Dr. Christine Blasey Ford made a rare public appearance to accept the ACLU of Southern California’s Rodger Baldwin Courage Award over the weekend, explaining in more depth and detail what motivated her to come forward against now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in September 2018. (Almost 14 months ago Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh assaulted her when both were in high school in 1982. He has denied the accusations and was later confirmed to the bench.)
“When I came forward last September, I did not feel courageous,” Blasey Ford said in her acceptance speech. “I was simply doing my duty as a citizen.” So much so, she added, that she felt certain anyone in her position would “of course do the same thing.” But what seemed to her to be an essential and obvious move had a greater impact—and came at a greater cost—than she could have anticipated.
After her appearance before the Senate committee, Blasey Ford and her family were faced with threats, forcing them to move from their home and enhance their personal security.
“I was prepared for a variety of outcomes, including being dismissed,” she said over the weekend of her decision to speak out. “I was not prepared for the venom, the consistent attacks, the vilification, the loss of personal privacy, and the collateral damages to my friends and my family. I was not prepared to be physically threatened, or forced out of our home for over three months. I have learned a lot over the past year. I have learned there’s a well-financed attack machine out there ready to flood the internet and the media anytime I raise my head. And I know it’s not going to go away.”
In coming forward, Blasey Ford faced greater scrutiny and cruelty than most of her critics can imagine. But, she went on, even in the face of relentless attacks, she found strength. “Though I underestimated the pain, I also underestimated the love and the support that I have received,” she said.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been two months since the contentious Senate confirmation hearings for now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who testified about her alleged sexual assault by Kavanaugh as a teenager, those two months have likely felt like a lifetime.
In early October, Blasey Ford said she and her family had already been forced to move four times due to ongoing threats. And last week (per The Cut), she updated supporters via a message on a GoFundMe page set up to help defray costs incurred because of her testimony and the ensuing security concerns.
“Words are not adequate to thank all of you who supported me since I came forward to tell the Senate that I had been sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh,” Blasey Ford wrote. “Your tremendous outpouring of support and kind letters have made it possible for us to cope with the immeasurable stress, particularly the disruption to our safety and privacy. Because of your support, I feel hopeful that our lives will return to normal.” She goes on to call the donations a “godsend” that have allowed her family to beef up security in light of “to protect ourselves against frightening threats.” Those security measures include physical protection, added features to their home, and housing while they were displaced.
The GoFundMe has raised almost $650,000—but now Blasey Ford is closing it to donations. “With immense gratitude, I am closing this account to further contributions,” she says. “All funds unused after completion of security expenditures will be donated to organizations that support trauma survivors. I am currently researching organizations where the funds can best be used. We will use this space to let you know when that process is complete.”
Even with all that has come with it, Blasey Ford is steadfast in her belief that she needed to do her civic duty in coming forward about Kavanaugh. (He has always vehemently denied the allegations.)
“Although coming forward was terrifying, and caused disruption to our lives, I am grateful to have had the opportunity to fulfill my civic duty,” she concludes. “Having done so, I am in awe of the many women and men who have written me to share similar life experiences, and now have bravely shared their experience with friends and family, many for the first time. I send you my heartfelt love and support.”
Over the weekend, Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed as an Associate Justice for the United States Supreme Court to applause from the right, many of whom celebrated his appointment with congratulatory tweets and beer (a nod to the many times he referenced the alcoholic beverage during his fiery testimony).
Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee almost two weeks ago about her allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh, is still receiving “distressing” death threats and has been unable to return to her home. Ford alleged that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to remove her clothes, even covering her mouth at one point, during a 1982 party when they were both in high school.
Ford’s attorney, Debra Katz, revealed this information in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday. “This has been terrifying,” she said. “Her family has been through a lot. They are not living at home. It’s going to be quite some time before they’re able to live at home. The threats have been unending. It’s deplorable. It’s been very frightening.”
Katz said that Ford has “also received extraordinary letters of support and encouragement.”
The nomination, hearings, and confirmation vote have been one of the most divisive in history. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted after Ford and Kavanaugh’s testimonies before the Senate Judiciary Committee showed that 43 percent of those surveyed believed the California professor to be telling the truth compared to 33 percent for former DC Circuit judge.
Even still, it is Ford who continues to pay the price for coming forward with her story. That she is facing such vitriol and extreme threatening behavior is horribly sad, but not even close to shocking. It is fear of this sort of response that can frighten women into not reporting their assaults.
But not Ford, who stated in her initial written testimony, “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.”
Meanwhile, Kavanaugh is expected to hear his first case on Tuesday.
“I, too, was sexually assaulted — not 36 years ago but about 50 years ago,” Chung writes. “I have kept my dirty little secret to myself. Silence for five decades.”
She says the abuser was her family’s trusted doctor—the man who had delivered her as a baby in 1946. Much like Ford’s recollection before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the exact time and date may not be clear in her memory, but Chung writes with certainty about who assaulted her.
“It was the 1960s. I was in college. The sexual revolution was in full swing. The exact date and year are fuzzy. But details of the event are vivid — forever seared in my memory. Am I sure who did it? Oh yes, 100 percent.”
Similarly, Ford told the committee of her certainty about Kavanaugh when asked by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) how she was sure it was him. “The same way that I’m sure that I’m talking to you right now,” Ford said.
The details Chung describes in the piece are painful to read (and may be triggering to some). She visited her doctor to secure birth control and found herself on his examination table awaiting her first gynecological exam.
“While I stared at the ceiling, his right index finger massaged my clitoris. With his right middle finger inserted in my vagina, he moved both fingers rhythmically. He coached me verbally in a soft voice, ‘Just breathe. Ah-ah,’ mimicking the sound of soft breathing. ‘You’re doing fine,’ he assured me. Suddenly, to my shock, I had an orgasm for the first time in my life. My body jerked several times. Then he leaned over, kissed me, a peck on my lips, and slipped behind the curtain to his office area. I don’t remember saying anything to him. I could not even look at him. I quickly dressed and drove home.”
Chung thinks she may have told one of her sisters, but did not tell her parents or report the doctor to authorities. “It never crossed my mind to protect other women. Please understand, I was actually embarrassed about my sexual naiveté,” she writes. “I was in my 20s and knew nothing about sex. All I wanted to do was bury the incident in my mind and protect my family.”
In another heartbreaking detail (and an added layer to why some women don’t report assault), she says that her mother could neither read nor write in English—and she could not drive. (Her parents immigrated from China the year before she was born.) So that she did not have to return to the doctor’s office, Chung told her mother he lived too far away. She eventually told her husband, but doesn’t recall exactly when.
Like Ford, she says she is “terrified” about making this public revelation. “I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Can you?” she asks. “If you can’t, I understand. I am frightened, I am scared, I can’t even cry.”
“I wish I could forget this truthful event, but I cannot because it is the truth. I am writing to you because I know that exact dates, exact years are insignificant. We remember exactly what happened to us and who did it to us. We remember the truth forever. Bravo, Christine, for telling the truth.”
President Donald Trump may have stooped to a new low Tuesday night when he decided to openly mock Christine Blasey Ford and her allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during a rally in Mississippi.
And honestly, the only thing that’s surprising is that it took this long to happen. Gone are the headlines that touted the president’s “restraint,” like CNN’s, which read “Aides quietly stunned by Trump’s respectful handling of Kavanaugh accuser.” In the piece, two sources quoted Trump as saying, “Why would I attack her?”
But last night, that’s exactly what he did, going so far as to imitate Ford.
“’I had one beer.’ Well do you think it was… ‘Nope. It was one beer.’ Oh good. How did you get home? ‘I don’t remember.’ How did you get there? ‘I don’t remember.’ Where is the place? ‘I don’t remember,'” Trump said, prompting laughter from those in the crowd. “How many years ago was it? ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.’ What neighborhood was it in? ‘I don’t know.’ Where’s the house? ‘I don’t know. Upstairs. Downstairs. I don’t know. But I had one beer that’s the only thing I remember.'”
“And a man’s life is in tatters,” Trump continued. “A man’s life is shattered.” Then, echoing his comments from earlier in the day when he expressed fear for young men in the age of #MeToo, he claimed that he had many “false allegations” against him, adding that the crowd should “think of your son” because men are “guilty until proven innocent.”
Perhaps even more jarring than Trump’s own outrageous words is the laughter and applause of the crowd. Many social media users made the astute connection between the reactions at the rally and Ford’s poignant testimony about her memory of the alleged attack: “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two,” she said of the one thing she remembers the most about that night more than 30 years ago.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)—who helped request the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh which delayed the confirmation vote—appeared on the Today show Wednesday morning and condemned Trump’s speech. “There’s no time and no place for remarks like that,” he said. “I wish he hadn’t have done it. It’s kind of appalling.”
Twitter agreed—and many wonder how this type of rhetoric will affect senators like Flake, Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) who are thought to be on the fence regarding their Kavanaugh nomination votes.
As Christine Blasey Ford took her seat at a table in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today to answer questions regarding her allegations of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, I was not working under any pretense that she would be treated fairly by the Republican senators, every one of them male and quite a few well past the age of 60. History (see: Hill, Anita) and the members’ own reluctance to allow an FBI investigation into Blasey Ford’s claims were evidence enough.
Before today’s hearings even began, Blasey Ford had been referred to as “mixed up” by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and he bookended that dismissive comment by calling her “pleasing” and an “attractive witness” after her testimony today.
As today’s proceedings went on, that low hum of condescension grew louder and louder.
To see how these Republican men conducted themselves in real-time blinded me with the kind of rage I haven’t felt since Donald Trump loomed menacingly behind Hillary Clinton during that presidential debate back in 2016. The contempt for women was, to me, on full display and indicative of a type of behavior that we see from the right too often.
From the moment Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), an 85-year-old, began his opening statement, it was clear he was irritated to be holding this hearing in the first place. The man was feeling ornery—and he was about to let everybody know it.
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee
After apologizing to both Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, he launched into a winding rant that blamed the Democrats and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), for how Blasey Ford’s confidential letter was handled. (For her part, Blasey Ford has said that Feinstein followed her wishes, not releasing her name and keeping the allegations from the public.)
These women, Grassley seemed to imply, had gotten in the way of a nomination that he’d planned to push through smoothly—and you could hear the anger in his voice. “I lament the way this hearing has come about,” he said. “My staff made repeated requests to interview Dr. Ford during the past eleven days, even volunteering to fly to California to take her testimony. But her attorneys refused to present her allegations to Congress. I nevertheless honored her request for a public hearing, so Dr. Ford today has the opportunity to present her allegations under oath.”
From the moment Chairman Chuck Grassley, 85, began his opening statement, it was clear he was irritated to be holding this hearing in the first place—and he was about to let everybody know it.
It was his tone as much as his words that stunned me, and that was before the interrupting started.
When Feinstein, the ranking minority member on the committee, took her allotted opening time, she used part of it to introduce Blasey Ford. “Before you get to your testimony—and the chairman chose not to do this,” she said. “I think it’s important to make sure you’re properly introduced.” But Grassley jumped in as she spoke, “I was going to introduce her. But if you want to introduce her, I’d be glad to have you do that, but I want you to know I didn’t forget to do that because I would do that just as she was about to speak.”
That was the first of many times Grassley would interject while one of the few women empowered to speak opened her mouth. It was almost as if he couldn’t help himself. Even the veteran prosecutor that GOP senators—too afraid, I think, of what it would look like to have 11 white men cross-examine an alleged sexual assault victim, whom I will remind us was not on trial—carted in to question Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh was not immune.
Grassley still interrupted her mid-question. As I wrote on Twitter, “Chuck Grassley is so frustrated he can’t ask Blasey Ford the intrusive questions himself that he has to interrupt the woman he hired to do so.” He then chastised Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who was asking to provided documents about which Blasey Ford was testifying, saying he was “rudely interrupted.”
But the dismissive attitude toward women didn’t stop there. When he granted a request from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Grassley chided, “You got what you wanted and I’d think you’d be satisfied.”
Have you started screaming into the void yet? Because I haven’t stopped since 10 a.m. And we haven’t even addressed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).
Since the allegations were made public, Graham has been one of the most vocal supporters of Kavanaugh. That doesn’t mean he’s kept his cool. His remarks to reporters after the first session were in sharp contrast to the measured tone that Blasey Ford used to speak when she testified. He was visibly furious. He was flippant and utterly dismissive of Blasey Ford. He said he felt “ambushed”. It was clear that he never intended to consider what she had to say. And that’s maddening.
PHOTO: Getty
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
“All I can deal with is what’s in front of me. I’ve got a guy who adamantly denies this,” he said. “Everybody who actually knows him in a real way say, ‘This is not the guy I know.” I’ve got Dr. Ford, who can’t tell me the time and the place. And we’ll see what happens. Maybe something comes out.”
And in case that wasn’t threatening enough, he continued: “To my Republican colleagues: If you can ignore everything in this record, looking at an allegation that’s 35 years old, that’s uncertain in time, place, date, and no corroboration. If that’s enough for you, god help us all as Republicans, because this happens to us, it never happens to them. But let me tell my Democratic friends: If this is the new norm, you’d better watch out for your nominees.”
Brett Kavanaugh came out swinging during the early part of his testimony. He raised his voice and was indignant. And Graham backed him up. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for!” Graham yelled. “This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.”
The palpable rage was mildly terrifying—and I’m sure triggering to many, many survivors. But I think this is what happens when rich, white, male privilege is threatened. The products of that privilege lash out in fear. Because if that system of protection is breaking down for one of their own, they might be in jeopardy in the future. And they don’t want to imagine that world.
