Kavanaugh accuser was ‘surprised’ by kindness of some GOP senators

Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, said Tuesday that she was “surprised” by the kindness of some Republican senators during her 2018 testimony.

This week, Mr. Ford released a memoir, “One Way Back,” about his experience testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2018 about his allegations against Mr. Kavanaugh. On Tuesday’s episode of ABC’s “The View,” she detailed what she went through after going public with her accusations.

Co-host Sarah Haines asked Ford if he was prepared for a “skeptical” reaction from members of Congress during his testimony, and the professor, who wrote in his new book that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.S.) C.) noted that he wrote that he would not make eye contact with her. during the public hearing.

“I was prepared in advance that none of the Republicans were going to talk to me and that I would use an outside interviewer. So I broke that protocol and said hello to the other Republican senators. I was actually surprised at how kind some of them were,” she said, adding then-Sen. Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) were kind to her.

Ahead of his Senate confirmation hearing, Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting him during a party they attended in the early 1980s. She accused Mr. Kavanaugh of pinning her to the bed, groping her and putting his hand over her mouth, but Mr. Kavanaugh denied her accusations.

Her accusations were at the center of the Senate’s confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, who was later confirmed by the Supreme Court even though some Republican senators said Ford’s testimony was credible.

She said Tuesday that she decided to come forward at the time because “it would have been much harder” not to come forward.

“So as soon as Justice Kennedy retired, I realized it was a possibility. And when I saw his name on the list of nominees on the news, it started to bother me. And then… “I thought it was essential to share the data, and I knew it would be difficult,” she said.

“But I also realized that it would be more difficult not to say anything, and I would feel terrible if I didn’t say anything, so I wanted to share what I knew about him,” she added. .

Despite the difficulty in coming forward and the immediate backlash she received when she did, Ford said she would “try again.”

“I would definitely do it again,” she said, to applause from the audience.

“So, I’ll do it again. The next few years were awful. There were a few really bad years, but I somehow survived. I survived; I can survive,” she added.

The Hill has reached out to Graham for comment.