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Brett Kavanaugh Accuser Comes Forward

Kavanugh's categorical denial now locks him into a story.

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(SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

A Palo Alto University psychology professor, Christine Ford, has come forward to the Washington Post with her allegations about Brett Kavanaugh. She claims that, while in high-school, Kavanaugh and Mark Judge corralled her in a bedroom. She says Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, and groped her, and held his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams. She says both Kavanaugh and Judge were “stumbling drunk,” and Judge eventually jumped on top of both of them, allowing her to struggle free and lock herself in the bathroom until the boys left.

From the Washington Post:

Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.

While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.

“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Ford said she told no one about the incident, until 2012. She said that she told her story then, while in couple’s therapy, to her therapist and her husband. She produced notes from the 2012 session:

Ford said she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. The therapist’s notes, portions of which were provided by Ford and reviewed by The Washington Post, do not mention Kavanaugh’s name but say she reported that she was attacked by students “from an elitist boys’ school” who went on to become “highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington.” The notes say four boys were involved, a discrepancy Ford says was an error on the therapist’s part. Ford said there were four boys at the party but only two in the room.

To believe that she is categorically lying about her encounter with Kavanaugh now requires you to believe that a university professor made up a story to her husband and a third party six years ago, just in case she ever needed to completely expose her life to a ravenous right-wing media in the midst of a confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court Justice nominated by a reality-TV star.

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But Kavanaugh and Judge have kind of locked themselves into the defense that she’s categorically lying. Kavanaugh’s and Judge’s denials have left them no credible wiggle room.

From Kavanaugh: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” Kavanaugh said in a statement issued by the White House. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

From Judge: “It’s just absolutely nuts,” he said. “I never saw Brett act that way.”

That’s their story now. Many horrible people will try to explain away Ford’s account as a case of “boys-will-be-boys” — you know some kind of version of “this is normal male behavior” line is being workshopped by Republicans right now. But that’s not Kavanaugh’s and Judge’s stories. No, the friends are saying categorically and unequivocally that nothing like this happened.

They could have said “Yeah, we used to get drunk in high school.” I mean, Judge wrote a whole memoir about getting smashed, so I think people would have believed him if he had been able to remember his own writings. They could have tried a “I don’t remember all of the details of every party I went to in high school, but at no point did we try to rape or assault anybody.” Frankly, that’s what I would have expected them to say. That’s what a LAWYER would have said.

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But that’s not what they said. According to Kavanaugh and Judge, Ford’s story is categorically and unequivocally false. Because his buddy in the room “never saw Brett act that way.”

If true, Ford is not describing a “boyish prank.” She’s describing a sexual assault. In defense, Kavanaugh and Judge have offered only a blanket denial.

When they change their story, to SUDDENLY RECALL more about the incident, yet still try to paint Ford as untruthful, remember where they started, remember that delta. Remember that Ford seems to have been telling the same story for six years at least, while Kavanaugh and Judge try to get through a weekend on the same page.

California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks out about her allegation of sexual assault [Washington Post]

Earlier:

All Of Your Pro-Kavanaugh Vote Arguments Are Trash

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

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