The Daily - Kavanaugh’s Classmates Speak Out

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

The F.B.I. investigation into Judge Brett Kavanaugh is underway. More of his former classmates are now coming forward with personal stories — but it’s unclear whether the inquiry will take those stories into account. Guests: Kate Kelly, a New York Times reporter who attended an all-girls private high school in Washington, and Robin Pogrebin, a Times reporter who was Judge Kavanaugh’s classmate at Yale. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, the FBI investigation into Judge Brett Kavanaugh is now underway. At the same time, more and more former classmates of Kavanaugh's are coming forward with personal stories about the judge, but it's unclear whether the investigation will take those stories into account. It's Tuesday, October 2nd. Robin Pogerman, you typically cover culture for The Times, and Kate Kelly, you typically cover business for The Times.

So how did you both end up reporting on Brett Kavanaugh? I actually went to Yale, and I was Brett Kavanaugh's classmate. I was the class of 1987, and the deeper I got into reporting this story, it turns out I was actually in his freshman year dorm as well. So I have a vague memory of him. But more importantly, I have sort of tangential connections to some of the classmates we had in common. And Kate, what about you? Similar in the sense that I grew up in Washington, D.C. and went to one of the all-girls schools in that area. Not one of the ones that's been a focal point in these Kavanaugh stories, but still in that same broad circle of private single-sex schools. I did not have good friends that went to Georgetown Prep, but... Which is where Brett Kavanaugh went.

Correct. But I did get some documents a couple of weeks ago from somebody who knew Kavanaugh at the time and thought I should get a better picture of what his social life was in high school and in particular what his attitude was towards young women at that time. So I guess kind of entirely by coincidence, both of your lives intersect with the educational life of Brett Kavanaugh. Right. So, Kate, given your background, your understanding of the private school culture outside Washington,

when Dr. Christine Blasey Ford makes this allegation that Brett Kavanaugh has sexually assaulted her, what did you do next? It was a little while after that that I got these documents saying, you know, you should understand that he was not respectful toward women. And in particular, there was one woman that I was suggested to look into, a woman named Renata Schroeder, now Renata Dolphin. So I got this information and I passed it on to members of the team who were working on Kavanaugh, the Kavanaugh story and his background. And we talked about it and

there were a lot of different leads we were pursuing. And I said, hey, let me just make a few phone calls, see how far I can get. So I started reaching out to some other D.C. people, some Georgetown prep people who I thought might be able to help me fill the picture out. And as I went along, I developed some string on this woman, Renata Schroeder, and the way in which Brett Kavanaugh and some of his friends had treated her. And Kate, as you were making these calls to see where this string led you, what were people telling you about Kavanaugh in particular? They were telling me that he was not respectful toward this woman and that there was a lot of braggadocio at the time on his part, but also the part of

many of his friends about supposed sexual conquests. They pointed me to his own personal yearbook page. Brett Kavanaugh had a particularly detailed and, frankly, coded page where there were a lot of references to things that weren't immediately discernible. One of them was Renata Alumni, with Renata spelled R-E-N-A-T-E. And the question was, what was that? And this person sent me the photo and said, at the time, N-A-T-E. And the question was, what was that? And this person sent me the photo and said, at the time, these group of boys bragged about a young woman named Renata and having all had some kind of sexual interaction with her. That was the brag, and that was why they had a so-called club.

And Kate, as you're trying to get a picture of Kavanaugh in his high school days, how many people did you actually talk to? And how eager are those people to talk to you? I would say people were quite reluctant. I ended up talking to a handful of people. We made many, many phone calls before we reached people who were comfortable speaking about it. There was a general sense of reluctance and a lack of interest in stepping into what was becoming a bigger and bigger national controversy. Why do you think that is?

What do you think explains that reluctance? I think the Georgetown Prep alumni community is ultimately very tight-knit. That graduating class of 1983 was only 100 guys. And I think there's a sense of pride that comes with having one of their own be nominated to the Supreme Court. I have heard this from people who say, look, I'm a Democrat, but I still take pride in Judge Kavanaugh being nominated. This surpasses politics. And Robin, where did you start your reporting after Dr. Blasey Ford

makes her allegations, knowing your connections to Yale? So soon after Dr. Blasey Ford makes her allegations, knowing your connections to Yale? So soon after Dr. Blasey Ford's allegations surfaced, we started getting tips about the name Deborah Ramirez, that she also had a story to tell. And as a result, I started mining my Yale history and sources, calling around, going to my Facebook friends, and to begin to ask questions around the incident, as well as more atmospheric information about what those two were like in college, freshman year and afterwards. And as you're talking to former Yale classmates, what are they saying about who Brett Kavanaugh was in college? What kind of person he was?

What his behaviors were? Who they're describing is a person who was very much of kind of a party guy, known for partying hard. In fact, the people I talked to said I partied right along with him. They didn't necessarily say they were angels in comparison. There was heavy drinking. He was part of it. So were they. But they also said that he was kind drinking. He was part of it. So were they.

But they also said that he was kind of this sleeper smarts person. Nobody really knew how intelligent and accomplished he was. And several of them talked about learning of that senior year or even at graduation when academic honors were announced and they were surprised to hear Brett's name. And many of them described saying to him, we had no idea you were smart. And just how hard drinking and partying was he, according to the people you talked to? Brett was in a fraternity that was known as Deke. And Deke was infamous on campus. It was actually banned in 1983, which was our freshman year. It came back to campus a year later in an off-campus location. And it was notorious then and continues to be for excessive drinking and for some misogynist behavior and a kind of a wildness that crossed the line. And Brett was part of Deke, and he was very much closely associated with those memories, as well as just a bunch of guys who would have parties.

You know, a number of people said to me, Brett was the one at the keg. He was the guy standing by the keg. Doing what? Drinking a lot. And actually, what was interesting to me was that, you know, one source said to me that Brett wanted to be the guy who got the girls, and he wasn't the guy who got the girls. So he tended to drink a lot and to some extent use disrespectful language when talking about women, but no one could remember anyone he had dated. So there was this kind of an interesting picture of sort of a wannabe man about campus who actually really was known for holding up the walls. That was a phrase I heard a few times. And what does that mean?

And that means the guy who's so drunk, he needs to stand along the wall because if he came away from the wall, he might fall. And so Brett was known for holding up the walls. Tonight, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh breaks his silence for the first time. For me, I found that right after Brett Kavanaugh appeared on Fox with his wife and portrayed himself as something of a choir boy. I was focused on trying to be number one in my class and being captain of the varsity basketball team and doing my service projects, going to church.

going to church, the vast majority of time... Information started to shake out in a more overt way, where people were sort of proactively calling me and saying, wait a minute, that's not the Brett I knew. One of them went so far as to say, you know, you can't lie your way onto the Supreme Court. And what did they think was the lie that he was telling? You know, basically that Brett was whitewashing his past. Was there ever a time that you drank so much that you couldn't remember what happened the night before?

No, that never happened. You never said to anyone, I don't remember anything about last night? No. He was portraying a version of a young person that they did not recognize and they felt was disingenuous and that that went to the level of character. And it spoke to someone's integrity and truthfulness and they thought it was important information for them to share. They may not have stepped forward otherwise, but this was a bright line he'd crossed.

So then came the hearing. Do you affirm that the testimony you're about to give before the committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you God? I do. And for me in my personal reporting process, the hearing was a really galvanizing moment as I'm dealing with these Georgetown Prep alumni who knew Kavanaugh at the time, so many of whom had been reluctant to speak before. All of a sudden, I'm getting inbound calls saying this is not an accurate portrayal. We wanted to stay out of this, but this is just over the top. During the hearing, he was asked about Renata and what was meant by those Renata

alumni references. And he said, she was a great friend of ours. A bunch of us went to dances with her. She hung out with us as a group. She's a dear friend that we really respect. I'm really upset that this has been taken out of context. The media circus that has been generated by this thought and reported that it referred to sex. It did not. The people I was talking to who knew him at the time cried BS on this. They said Brett Kavanaugh spoke about her disrespectfully. So did his friends.

It was not at all as he's presenting it. And that's just a lie. In terms of the drinking. I drank beer with my friends. Judge Kavanaugh presented himself as someone who liked beer. I still like beer. Sometimes I had too many beers. So did other people, and

then tried to turn the table on other people and other topics. I like beer. You haven't answered that. I like beer. I don't know if you like beer, Senator, or not. What do you like to drink? Next one is... Senator, what do you like to drink? Judge, have you... You're saying there's never been a case where you drank so much that you didn't remember what happened the night before or part of what happened? You're asking about blackout. I don't know.

Have you? That's not happened. Is that your answer? Yeah, and I'm curious if you have. I have no drinking problem, Judge. Nor do I. The alumni I was talking to say no. Brett was a very heavy drinker. And by the way, so were we all. He was not necessarily exceptional

in the heavy drinking, at least at Georgetown Prep, but falling down drunk, stumbling downstairs, vomiting, all of these behaviors that we associate with excessive drinking that are at issue here happened to him and happened to a lot of us. And he's not being honest about that either. He was never the choir boy he's presenting himself to be. Never, never, never. That was a text message that I got from somebody. And the idea was that I, as a reporter, need to help sort this out because the public is being misled. And Robin, what happened in your reporting after last week's hearing, after this testimony that prompted so many people to come out and talk about

Brett Kavanaugh's high school days? After the hearing, what was interesting was the gloves came off. One of his Yale classmates says the person he portrayed himself to be today does not match the person she knew at Yale. I mean, you suddenly saw some of the people who had been reluctant to speak to me in the first place on national television. I don't buy it. I I didn't. That's not the Brett I knew as soon as I met him in college. It's not the Brett I saw during four years at Yale. Talking about Brett as a drinker who would get incoherent. There is no doubt in my mind that while at Yale, he was a big partier, often drank to excess, and there had to be a number of nights where he does not remember. I had one of my sources say to me, anyone who says that he wasn't rip-roaring drunk

isn't telling the truth. I would have stayed on the sidelines if he had said, I drank to excess in high school, I drank to excess in college, I did some stupid things, but I never sexually assaulted anybody. stupid things, but I never sexually assaulted anybody. But to lie under oath, to lie about that, then what else is true? To blur, you know, in the highest position in the judiciary in our land, to not know the difference between truth and lies, that's just terrible. They just kind of let loose in a whole new way. And what was also interesting was that whole sense of loyalty to him and those who are still protecting him also was eroded, where this suddenly became a little bit of a come-to-Jesus moment where people realized they had to choose sides. And if that meant losing friends, it was worth it.

The stakes were too high, and they were going to come down on the side of truth. And who were some of the people who came forward? Most noteworthy was one of my classmates named Chad Luddington. He was the class of 87. He was a basketball player, a very big guy. And he was very reluctant to speak prior to the hearings. And even after the hearings, he was only in contact through text. And he said he might have something to say, but he wasn't ready to say it. And then finally, he said he had a statement. He was going to give it to me Monday today. He ended up giving it to me last night.

And it was a pretty powerful statement. What did it say? He talks about how he was formerly reluctant to speak. But he didn't necessarily think Brett's alcohol use in college had relevance, but that now after hearing him on Fox and hearing him testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he became, quote,

deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale, end quote. And how does he describe the drinking he saw? He goes on to say that, especially in their first two years of college when he often drank with Brett, quote, on many occasions, I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions,

I purposely socialized with Brett. I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by diffusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man's face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail. Hmm. So he is actively refuting the characterization that Judge Kavanaugh offered in the Fox interview and, most importantly, under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. That's right. And even subsequently, after putting this out yesterday, Chad talked to me about how it was important to him that we portray that this was about truth. It was not about college behavior. And I think that is an important distinction. That is what bothers people is the degree to which Brett is not representing himself accurately, not the behavior itself. Well, I think Robin makes a good point here, which is that it's the idea of lying under oath that really disturbs people. I think people could overlook excessive drinking,

maybe some crass comments. I've talked to people who said, you know, I did worse than Brett did, whatever it was. But the idea that he would be untruthful about this, a sitting judge who's nominated for the Supreme Court, that he would be dishonest and belligerent about these things on the stand, in front things on the stand in front of the nation, in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, really appalls them. That is the kind of thing where people say to you things like, it's the cover-up, not the crime. When all this reporting started, the question originally that we were all asking was, did Brett Kavanaugh commit these alleged acts of sexual assault? And now the

question is, in the process of defending himself against those charges, did Kavanaugh knowingly mislead and deceive the public and also members of the United States Senate about what seemed in comparison to those original allegations like smaller matters. I think that's absolutely right. I think you've got what is a very grave and relevant to character and ability to serve on the Supreme Court accusations about an attempted sexual assault many years ago. And then you have these behavioral aspects about drinking and possibly blacking out

and whether he could stand up straight and bragging about a Renata alumni club, which may have seemed like very marginal details even a week ago. But now they seem to be front and center in evaluating the truthfulness and really the fitness of this judge. I think one area that we perhaps haven't delved into enough is this idea of what being blackout drunk means? I think one area that we perhaps haven't delved into enough is this idea of what being blackout drunk means. I think that sometimes it's conflated with passing out, and it's easy for Brett Kavanaugh to say that he doesn't have a memory of doing that or didn't do that. There is a feeling among many of the people I talk to that he was often in that condition, so that some of these events, which were so formative to those who experienced them,

may have been meaningless or non-existent to him. And that is something that they, you know, fully entertain as possible. And I'm hearing the same thing. There was one alumnus I talked to who said he actually believes both Christine Blasey Ford and he believes Brett Kavanaugh. He thinks Brett Kavanaugh, at least in terms of the Blasey Ford accusation, is telling the truth as he recalls it. He thinks the missing link that might help be connective tissue for the two accounts is that Kavanaugh at the time had an over-drinking problem. He blacked out and he truly doesn't remember. So now that there's an FBI investigation into Dr. Blasey Ford's allegation, are the people that you've been talking to, Robin, from Brett Kavanaugh's time at Yale, are they saying what effect that FBI investigation is having on their decision to come forward and share their recollections?

who even have yet to share information with me who now said they're waiting to tell what they know to the FBI. And then as these days have passed, they've lost faith in the idea that they're going to hear from the FBI. And in some cases, some of them have taken it among themselves to reach out to the FBI on their own,

either through their local Senate offices or through the FBI hotline, they are no longer confident that they will be hearing from the FBI and they do feel like it's important to convey what they have to say to that agency before this process is through. So you're saying that there are more stories

about Brett Kavanaugh that we haven't heard yet and that they may be filtering through the FBI. It seems that there's more connecting of dots that could happen, and that even now some of these sources are holding out hope that it goes straight to the people evaluating Judge Kavanaugh for this position rather than through the press and through me as a reporter, but that they are going to come back to me if they don't end up feeling satisfaction about the fact that the FBI is taking their concerns and experience and stories seriously. And Kate, what are your sources telling you about this FBI investigation and how it fits

into their feeling compelled to come forward? I'm hearing similar things to what Robin is. I'm hearing that people would far prefer to talk to an FBI agent than to me, and that they want to see this process done thoroughly behind the scenes without necessarily introducing things into the public realm that could be damaging before they're properly evaluated in the right context. I do know of people as well that have been expecting their phone to ring, and it hasn't. So there is a frustration that this is not being done in a terribly thorough fashion. I think that when you talk to people who went to college with him, there is this concern now that if the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI are unable to kind of pin down the facts and prove out these stories, that that becomes the litmus test for Judge Kavanaugh's fitness, when in fact the question now is larger, and it has to do with whether his character is worthy.

And whether he's telling the truth. And whether he's telling the truth. So I think now the question is that even if all of these people do get heard, the ones who have stories for the FBI and who are trying to bring them to light, if there is the assessment ultimately that Brett Kavanaugh wasn't telling the truth about his background and his conduct in high school and in college, whether that will be relevant and decisive enough for those who are evaluating him. Basically, does the Senate care? Right. And does the FBI care? Robin, Kate, thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. On Monday, amid growing criticism from Democrats that the White House had restricted the FBI's investigation into Kavanaugh, President Trump authorized the Bureau to expand the probe by interviewing anyone it deems necessary so long as the investigation is completed by Friday. The FBI had originally intended to interview just four people, which meant not speaking to a third accuser, Julie Swetton, Kavanaugh himself, or anyone else.

My White House will do whatever the senators want. I'm open to whatever they want. The one thing I want is speed. Asked about the broader investigation during a news conference on Monday, the president said he was open to having the FBI interview both Swetnick and Kavanaugh, among others. A few hours later, with the FBI investigation still underway, A few hours later, with the FBI investigation still underway, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he would schedule a full Senate vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation before the end of the week. And so let me make it very clear. The time for endless delay and obstruction has come to a close. has come to a close.

Judge Kavanaugh's nomination is out of committee. We're considering it here on the floor. And Mr. President, we'll be voting this week. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Throughout the campaign, I promised to renegotiate NAFTA. And today we have kept that promise. On Monday, after a year of threatening Mexico and Canada with tariffs and a trade war,

President Trump announced an agreement to significantly revise the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 24-year-old deal that he complains is unfair to American workers. I have long contended that NAFTA was perhaps the worst trade deal ever made. Since NAFTA's adoption, the United States racked up trade deficits totaling more than $2 trillion, and it's a much higher number than that. The agreement, now rebranded as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, would, among other things, encourage more car manufacturing inside the three countries,

open Canada's dairy market to U.S. farmers, and make it easier for Mexican workers to form labor unions. USMCA. to form labor unions. USMCA. And that'll be the name, I guess, that 99% of the time we'll be hearing, USMCA. Has a good ring to it.

A major breakthrough in the negotiations came after Trump, having already imposed tariffs on Canadian aluminum and steel, threatened tariffs on Canadian cars. Once approved, this will be a new dawn for the American auto industry and for the American auto worker. They will see. They understand.

During a news conference, Trump said that his hardball tactics in renegotiating NAFTA would now be a model for future negotiations with the rest of America's trade partners. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.