Ronan Farrow’s bombshell report in The New Yorker, co-authored with Jane Mayer, details new allegations of sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, this time stemming from back when he was a student at Yale University.
The 11th-hour claims come from Deborah Ramirez, 53, of Boulder, Colorado.
These new allegations were published as the Senate Judiciary Committee worked to negotiate details of the public testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault back when both of them were teenagers in high school.
Kavanaugh denied the first claim of sexual assault — and he’s denied this second claim in a statement, The New Yorker piece noted. Kavanaugh’s statement said, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name — and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building — against these last-minute allegations.”
Farrow (shown above right) appeared Monday on “Good Morning America” to promote the piece and spoke with host George Stephanopoulos (above left) about the new claim against Kavanaugh.
Stephanopoulos told Farrow, “This jumped out at me. You said at first she [Ramirez] wasn’t sure if this was Kavanaugh [who perpetrated the misconduct] when you first spoke to her last week, and then you write [how] after six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorneys she did become confident that it was him.”
Farrow interrupted Stephanopoulos: “And George, you know that I would say that’s extremely typical with these stories when you are dealing with trauma and alcohol, many years in between … The more cautious witnesses that I have dealt with in cases like this very frequently say, ‘I want to take time to decide, I want to talk to other people involved, and search myself and make sure that I can affirmatively stand by these claims’ — in the face of what she knew would be a crucible of partisan pushback, which is what she is receiving now.”
Stephanopoulos said, “Why did she come forward?”
Said Farrow, “She came forward because Senate Democrats began looking for this claim. She did not flag this. This came to the attention of people on the Hill independently, and it has really cornered her into an awkward position … She said, point-blank, ‘I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life,’ but she feels this is a serious claim. She considers her own memories credible, and she felt it was important that she tell her own story before others did without her consent because so many on the Hill were looking at this.”
The Democrats have dug a hole for their own future nominees, and opened a door for the GOP to go back and examine ALL aspects of their high school and college days. That should be fun.
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) September 24, 2018
Stephanopoulos then said, “Several others in the article say they never heard anything like this at all, even someone who professed to be her best friend at the time … This close to the nomination, did you sort of want to push the pause button and say, ‘Are we sure this is the right thing to do?'”
Related: Stunning Reactions to the Second Kavanaugh Accuser Story
Farrow replied in part, “George, I just want to stress very clearly we take reporting of this type extremely seriously. The evidentiary basis for this, the number of witnesses who were told at the time, is strong. It’s in excess of what we typically see in this type of investigative reporting. The deal with sexual assault claims is very often that there aren’t multiple people willing to say they witnessed it, in the room.”
See the exchange in the video below.
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