Christine Blasey Ford will testify in front of Congress Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “groped” her and tried to take off her clothes, according to her prepared remarks.
“I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming,” Blasey Ford will say, according to the remarks.
She thought Kavanaugh was accidentally going to kill her, according to the remarks.
“Both Brett and [Kavanugh friend] Mark [Judge] were drunkenly laughing during the attack,” the prepared remarks say. “They both seemed to be having a good time.”
Kavanaugh, who will also testify Thursday at the Judiciary Committee hearing, has vehemently denied the allegations.
Blasey Ford remarks go through the account she laid out in letters to lawmakers, and to the Washington Post, which first publicly reported her identity. She alleges that she was at a party with Kavanaugh, Judge and two other people she has identified, though she hasn’t been able to recall other details about the party, which said in her remarks “almost surely” was “a spur of the moment gathering.”
She said she was pushed into a bedroom upstairs when she was on the way to use the bathroom, and was locked in there with Kavanaugh and Judge.
Her statement says the alleged assault “drastically altered” her life, and that she was too ashamed to tell anyone at the time, in part because was afraid to tell her parents she was at a house drinking without any parents.
“I tried to convince myself that because Brett did not rape me, I should be able to move on and just pretend that it had never happened,” the remarks say.
The incident did come up in a 2012 therapy session, which Blasey Ford said was the only place she identified him by name as her attacker. She confided in others over the years about her experience with sexual assault, according to the remarks, and “occasionally” she “stated that my assailant was a prominent lawyer or judge but I did not use his name.”
That changed when she read that Kavanaugh was on President Trump’s short list for the Supreme Court this summer.
“I thought it was my civic duty to relay the information I had about Mr. Kavanaugh’s conduct so that those considering his potential nomination would know about the assault,” her remarks says. She had hoped she could provide the information confidentially to lawmakers to allow them to review while considering Kavanaugh, without sacrificing her or her family’s privacy.
She left a message with the receptionist of her congresswoman Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and also called the Washington Post’s tip line. After meeting with Eshoo and sending a letter to top Judiciary Dem Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Blasey Ford “agonized daily” the decision to go public.
Her remarks recount the “mounting pressure” she felt once the existence of the letter was reported on, and journalists showed up at her home and her job.
“I decided to speak out publicly to a journalist who had responded to the tip I had sent to The Washington Post and who had gained my trust,” the remarks say. “It was important to me to describe the details of the assault in my own words.”
Her remarks say that her “greatest fears” about coming out publicly “have been realized” and “the reality has been far worse than what I expected.”
Death threats and messages calling her the “most vile and hateful names imaginable” have “have rocked me to my core,” her remarks. After her personal information was posted online, she and her family have been moving around and living with guards, according to the remarks.
“Apart from the assault itself, these last couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life,” her remarks say. “I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and have seen my life picked apart by people on television, in the media, and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me”
She addressed allegations that she was “acting out of partisan political motives,” and said that, “I am a fiercely independent person and I am no one’s pawn.”
“My motivation in coming forward was to provide the facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that you can take that into serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed,” her remarks 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.”
