[W]hen Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., got his five minutes to question Christine Blasey Ford on Thursday, he told her that her “bravery is contagious” and then asked which memory of her alleged sexual assault at the hands of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh had stuck with her the most.
“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” she said, “the laugh — the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.”
Ford recalled Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaugh’s, looking on as Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and covered her mouth as she tried to scream, with the bedroom door locked and music turned up so that friends downstairs couldn’t hear. “I was, you know, underneath one of them while the two laughed, two friends — two friends having a really good time with one another,” she said.
It was the final question in Leahy’s five minutes with the microphone during the morning session of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, which was watched by millions of Americans and came 11 days after Ford’s accusations were first made public in a Washington Post article.
“No matter what happens to this hearing today,” Leahy said, “no matter what happens to this nomination I know, and I hear from so many in my home state of Vermont, there are millions of victims and survivors out there who’ve been inspired by your courage, and you sharing your story is going to have a lasting positive impact on so many survivors in our country.”
Leahy asked Ford if it was possible the boy who assaulted her during the gathering in the early 1980s was not Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, but another boy, as has been suggested by some of the judge’s backers.
“No, it is not,” she said.
Asked earlier by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., how she could be so sure, the psychology professor described how flight or fight hormones released during traumatic experiences causes neurotransmitters to encode memories into the brain.
“And so, the trauma-related experience, then, is kind of locked there, whereas other details kind of drift,” she said.
The Republican senators brought in Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor from Arizona who specializes in sexual assault cases, to ask questions for them, attempting to poke holes in Ford’s testimony, and portray her decision to come forward as part of a Democratic ploy.
Mitchell’s questions involved timelines around a polygraph test which Ford had taken and who had paid for that test, whether Ford does indeed have fear of air travel, and questions about her request that her original letter alleging misconduct remain anonymous.
The morning hearing started with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member, making opening remarks.
Ford then read her written testimony, which was given to senators Wednesday. Ford described in detail the alleged sexual assault and said her decision to come forward was “an extremely hard thing” for her. But she said she felt she “couldn’t not do it.”
“My motivation in coming forward was to provide the facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh’s actions have damaged my life, so that you can take that into serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed,” Ford said.
Since Ford agreed to testify over the weekend, two other women have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh, one alleged that he exposed himself during a drunken party at Yale and another claiming that he was part of gang rapes at parties. Those claims received only passing mention in the hearing.
In light of the latest allegations, Former Gov. Madeleine Kunin and Vermont House and Senate majority leaders Rep. Jill Krowinski and Sen. Becca Balint called on Gov. Phil Scott to demand that Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination be delayed in a statement released Thursday.
During an unrelated press conference held as the hearing was playing out, Scott, a Republican, did just that, telling reporters that he had “no reason not to believe the women.”
“This is a lifelong position, this shouldn’t be rushed in any way,” Scott said. “I think now with three allegations, it warrants a full investigation.”
When the microphone returned to Leahy in the afternoon, he was one of the first Democratic senators to grill Kavanaugh. (Republicans initially had Mitchell question Kavanaugh but quickly transitioned into using their time to blast their Democratic colleagues and defend the judge.)
Leahy and Kavanaugh sparred throughout the five minutes, interrupting each other at times, punctuated by loud outbursts from Kavanaugh.
Vermont’s senior senator, who was a prosecutor before heading to Washington 40 years ago, began by asking Kavanaugh about his relationship with Judge and whether Kavanaugh thought his old classmate should testify in front of the committee.
“Ford, as you know has said that he was in the room when she was attacked. She also says you were too,” Leahy said. “If she’s saying Mark Judge was in the room then, then he should be in room here today.”
Kavanaugh responded that Judge had already given a sworn written statement to the committee.
Leahy then moved on to inquire about a book Judge wrote in which a character, who drinks to excess, named “Bart O’Kavanaugh” has drawn speculation that is based on Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh said that Judge wrote the book as part of his “therapy” to deal with addiction issues.
“He wrote a book, that is a fictionalized book, and account. I think he picked out names of friends of ours to throw them in as kind of close to what were characters in the book,” Kavanaugh said. “Now we can sit here and make fun of some guy who has an addiction,” he continued as Leahy interrupted him.
“I’m not making fun of anybody, Mr. Kavanaugh,” he said, “I’m trying to get a straight answer from you under oath. Are you the Bart O’Kavanaugh he is referring to, yes or no?”
“You’d have to ask him,” Kavanaugh responded.
Leahy then asked Kavanaugh to explain his high school yearbook page, which has come under scrutiny for its references to heavy drinking and mention of a woman’s name with the word “alumnus” — that was mirrored on the pages of many members of the football team — which has been read to imply some sort of sexual conquests.
Kavanaugh began to answer by explaining that he worked on being “number one in the class” when Leahy cut him off to redirect his answer.
“No, no, no, no, no,” Kavanaugh said loudly, “I’m going to talk about my high school. No, no. I’m going to talk about my high school record, if you’re going to sit here and mock me.”
Kavanaugh then spoke for 40 seconds explaining his accomplishments during his high school years before Leahy interrupted, pointing to an enlarged image of the yearbook and asking “does this reflect who you are.”
“Does this yearbook reflect your focus on academics and your respect for women. That’s easy. Yes or no. You don’t have to filibuster the answer,” he said.
After Leahy’s time expired, Kavanaugh said the yearbook was something “students and editors” treated “as farce and some as exaggeration.”
“If we want to sit here and talk about whether a Supreme Court nomination should be based on a high school yearbook page, I think that’s taken us to a new level of absurdity,” Kavanaugh said in closing.
In Kavanaugh’s opening statement, he said that in the 10 days since allegations of sexual misconduct were made public his family and his name “has been permanently destroyed.”
Flatly denying the accusations against him, Kavanaugh said the evidence against him is “uncorroborated and unsubstantiated.”
Kavanaugh accused the Democrats of orchestrating the allegations and suggested his role in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal as a possible motive for bringing these allegations forward.
Addressing the Democrats, Kavanaugh said, “this has become a national disgrace” and that the committee has “replaced ‘advise and consent’ with ‘search and destroy.’”
After the hearing ended, Leahy told C-SPAN that Kavanaugh’s testimony was “well rehearsed.”
“It brought me back to memories of Clarence Thomas,” he said of the current justice, whose confirmation process more than two decades ago moved ahead in the face of accusations from Anita Hill, his former staff member.
The Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation vote for Kavanaugh is scheduled for Friday.
Aidan Quigley contributing reporting.
