Kavanaugh Accuser: ‘I Believed He Was Going to Rape Me’

America has read about Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. On Thursday, the country heard it in her own words.

Ford, a clinical psychology professor in California who was in high school the same time as Kavanaugh, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he groped her and tried to take her clothes off during a party in the early 1980s.

“He had a hard time because he was very inebriated, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes,” she said. “I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from yelling.”

Close to tears at times, Ford said she panicked.

“This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life,” she said. “It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.”

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Much hinges on Ford’s testimony. If senators find her credible, it could sink Kavanaugh’s nomination — and perhaps jeopardize the tenuous 5-4 majority that conservatives have enjoyed on the court in recent years.

Kavanaugh, who also will testify Thursday, has categorically denied the allegations.

For cast herself as a reluctant witness.

“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified,” she said. “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.”

Ford’s testimony was consistent with the story she told The Washington Post — that Kavanaugh’s friend, Mark Judge, was in the room alternately egging him on and telling him to stop. She said she managed to get away, run to the bathroom and lock the door. She said she waited until they had left and then ran out of the house.

“I remember being on the street and feeling an enormous sense of relief that I had escaped that house and that Brett and Mark were not coming after me,” she said.

Ford said she did not tell anyone, particularly not her parents, who she feared would be angry to learn their 15-year-old daughter had been drinking beer with older boys.

Related: Outrageous: Feinstein Slams Republicans in Her Opening Statement

Ford said years later she told her husband she had experience a sexual assault and that she provided more details to explain her strange desire to add a second front door when they remodeled their home.

Ford testified that she came forward publicly out of a sense of civic duty.

“This was an extremely hard thing for me to do, but I felt I couldn’t not do it,” she said. “Over the next two days, I told a couple of close friends on the beach … Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted me. I was conflicted about whether to speak out.”

Ford also spoke about the threats that temporarily have driven her and her family out of their home.

“Apart from the assault itself, these past couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life,” she said. “I’ve had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and I have seen my life picked apart by people on television, on Twitter, on other social media, and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me.”