Northeast Georgians watched along with much of America Thursday as Washington D.C.’s latest political drama unfolded on Capitol Hill.
They tuned in to hear testimony from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford about her allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.
Ford told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that she was “100%” certain it was Kavanaugh who assaulted her when they were in high school.
“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified,” she told the committee. “I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.”
Dr. Ford’s voice trembled at times as she recounted her story of the alleged assault. She said she was at a small gathering at a house with five other people when Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge locked her in an upstairs bedroom. She claimed the then-17-year-old Kavanaugh “got on top” of her.
“He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy,” Ford said. “Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes.”
“I believed he was going to rape me,” Ford said. She testified that when she tried to scream during the alleged attack, Kavanaugh placed his hand over her mouth. She said “it was hard for me to breathe and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.”
In one of the more emotionally-charged moments of her testimony, the California psychology professor told the committee she vividly remembers the “uproarious laughter” of Kavanaugh and Judge during the alleged attack.
“Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford said, “the uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense.”
Politics and optics
While Democratic senators lauded Ford for her courage in coming forward, Republican senators withheld comment. They did not question or engage with her. They relied on a female sex-crimes prosecutor from Arizona who they hired to question Dr. Ford. Maricopa County prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was brought in to “de-politicize” the hearings, Sen. Grassley said Wednesday. Her presence also avoided the optics of having an all-male GOP panel question Ford, reminiscent of the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings in 1991.
Mitchell came across as empathetic but also plodding and deliberate as she attempted to poke holes in Ford’s testimony. She also questioned Judge Kavanaugh for a brief time after he was sworn-in, but GOP senators soon took over his line of questioning. They lashed out at Democrats for what they perceive as a politically-motivated attempt to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the highest court in the land.
Kavanaugh staunchly denies allegations
Kavanaugh echoed that sentiment in his opening remarks before the committee. “This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election,” he said.
His four hours-long testimony was punctuated by both fury and tears.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny the allegation against me by Dr. Ford. I never had any sexual or physical encounter of any kind with Dr. Ford. I never attended a gathering like the one Dr. Ford describes in her allegation. I have never sexually assaulted Dr. Ford or anyone,” he said.
Stating he was not there to discredit her, Kavanaugh said Ford may have been assaulted “by some person in some place at some time. But I have never done that to her or to anyone.”
Kavanaugh also accused Democrats of conspiring to derail his nomination and pledged not to withdraw it.
His tone and demeanor were similar to those of Justice Clarence Thomas’ as he called the process “a circus” and a “national disgrace.”
“This has destroyed my family and my good name, a good name built up through decades of very hard work and public service at the highest levels of the American government,” Kavanaugh said.
The court of public opinion
Early in the proceedings ranking Democratic committee member Sen. Diane Feinstein said, “This is not a trial of Dr. Ford. It’s a job interview for Judge Kavanaugh.” And while that may be true, there’s no denying that this has turned into a trial of public opinion.
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Photo courtesy of USA Today
