A voice has resurfaced from Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s past with a letter alleging that he and another classmate assaulted a California professor in the 1980s while the three were in high school.
The victim, Christine Blasey Ford, who decided to speak publicly with her identity and story Sunday, Sept. 16, felt her life was in danger. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” she said.
Ford is a Palo Alto University professor, teaching psychology at PAU as well as Stanford.
“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,” the Washington Post relayed.
“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,” the article continues.
The woman escaped before the incident progressed and left the party.
According to The New Yorker, Ford reached out to the offices of her congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Sen. Dianne Feinstein over the summer, and after connecting with both, the professor declined to speak out publicly, until this week when her privacy was “being chipped away,” reported BBC.
Feinstein said Thursday, Sept. 13 that the issue is being handled by the F.B.I.
The response to the allegation is multi-faceted, with Republican officials dismissing talk of postponing the nomination decision, Kavanaugh himself denying the incident wholeheartedly and a letter from his high-school classmates defending his character.
A second letter addressed to Sen. Charles Grassley and Sen. Feinstein Friday from 65 women who knew him at the time said, “For the entire time we have known (Kavanaugh), he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect.”
“Many of us have remained close friends with him and his family over the years,” the letter continues. “Through the more than 35 years we have known him, (Kavanaugh) has stood out for his friendship, character and integrity.” It concludes with asserting that the women have a wide array of political views.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” Kavanaugh said.