The legal team for Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychology professor who recently brought forth an allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, sent lawmakers four sworn and signed declarations from four people claiming to corroborate their client’s accusation, despite none of the signees having witnessed the alleged incident.
According to USA Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee received declarations from Ford’s husband, Russell, along with three friends of the California professor, who alleged the accuser disclosed the alleged incident to them on multiple occasions. None of the statements show Ford made any mention of the incident for at least three decades.
“I was walking my dog and Christine was outside of her house,” Rebecca White, a neighbor of Ford’s, wrote of the conversation they shared in 2017 regarding the alleged incident. “I stopped to speak with her, and she told me she had read a recent social media post I had written about my own experience with sexual assault.”
“She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen,” she added. “I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge.”
According to Adela Gildo-Mazzon’s declaration, Ford is said to have detailed the alleged incident while sharing a meal together at a Mountain View, California restaurant in 2013.
“During our meal, Christine was visibly upset, so I asked her what was going on,” Gildo-Mazzon wrote. “Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger. She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid.”
Gildo-Mazzon, whose declaration states she has known Ford for over a decade, considers the professor a “good friend.”
In Ford’s husband’s declaration, Russell alleges he was first made aware of the alleged incident “around the time we got married” and learned of further details during a 2012 marital therapy session.
“I remember her saying that her attacker’s name was Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christine’s home town, and that he was well-known in the Washington D.C. community,” he wrote.
While discussing the sexual assault case of Stanford University student Brock Turner, Keith Koegler wrote in his declaration that Ford “expressed anger at Mr. Turner’s lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C.”
“Christine did not mention the assault to me again until June 29, 2018, two days after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation from the Supreme Court of the United States,” Koegler noted.
In an email exchange, Koegler claims Ford alleged the individual who had sexually assaulted her was the frontrunner to replace Kennedy.
“I remember you telling me about him, but I don’t remember his name. Do you mind telling me so I can read about him?” Koegler asked Ford.
“Brett Kavanaugh,” she replied.
In a Monday interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum, Kavanaugh denied the decades-old allegations and asked for a “fair process where I can defend my integrity.”
“I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise,” the nominee told the host. “I am not questioning, and have not questioned, that perhaps Dr. Ford, at some point in her life, was sexually assaulted by someone, in some place. But what I know is I’ve never sexually assaulted anyone.”