Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s Opening Remarks

Senate Judiciary Committee, September 27, 2018

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh both testified in an extremely high-stakes hearing on Thursday in Washington DC in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. There are now two additional women who have come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh.

One of them, Debbie Ramirez, said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party during their years at Yale and sexually assaulted her. Another, Julie Swetnick says she was drugged and gang raped at a party where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were present and that Kavanaugh and Judge were implicated in other rapes. Neither Ramirez and Swetnick were asked to testify although they offered to do so.

Republican committee members refused to question Dr. Blasey Ford directly and instead deferred their time to Rachel Mitchell, the deputy county attorney and division chief of the Special Victims Division in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix, Arizona. GOP Senators did speak directly with Judge Kavanaugh when it became his turn to testify.

Today we’ll play you the majority of Christine Blasey Ford’s opening remarks at the historic hearing and in subsequent shows we’ll analyze what has happened.