The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee is moving ahead with plans to vote on the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh today as a Supreme Court justice. This comes after an extraordinary day of testimony from Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychologist who testified she was “100 percent positive” that it was Kavanaugh who attempted to rape her at a high school party in 1982. During the hearing, Kavanaugh said he was innocent, and claimed he was the victim of a left-wing plot of, quote, “revenge on behalf of the Clintons,” unquote. Republicans are hoping to push ahead with a full vote in the Senate this weekend or early next week, even though the FBI has not investigated the allegations of Dr. Blasey Ford or other women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault or misconduct.
In a major development, the American Bar Association has called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to halt the Kavanaugh confirmation process until an FBI investigation is completed. In a letter to the committee, the ABA said, quote, “We make this request because of ABA’s respect for the rule of law and due process under law.” The ABA had previously given Kavanaugh its highest rating of “unanimous well-qualified” for the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, editors of America magazine, the national weekly published by the Jesuits of the United States, called for Kavanaugh’s nomination to be withdrawn. Georgetown Prep—that’s Georgetown Preparatory School, where Kavanaugh was a student when he allegedly assaulted Blasey Ford—is a Jesuit high school.
Dr. Christine Blasey Ford:
I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school. I have described the events publicly before. I summarized them in my letter to Ranking Member Feinstein and again in a the letter to Chairman Grassley. I understand and appreciate the importance of your hearing from me directly about what happened to me and the impact that it has had on my life and on my family.
I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I attended the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1978 to 1984. Holton-Arms is an all-girls school that opened in 1901. During my time at the school, girls at Holton-Arms frequently met and became friendly with boys from all-boys schools in the area, including the Landon School, Gorgetown Prep, Gonzaga High School, as well as our country clubs and other places where kids and families socialized.
This is how I met Brett Kavanaugh, the boy who sexually assaulted me. During my freshman and sophomore school years, when I was 14 and 15 years old, my group of friends intersected with Brett and his friends for a short period of time. I had been friendly with a classmate of Brett’s for a short time during my freshman and sophomore year. And it was through that connection that I attended a number of parties that Brett also attended. We did not know each other well, but I knew him, and he knew me.
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In a letter dated August 31st, Senator Feinstein wrote that she would not share the letter without my explicit consent, and I appreciated this commitment. Sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves when and 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 without knowing the full truth of his past behaviors? I agonized daily with this decision throughout August and September 2018. The sense of duty that originally motivated me to reach out confidentially to The Washington Post and to Anna Eshoo’s office when there were still a list of extremely qualified candidates, and to Senator Feinstein, was always there, but my fears of the consequences of speaking out started to exponentially increase.
During August 2018, the press reported that Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation was virtually certain. Persons painted him as a champion of women’s rights and empowerment. And I believed that if I came forward, my single 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 workplace, demanding information about the letter in the presence of my graduate students. They called my bosses and co-workers 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 originally responded to the tip I had sent to the The Washington Post and who had gained my trust. It was important for me to describe the details of the assault in my own words.
Since September 16th, the date of The Washington Post story, I have experienced an outpouring of support from people in every state of this country. Thousands and thousands of people who have had their lives dramatically altered by sexual violence have reached out to share their experience and have thanked me for coming forward. We have received tremendous support from our friends and our community.
At the same time, my greatest fears have been realized, and the reality has been far worse than what I expected. My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats, and I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable. These messages, while far fewer than the expressions of support, have been terrifying and have rocked me to my core. People have posted my personal information and that of my parents online on the internet. This has resulted in additional emails, calls and threats. My family and I were forced to move out of our home. Since September 16th, my family and I have been visiting in various secure locales, at times separated and at times together, with the help of security guards. This past Tuesday evening, my work email account was hacked, and messages were sent out trying to recant my description of the sexual assault.
Apart from the assault itself, these past couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life. I have had to relive this trauma in front of the world, and I’ve seen my life picked apart by people on television, on Twitter, other social media, other media and in this body, who have never met me or spoken with me. I have been accused of acting out of partisan political motives. Those who say that do not know me. I am an independent person, and I am no one’s pawn.
My motivation in coming forward was to be helpful and to provide facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that you could take that into a serious consideration as you make your decision about 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 you the truth.
I understand that a professional prosecutor has been hired to ask me questions, and I’m committed to doing my very best to answer them. I have never been questioned by a prosecutor, and I will do my best. At the same time, because the committee members will be judging my credibility, I do hope to be able to engage directly with each of you.
— source democracynow.org | 2018/9/28