This could be the reason why the Senate Democrats and Christine Blasey Ford kept trying to delay a hearing and confirmation for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The New Yorker dropped a story from Ronan Farrow about a woman alleging that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during their time at Yale.
Sen. Chuck Grassley also released the letter from Ford that came into Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s possession in July.
Kavanaugh released another letter to Grassley and Feinstein:
These are smears, pure and simple. And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country. Such grotesque and obvious character assassination—if allowed to succeed—will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service.As I told the Committee during my hearing, a federal judge must be independent, not swayed by public or political pressure. That is the kind of judge I will always be. I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. The last-minute character assassination will not succeed.
From The Washington Examiner:
The chief of police in Montgomery County, Md., says his officers are not looking into sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, appearing to contradict a local news report that “investigators” were looking at a potential second high school misconduct allegation.”I have spoken with my chief of detectives, and neither of us have any knowledge of anyone coming forward to us to report any allegations involving Judge Kavanaugh,” police Chief J. Thomas Manger told the Washington Examiner in an email.The Montgomery County Sentinel reported Monday that “Montgomery County investigators” were “looking at” a “potential second sexual assault complaint” dating from Kavanaugh’s senior year the Georgetown Prep high school “after an anonymous witness came forward this weekend.”The local publication did not identify the “investigators” as police, but ordinarily police would investigate an alleged crime before a decision on whether to prosecute.The Montgomery County Sentinel reported that the allegation “would potentially bring the number to four women accusing Kavanaugh of wrongdoing.”
Buried in this New York Times article are two incredibly important details about the two allegations against Kavanaugh:
The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.
We finally have the letter from Ford that Sen. Dianne Feinstein has had since July.
Stormy Daniels’ attention-seeking lawyer Michael Avenatti screamed on Twitter that he has a client who also has allegations against Kavanaugh.
Apparently Kavanaugh led a group of young men to train them how to gang rape….
From Fox News:
“This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so,” Kavanaugh said. “This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name–and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building–against these last-minute allegations.”White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec said: “This 35-year-old, uncorroborated claim is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man. This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say. The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh.”
I’ll leave with this thread from Larry O’Connor:
Deborah Ramirez studied sociology and psychology at Yale University, the same time that Kavanaugh attended.
The New Yorker reached out to her, but she hesitated to tell her story due to gaps in her memories and the fact that she drank the evening of the alleged assault. From The New Yorker:
Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words, as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”
The New Yorker contacted the classmates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh, but some did not respond to requests or declined to comment. Others told the publication that “they did not attend or remember the party.” One person spoke to Farrow:
A classmate of Ramirez’s, who declined to be identified because of the partisan battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, said that another student told him about the incident either on the night of the party or in the next day or two. The classmate said that he is “one-hundred-per-cent sure” that he was told at the time that Kavanaugh was the student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He independently recalled many of the same details offered by Ramirez, including that a male student had encouraged Kavanaugh as he exposed himself. The classmate, like Ramirez, recalled that the party took place in a common room on the first floor in Entryway B of Lawrance Hall, during their freshman year. “I’ve known this all along,” he said. “It’s been on my mind all these years when his name came up. It was a big deal.” The story stayed with him, he said, because it was disturbing and seemed outside the bounds of typically acceptable behavior, even during heavy drinking at parties on campus. The classmate said that he had been shocked, but not necessarily surprised, because the social group to which Kavanaugh belonged often drank to excess. He recalled Kavanaugh as “relatively shy” until he drank, at which point he said that Kavanaugh could become “aggressive and even belligerent.”
Classmate Richard Oh said that he overheard after the party about “a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis, followed by a male student exposing himself.”
Others who were there denied the event took place:
In a statement, two of those male classmates who Ramirez alleged were involved in the incident, the wife of a third male student she said was involved, and three other classmates, Dino Ewing, Louisa Garry, and Dan Murphy, disputed Ramirez’s account of events: “We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale. He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place. Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale. We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it—and we did not. The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett. In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett’s Supreme Court nomination was pending. Editors from the New Yorker contacted some of us because we are the people who would know the truth, and we told them that we never saw or heard about this.”The former friend who was married to the male classmate alleged to be involved, and who signed the statement said of Ramirez, “This is a woman I was best friends with. We shared intimate details of our lives. And I was never told this story by her, or by anyone else. It never came up. I didn’t see it; I never heard of it happening.” She said she hadn’t spoken with Ramirez for about ten years, but that the two women had been close all through college, and Kavanaugh had remained part of what she called their “larger social circle.” In an initial conversation with The New Yorker, she suggested that Ramirez may have been politically motivated. Later, she said that she did not know if this was the case.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY