Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s prepared testimony for Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, released Wednesday, paints a story of a very reluctant witness, but ignores the proactive steps Ford took to prepare to present her story to the public: Hiring a radical Democrat Party supporting activist lawyer and her taking a polygraph examination in August.
Ford does let slip that she apparently stayed in touch throughout the summer with a Washington Post reporter who responded to her tip line call in early July and had ‘gained her trust’ such that she decided to giver her story to the Post in September.
Ford’s eight-page prepared remarks can be read at this link.
The statement recounts her now familiar, but hazy and inconsistent recounting story of the alleged attack at a small drunken high school party in the early 1980s.
When the testimony moves to the time frame from Kavanaugh’s nomination in early July through the present, Ford presents herself as a very reluctant, conflicted witness. She mentions many times her reticence at going public.
Missing from Ford’s testimony is any mention of her hiring the law firm of radical feminist Democratic Party activist Debra Katz: Katz, Marshall & Banks, LLP. Nor is there any mention of Ford taking a polygraph examination on August 7 in at a Hilton Hotel Linthicum Heights, Maryland. In her July 30 letter to Sen. Feinstein, Ford had stated she was “on vacation in the mid-Atlantic until August 7th” and would be in California after August 10th.
Excerpt starts at the bottom of Page 4:
…But until July 2018, I had never named Mr. Kavanaugh as my attacker outside of therapy.
This all changed in early July 2018. I saw press reports stating that Brett Kavanaugh was on the “short list” of potential Supreme Court nominees. 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.
On July 6, 2018, I had a sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the President as soon as possible before a nominee was selected. I called my congressional representative and let her receptionist know that someone on the President’s shortlist had attacked me. I also sent a message to The Washington Post’s confidential tip line. I did not use my name, but I provided the names of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. I stated that Mr. Kavanaugh had assaulted me in the 1980s in Maryland. This was an extremely hard thing for me to do, but I felt I couldn’t NOT do it. Over the next two days, I told a couple of close friends on the beach in California that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted me. I was conflicted about whether to speak out.
On July 9, 2018, I received a call from the office of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo after Mr. Kavanaugh had become the nominee. I met with her staff on July 11 and with her on July 13, describing the assault and discussing my fear about coming forward. Later, we discussed the possibility of sending a letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, who is one of my state’s Senators, describing what occurred. My understanding is that Representative Eshoo’s office delivered a copy of my letter to Senator Feinstein’s office on July 30, 2018. The letter included my name, but
requested that the letter be kept confidential.My hope was that providing the information confidentially would be sufficient to allow the Senate to consider Mr. Kavanaugh’s serious misconduct without having to make myself, my family, or anyone’s family vulnerable to the personal attacks and invasions of privacy we have faced since my name became public. In a letter on August 31, 2018, Senator Feinstein wrote that she would not share the letter without my consent. I greatly appreciated this commitment. All sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves whether their private experience is
made public.As the hearing date got closer, I struggled with a terrible choice: Do I share the facts with the Senate and put myself and my family in the public spotlight? Or do I preserve our privacy and allow the Senate to make its decision on Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination without knowing the full truth about his past behavior?
I agonized daily with this decision throughout August and early September 2018. The sense of duty that motivated me to reach out confidentially to The Washington Post, Representative Eshoo’s office, and Senator Feinstein’s office was always there, but my fears of the consequences of speaking out started to increase.
During August 2018, the press reported that Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation was virtually certain. His allies painted him as a champion of women’s rights and empowerment. I believed that if I came forward, my voice would be drowned out by a chorus of powerful supporters. By the time of the confirmation hearings, I had resigned myself to remaining quiet and letting the Committee and the Senate make their decision without knowing what Mr. Kavanaugh had done to me.
Once the press started reporting on the existence of the letter I had sent to Senator Feinstein, I faced mounting pressure. Reporters appeared at my home and at my job demanding information about this letter, including in the presence of my graduate students. They called my boss and coworkers and left me many messages, making it clear that my name would inevitably be released to the media. 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. It was important to me to describe the details of the assault in my own words…
