First lady Melania Trump believes Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychology professor who threw Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation into turmoil by bringing forward a decades-old sexual assault allegation against him, wasn’t telling the truth about her claims, according to a report.
“You know that woman is lying, don’t you?” the first lady told President Trump of Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee about her allegations.
The first lady’s alleged remark to her husband is an anecdote in the soon-to-be-released book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court, the New York Post reports.
Justice on Trial offers readers an insiders account of the Kavanaugh confirmation progress during the fall of 2018.
Last September, Blasey Ford alleged before lawmakers that Kavanaugh and a friend pinned her down on a bed during a drunken party when the now-justice was around 17 years old. Following the testimony of Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh, the longtime judge was confirmed as the 114th justice by a vote of 50-48.
“Her credibility, if anything, was viewed as stronger because of her lapses in memory and because the odder parts to the story, such as her description of how she came to tell her husband about the assault,” wrote authors Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino of the professor’s testimony. “Despite the holes in her story, the media clung to these details.”
During an October trip to Africa, the first lady was asked if she believed Blasey Ford’s testimony and replied: “I will move on that.”
“I’m glad Dr. Ford was heard. I’m glad Judge Kavanaugh was heard, that the FBI investigation was done, completed, and that the Senate voted,” she added while in Cairo.