “actual rape it’s not going to do any good. He’s going to go through,” Leimroth recalled Ford saying about Kavanaugh’s confirmation. “Do I want to put myself through this?”
Leimroth also pushed back against the notion that Ford had confused the identity of her attacker, saying that they ran in the same circles and had met before.
A group of 15 women from Ford’s town have reportedly formed a group text to show her support.
This is the kind of background info that lends credibility to her accusations.
There is at least one other victim out there IMHO. This happened so long ago that I seriously doubt it is what they were expecting when they put together the 65 female whitewash. I think they were surprised by Ford. I believe they were preparing for a different episode(s) from his past.
Just saying…
Quite possibly. How could this be a singular incident? It’s the kind of behavior that is part of a pattern. (The boys I knew in high school who were gropey were gropey with just about everybody, although to be fair to them they did not try to rape people.) I hope Mark Judge can be induced to testify. It appears that he has deleted his social media accounts, but he is such a prolific writer that there must be a lot of fodder for questioning out there.
Something that helps make Dr. Ford’s story ring true to me is the Starr Report. At the time I read it, I thought “This Kenneth Starr guy is sure a dirty old man.” Now that I know it was written by Brett Kavanaugh, that thought has been revised only to the extent that the author was a dirty youngish man. Whoever wrote that tome was clearly obsessed with sex, and not in a good way. I mean, it recounts every blow job or heavy petting session in excruciatingly explicit and unnecessary detail. I suspect there is much more in Kavanaugh’s background that is likely to come to light.
Yep. And if one does come out he’ll need a lot more than 65 women to sign on to a letter. It will be over for KavaNO.
Interesting! That hadn’t occurred to me, but it makes sense especially if BK and his friend were as intoxicated as Dr. Ford says. He may not have even remembered assaulting her and she may not be the woman he was worried about coming forward in the first place.
I can’t imagine the courage it must take for her to speak out. I’m fairly certain that I just wouldn’t be able to do it. I imagine that there are a lot more women like me who just wouldn’t, for various reasons, be able to put themselves and their families through that sort of scrutiny and all assault from the right. And it’s not just about you either. It’s would be a nightmare for your spouse, kids, parents, siblings, etc. Plus, not every victim goes on to lead the kind of stellar life that it sounds like Dr. Ford has. A victim who has struggled terribly, maybe even as a result of the sexual assault, might be too afraid of having her demons exposed and her reputation dragged through the mud. Because these days it’s not like you just have to worry about the wing nut media attacking you, or some crazy person with a gun, you have to consider that you’ll very likely face an onslaught of tweets from the highest vestiges of power on the planet.
Just brainstorming here, but I think one of the things dems should take away from this is that for future high level nominations, a public statement should come out inviting past victims of the nominee to submit their stories confidentially with the understanding that the story has to be verified in some way, it’s harder to prove if the victim wants to stay anonymous, etc. Sure, it could invite abuse by clowns, but that’s the world we live in today when we can’t expect background checks to find unreported stories or nominees to incriminate themselves.
Republicans should also have this takeaway, but they won’t.