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John Wagner
National Journalist Leading the Post's New Politics Team
The lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says that Brett M. Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers, sent to the Senate four statements from people who said Ford had told them about her allegations before Kavanaugh is appointed to the Supreme Court.
The statements – from Ford's husband and three friends – do not directly corroborate the alleged attack, but suggest Ford share the details of his memories in the years leading up to President Trump's appointment of Kavanaugh on July 9.
Only one account, of Russell Ford, the husband of the professor of California, has already been reported.
[Kavanaugh’s ‘choir boy’ image on Fox interview rankles former Yale classmates]
The statements were made public by Ford's lawyers the day before Kavanaugh, now a judge of the Federal Court of Appeal in Washington, appeared at a high-stakes hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford should detail his allegations that Kavanaugh would have seriously taken him to a bed, fumbled her and put her hand to quell her cries as he tried to pull off his clothes at a party at early 1980s.
Kavanaugh denied this allegation, as well as another woman's charge, Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale University, who told New Yorker magazine that he was exposing himself to a party then they were in first grade.
During a television appearance on Wednesday morning, Kavanaugh's lawyer, Beth Wilkinson, declined to comment when asked what could motivate Ford to talk about Kavanaugh years before his appointment.
"I will not comment on his motives," Wilkinson told CNN, adding that she felt sorry for Ford to have been identified as Kavanaugh's accuser against his initial wishes.
Also on Wednesday, Kavanaugh's lawyers published five pages of his 1982 calendar for news outlets to say he was not at a party with Ford 36 years ago.
The calendar, which has been shared with the Judiciary Committee, includes several weeks this summer, which have been blocked for beach trips and sports camps. It also includes many detailed appointments, for example an appointment for a haircut.
In a statement issued Wednesday by Ford's lawyers, Adela Gildo-Mazzon, who describes herself as a good friend of Ford, said Ford shared his allegations of sexual assault while eating at a pizzeria in Mountain. View, California.
"During our meal, Christine was visibly upset, so I asked her what was going on," says Gildo-Mazzon. "Christine told me that she had had a difficult day because she was thinking about an assault she was a much younger victim of." She said she was almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge.
Gildo-Mazzon said he contacted Ford's lawyers after reading his account in a Washington Post article published on September 16.
Another friend, Keith Koegler, claims that Ford told her early in the summer of 2016 that she had been sexually assaulted while she was much younger.
Koegler says that while their children were playing together, Ford expressed anger about what she thought was a light sentence for a Stanford University student who had been convicted of sexual assault after raping a woman unconscious.
Koegler says Ford was "particularly upset because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, DC."
Shortly after Judge Anthony M. Kennedy resigned from the Supreme Court, Koegler stated that Ford shared in an email that Kavanaugh was his alleged attacker.
A third friend, Rebecca White, says in another statement that she met Ford while walking his dog in 2017. Ford told him that she had recently read a White Social Media article in which she wrote on her own experience of sexual assault. White.
"She said that when she was a teenager, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teenager," White says. "I remember saying that the abuser was now a federal judge. I've always known that Christine was a trustworthy and honest person.
In his statement, Russell Ford claims that his wife shared for the first time the details of a sexual assault during a couple's therapy session in 2012.
"I remember she said that the attacker called Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christine's hometown and was well known in the Washington community, DC, "explains Russell Ford. "In the years following the therapy session, we repeatedly discussed how the attack had affected her."
Emma Brown contributed to this report.
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