Today, Explained - What the letter said

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Vox's Li Zhou recounts the alleged assault and Emily Bazelon from the New York Times Magazine explains what might come next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for today explained today comes from Tom's. They're the shoe manufacturer where, you know, you buy a pair of shoes and someone else gets a pair of shoes. They also sell glasses. And for a limited time, you can get 15% off plus free shipping on your first order by visiting Tom's dot com slash. You're never going to guess. Explained. Liza, you're a congressional reporter here at Vox. Just a few weeks ago, you were in here reporting on the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.

And now there's this whole new element to Kavanaugh's confirmation, and it starts with a letter. There's a bombshell that's been dropped on the confirmation, basically sexual assault allegations that have been brought against Kavanaugh by a woman who knew him in high school. And those allegations first came in the form of a letter that was sent to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo and Senator Dianne Feinstein. And now this letter's been released. We know it was written by a professor named christine blasey ford right people have the letter a source read it to cnn so no copies have

been shared with the public um that have been reported at least but somebody has um disclosed the contents in more detail and i actually have it in front front of me if you'd like me to read it. Okay. Dear Senator Feinstein, I am writing with information relevant in evaluating the current nominee to the Supreme Court. As a constituent, I expect that you will maintain this as confidential until we have further opportunity to speak. Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early

1980s. He conducted these acts with the assistance of Redacted. Both were one to two years older than me and students at a local private school. The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others. Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stairwell from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music, precluding any successful attempt to yell for help. Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with Redacted, 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. From across the room, a very drunken redacted said mixed words to Kavanaugh, ranging from

go for it to stop. At one point, when redacted 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. Both loudly stumbled down the stairwell, at which point other persons at the house were talking with them. I exited the bathroom, ran outside of the house, and went home. I have not knowingly seen Kavanaugh since the assault. I did see Redacted once at the Redacted where he was extremely uncomfortable seeing me. I have received medical treatment regarding the assault. On July 6, I notified my local government representative to ask them how to proceed with sharing this information.

It is upsetting to discuss sexual assault and its repercussions, yet I felt guilty and compelled as a citizen about the idea of not saying anything. I am available to speak further should you wish to discuss. I am currently redacted and will be in redacted in confidence. Do we know if Feinstein read that letter and then reached out to her? I believe there was communication between the two offices. And the New Yorker report actually says that after talking to both Eshoo and Feinstein, Blase Ford decided not to come forward. There's a point in the Post story where she talks about why get annihilated if Kavanaugh is going to be confirmed anyway.

And that calculation, it seems from the way that she recounts it, did not change until this weekend when she decided to publicize her identity herself. And do you know why she decided to come forward now? What changed? She really has emphasized this element of civic responsibility and wanting this out there as Kavanaugh is being considered and wanting it to be weighed as part of his nomination. So this account came out in the Washington Post. Blase Ford provided a full interview this weekend. It was published just yesterday on Sunday. Why didn't Feinstein reveal more details of this account publicly before then? The statement that's come out of her office is that she really wanted to protect Blasey Ford's privacy. And that's something that Blasey Ford actually talks about as well.

She said that she had reached out and she was interested in maintaining a degree of anonymity, basically, before she was comfortable speaking out herself. And I think a big part of that is because when women speak out about sexual assault allegations against a public figure, you're going to see a lot of retaliation from the public, from the media, from members of the opposition party. And I think there is an element of wanting to protect her. And what did she do instead then, Feinstein? A lot of that is unclear. I think the most that we know is that last week, there was a meeting between the Senate Judiciary Democrats where she disclosed

more information about this. She waited until last week? It was basically, yeah, until last week that this became more broadly known. And on Thursday, she referred the letter to the FBI, which added this to Kavanaugh's existing kind of background check file, which means that the White House, other senators are able to access the letter, look at the contents of the file. What did Kavanaugh say about these allegations? Has he had to speak on this yet? He's completely denied them. He said this hasn't happened in high school. It hasn't happened any time since. Interestingly, his friend, who is also allegedly implicated in this, initially said

he had no recollection of this event, which is somewhat a small distinction, but kind of an interesting one in terms of how they responded. And then later on, he went on to say, I've never seen Brett Kavanaugh do this. This is not like him at all. So Senate Judiciary Democrats are meeting about this. How have Republicans responded? I think the first senator you saw come out in a way that was somewhat surprising was Lindsey Graham. He said he was interested in hearing from Blase Ford this week sometime ahead of the vote that's scheduled on Thursday by the committee. He didn't say that he wanted to delay anything, but he was like, she should be heard and I'm interested in that.

I think Jeff Flake took it one step further and actually said he would not be willing to vote on Kavanaugh until he's heard from her, which kind of just draws like a firmer line in the sand. And since then, Lisa Murkowski, who's seen as one of two very pivotal swing seat senators, has said the same thing. And so I think having both Flake and Murkowski come out and be like, we're willing to delay the process further before we get to know anything else, sends a big message to Republicans. the broader party line from the Judiciary Committee, that the initial reaction has been to attack how Feinstein handled the letter and said she waited too long and that this is basically a last ditch effort to block Kavanaugh, yet another kind of political maneuver. I think from Grassley's people, their approach has been we're going to try to set up follow up calls with Kavanaugh and with Blasey Ford this week. And we're not really currently planning to delay anything at the moment. Do Republicans have a point there? I mean,

I heard one of Blasey Ford's attorneys on Morning Edition this morning calling the way Feinstein handled this unimpeachable. She requested confidentiality. Senator Feinstein honored that request. And victims of sexual assault have the right to decide whether and when to come forward. It's one thing to go out there and say, I've got this letter. Kavanaugh may have tried to rape someone, stop the presses, stop everything. We have to deal with this. But she's a ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee. She had one-on-one time with Kavanaugh and certainly could have brought up these allegations privately, right? She definitely could have at that point. And I think the thing that her office keeps coming back to is that even in the one-on-one time, if she were to mention something about this, it could risk leaking this woman's identity.

And that was what I think they were worried about protecting. I think that's kind of an argument where people have said, look, there have been media reports that have come out since that have protected her identity before she decided to go public. And Feinstein could have handled it in a way like that, where you're referring to the incident, but not disclosing all the information about the individual involved. So where does that leave us? The vote on Kavanaugh was supposed to happen on Thursday. Is it going to? White House Senior Counselor Kellyanne Conway said today that she thinks it's important to hear from Blase Ford and to hear her testimony about what happened.

So let me make very clear. I've spoken with the president. I've spoken with Senator Graham and others. This woman will be heard. She's going to, I think the Senate Judiciary Committee will decide how and through which forum. So right now, the question really is, what form does that investigation take? Is it something that Congress is going to handle and that the Judiciary Committee is going to do internally? Or is it something that's going to take place and handled by the FBI, which is

something that Democrats have actually been pushing because they argue that Congress has been way too partisan in its handling of everything related to the Kavanaugh nomination thus far, and that an external body needs to take a look at what's happened. So it sounds like even though Republicans might take issue with how Democrats handled this letter from Blase Ford that arrived in July, they're going to have to suck it up and let this sort of play out in some sort of investigation. At this point, because Blase Ford has come forward and there's an identity associated with these allegations, I think across the board, people think it's important to hear them out. Whereas before, when they were still considered somewhat anonymous allegations,

multiple lawmakers on both sides of the aisle actually said, we're not really sure where we can go with this. But I think Blase Ford stepping forward has changed everything. Coming up next, two words. Anita Hill. You may have heard of Tom's Shoes, but they've got a new thing they're doing called Travel Light. It's a new collection of shoes, and as the name suggests, they're lightweight sneakers. It's a shoe that can work for your office, your commute, and for going out with your friends and wearing shoes. It goes anywhere and makes you look smart.

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Check it out, Last Scene, wherever you find your podcasts. Emily Bazelon, you write about the law for the New York Times Magazine. Christine Blasey Ford has said she's willing to testify. Kavanaugh says he'll answer questions too. I know that the Clarence Thomas nomination situation in 1991 was different in a lot of ways. But is that a useful precedent here at this point? Yeah. So after Clarence Thomas was nominated to the Supreme Court, a law professor named Anita Hill, she was 35 at the time. She came forward with sexual harassment allegations against Thomas from her period of working for him in Washington.

What happened next and telling the world about it are the two most difficult experiences of my life. about a kind of sexual harassment pattern that she'd experienced working for Thomas, where she was his employee and he would talk to her graphically about pornography, about sex, while he was also bugging her to go out with him. After a brief discussion of work, he would turn the conversation to a discussion of sexual matters. And she testified about these allegations in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office. He got up from the table at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the coke, looked at the can and asked, who has put pubic hair on my coke?

And how was her testimony received? Hill, I think, seemed to a lot of women to be speaking very credibly, but she testified before this all-male, all-white Judiciary Committee and was asked just a series of humiliating questions. Why in God's name would you ever speak to a man like that the rest of your life? How could you allow this kind of reprehensible conduct to go on right in the headquarters without doing something about it? Are you a scorned woman?

The whole atmosphere was one of doubt of her and her personal integrity. I've got letters hanging out my pocket. I've got statements from Tulsa, Oklahoma saying, watch out for this woman. It was my opinion at the time and is now my opinion that Ms. Hill's fantasies about sexual interest in her were an indication of the fact that she was having a problem being rejected by men she was attracted to. I mean, we look back on this row of white men asking questions of this woman, clearly not disposed to believe her,

and also showing remarkably little understanding of what it would feel like to be a female employee of a boss who was behaving in this way. And it's kind of gone down as a moment that really galvanized a lot of women into getting involved in politics and exemplifying the risk and the danger of coming forward with allegations like this in a public, high-profile setting. And did Clarence Thomas ever own up to any of the things that he was accused of by Anita Hill? No. Thomas absolutely denied all of Hill's allegations, and he famously called himself a victim of a high-tech lynching. For uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves. Is there a sense now that looking back on this embarrassing moment in our national politics, that Congress might take these allegations against Brett Kavanaugh more seriously?

Yes, I think there is hope for that. There are four strong women on the Judiciary Committee. And I think that if Christine Ford, who's making these accusations now against Kavanaugh, I think if she does publicly testify that the committee will do everything in its power, at least some members of it will, to make sure that this is not a repeat performance. How hard is this for someone like Ford to come forward? I mean, I think some of the hemming and the hawing that she was doing behind the scenes was about, do I want to have my entire life put on this national platform to be examined and discredited and whatever else might come of it?

I feel a lot of fear for her because I think this is a life-defining moment. It's really hard. You know, she's a professional research psychologist. Her life is much more full than this one, you know, moment she's alleging. And yet, you know, her kind of moment in the history books will be about this. And she will also, and I'm sure already is dealing with a huge backlash from the right wing media, from people trying to go after her. And that's a real disincentive for someone like her to come forward, which I think is important in judging her credibility. And I have seen some reactions from the right

sort of along those lines, like this is something that happened in high school. Even if it did happen, it happened in high school when kids were drunk. Is that any possible excuse for this? Well, I mean, I'm someone who believes in treating kids like kids. And when I say that, I mean that when teenagers who are under the age of 18 are accused of crimes, I think usually they should be tried in juvenile court, not held accountable as adults for what they've done wrong. We know that the adolescent brain is still developing and that teenagers on average aren't super good at

impulse control. So to me, Kavanaugh's age at the time matters and mitigates what he actually did in terms of his culpability for it. However, if Ford is telling the truth and he is not, if Kavanaugh is lying now, then he's doing the worst kind of victim trashing. He's exposing this woman to all kinds of abuse, and he's not taking any kind of responsibility for what he did. So, of course, what I'm saying now all depends on the idea that these allegations are true. But if they are true, then I think it's absolutely fair to hold Kavanaugh accountable for how he's responding right now, which is, you know, just utterly devoid of any kind of moral reckoning. Is there a difference here between the accuser, Christine Ford, being a white woman who comes from the same sort of elite D.C. suburb circles as Kavanaugh and Anita Hill, who is a black woman who worked under Clarence Thomas?

I mean, there shouldn't be a difference, but there may well be a difference. I also think there's a difference in terms of time and of the era. I actually interviewed Anita Hill a few months ago after the Me Too movement started, and I was so curious about what she thinks has changed. And she was actually remarkably hopeful. She felt like the whole social environment for women coming forward was different. And that now there's this sense of not just dismissing sexual harassment and sexual misconduct allegations as like stuff that didn't matter. If Kavanaugh's nomination is withdrawn, this would be a victory for Me Too. If Kavanaugh's nomination goes forward, even though these allegations might be credible and everyone sort of just walks all over them anyway, it would be this major failure for Me Too. for for me too do we have to pin the credit or the blame on the movement can we think of this

more in terms of right like can we think of this more in terms of the country of where we are sure as like a body politic and what we want our social compact to be i don't think it's fair to say that you know if kavanaugh gets through that means the me too movement has failed it will mean that the senate didn't take these allegations seriously, or it will mean that Ford was proved to not be credible. I mean, you know, that is still a possibility that's kind of lingering out there. It doesn't look to me like we have any evidence for that. But, you know, I don't think this nomination should go down unless we have good reason to think that she's telling the truth. And so in that sense, I think it's good

that there's been a referral to the FBI for an investigation. Emily Bazelon is one of the hosts of the Slate Political Gadfest. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained. There's a guy I work with, he's got these shoes with these huge gaping holes in them. Don't let it get to that point for yourself. Check out toms.com slash explained and get 15% off your first purchase. I'm going to tell the guy I work with about the website too. Just you wait and see.