One day before the expected dramatic showdown on Capitol Hill, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, have released their prepared opening statements to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kavanaugh wrote that “this effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out,” while Ford wrote that she is “terrified,” but considers giving her account of Kavanaugh’s sexual assaulting of her when they were both in high school to be her “civic duty.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee released Kavanaugh’s prepared statement as news broke of new sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh by a third woman, raising new questions about the fate of his Supreme Court nomination.
“I drank beer with my friends, usually on weekends. Sometimes I had too many,” Kavanaugh says. “In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now. But that’s not why we are here today. What I’ve been accused of is far more serious than juvenile misbehavior. I never did anything remotely resembling what Dr. Ford describes.”
Kavanaugh wrote in his statement that he denied Ford’s allegations of sexual assault “immediately, unequivocally, and categorically,” and asked the Senate Judiciary Committee the following day to hold a hearing so he could testify and clear his name, ABC News reports.
The Supreme Court nominee argued that has been a “frenzy to come up with something” to block his nomination, and that “such grotesque and obvious character assassination…will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country.”
Kavanaugh argued that a federal judge must always be independent and not “swayed by public or political pressure,” adding that that is the type of judge he is and always will be. He added that these allegations and “effort to destroy [his] good name” will not intimidate him from withdrawing from his nomination.
In his statement, Kavanaugh wrote that sexual assault allegations must be taken seriously and those who make the allegations “deserve to be heard.”
The Supreme Court nominee reiterated his denial of Ford’s allegations, stating that he has “never sexually assaulted anyone—not in high school, not in college, not ever.”
“The record of my life, from my days in grade school through the present day, shows that I have always promoted the equality and dignity of women,” Kavanaugh wrote.
via Alex Brandon/Associated Press & ResearchGate.net
In Ford’s prepared opening statement, she said she believes that Kavanaugh was “trying to rape [her],” referring to the incident she said happened at a house party in the summer of 1982 where Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her and covered her mouth so she could not scream, ABC News reports.
“I am not here because I want to be. I am terrified. I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school,” she wrote, adding the impact that the incident had on her life.
Ford wrote that she had been “friendly with a classmate of Brett’s” and that it was “through that connection” that she came to attend a number of parties that Kavanaugh also attended.
While she said it was difficult to recall all of the details of the incident, such as where the party took place and how she got there, she said that she has never forgotten Kavanaugh’s actions and that they have “haunted [her] episodically as an adult.”
She recounted the details of the assault, saying that she walked up a flight of stairs at the party and was pushed into a bedroom from behind when she reached the top of the stairs. It was then Kavanaugh and Mark Judge entered the room, and Kavanaugh pinned her to the bed. According to her statement, it was when Judge jumped onto the bed that the three of them went tumbling and Ford was able to escape.
Though she kept the incident to herself for years, when she learned that Kavanaugh was on the “short-list” for the Supreme Court nomination that she reached out to her congresswoman.
At the end of her prepared statement, Ford wrote that her “motivation in coming forward was to provide the facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that [the committee] can take that into serious consideration” as it makes its decision on “how to proceed.”
“It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell the truth,” Ford concluded.
You can read Kavanaugh’s full prepared opening statement, as well as Ford’s prepared statement.