Kavanaugh: Psychology professor Christine Blessy Ford has accused Brett Cavanaugh of sexual assault, thrusting the then-conservative candidate for the US Supreme Court into great controversy. She will publish a memoir next year, which she sees as a call for people to talk about abuse. Publisher St. Martin’s Press said Ford will share “exciting new details” in her book about her Senate testimony and its “shocking aftermath,” including receiving death threats and being unable to live in her own home.
The publisher also said Ford will discuss “how people she didn’t know around the world restored her faith in humanity.” The book is called “One Way Back” and will be published in March.
“Prior to the events of 2018, I never considered myself a survivor, whistleblower, or activist,” Ford said in a statement. “But now this book and I can call out all the other people who maybe didn’t choose these roles for themselves and instead choose to do the right thing. Sometimes you don’t speak up because you’re a natural disruptor. You do this to create ripples that may one day turn into waves”.
Cavanaugh, a former Republican staffer, was the second of three Supreme Court justices nominated by Donald Trump to tilt the court decisively toward conservatives and lead to right-wing rulings, including overturning abortion rights.
Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University and Stanford University School of Medicine. In September 2018, she told the Senate Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.
She said he pinned her to the bed and tried to remove her clothes while covering her mouth with his hand. “I thought he was going to rape me,” Ford said in a prepared statement. “I tried to scream for help… I thought Brett was going to kill me by accident.”
When one of Kavanaugh’s friends jumped on the bed, Ford let go, she said, telling senators: “In the hippocampus, laughter is indelible. A burst of laughter erupted between the two. They were having fun at my expense. “
Ford said the attack “completely changed my life. For a long time I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone in detail. She added that she told “very few friends” and her husband. Kavanaugh angrily denied that and other allegations of drunken behavior that marred the confirmation process in a way not seen since the 1991 scandal surrounding Clarence Thomas’ alleged sexual harassment of Anita Hill.
Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court in a 50-48 vote with the support of the committee’s Republicans, including then-Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Only one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, refused to endorse him.
