By NADIA BANKS
Three women have now come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, including a new client of Michael Avenatti, attorney to the famed Stormy Daniels.
The first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is an American psychologist and professor of statistics at Palo Alto University in Northern California. Ford first detailed her allegations in a letter addressed to Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein of California. In the letter, she accused Kavanaugh of attempting to force himself on her at a high school party in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s.
“Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with [Mark] Judge, who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth, I feared he may inadvertently kill me,” Ford said. “At one point when Judge jumped onto the bed, the weight on me was substantial. The pile toppled, and the two scrapped with each other. After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me.”
Ford claims that the trauma surrounding the incident has forced her to seek medical treatment. Kavanaugh categorically denies Ford’s story, asserting that he has never sexually assaulted anyone. According to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Kavanaugh alleges he “wasn’t even at the party.”
Christine Blasey Ford’s jarring accusations have received a mixed response from Senate Republicans. While some Republicans on the Judiciary Committee — including Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) — have attempted to exercise restraint and patience toward her accusations, others have written them off as a Democratic smear campaign. On Sept. 24, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) took to the Senate floor to express extreme indignation for the unfair treatment being directed towards Kavanaugh.
“This shameful, shameful smear campaign has hit a new low,” McConnell said. “Senate Democrats and their allies are trying to destroy a man’s personal and professional life on the basis of decades old allegations that are unsubstantiated and uncorroborated.”
Kavanaugh’s second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, claims that Kavanaugh non-consensually thrusted his genitals in her face at a party when they were undergraduates at Yale University between 1983 and 1984. Ramirez’s allegations have not been received well by the GOP; her admitted memory gaps and inebriated state have sparked increased skepticism towards her story. Nevertheless, some Republicans are willing to hear her out. On Monday, Susan Collins (R-ME) spoke with reporters on the matter.
“I believe that the committee investigators should reach out to Deborah Ramirez to question her under oath about what she is alleging happened,” Collins said.
In the midst of the #MeToo era, the failure to properly honor and respect a woman’s accusations against a powerful man is a risky move for Republicans — particularly in light of the upcoming midterm elections. The 1991 Anita Hill hearings exemplify the “dangers” facing the GOP should it fail to acknowledge accusers. On Oct. 11, 1991, Anita Faye Hill sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and detailed her allegations of sexual harassment against then Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas.
“He spoke about acts that he had seen in pornographic films involving such matters as women having sex with animals and films showing group sex or rape scenes . . . On several occasions, Thomas told me graphically of his own sexual prowess,” Hill proclaimed.
She further recounted an incident in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, looked at the can and asked, “Who has put pubic hair on my Coke?” In spite of these lurid allegations, Judge Clarence Thomas was sworn in October 23, 1991 by Justice Byron White as the 106th Justice of the Supreme Court. This controversial confirmation is widely believed to have instigated what is known as the Year of the Woman in 1992 — when a record-breaking number of liberal women were concurrently elected to Congress.
The provocation of another “Year of the Woman” would be a nightmare for the GOP. A threat to the Republican majority would prove detrimental to their ability to effectively further their conservative agenda. Bearing this in mind, after much deliberation, the Senate invited Ford to testify on her allegations against Kavanaugh. She is committed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee this Thursday Sept. 27.