The US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh is not a “consummately honest person” and “must know” what really happened on the night more than 40 years ago when he allegedly sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, his accuser writes in an eagerly awaited memoir.
A research psychologist from northern California, Ford was thrust into the spotlight in September 2018 as Kavanaugh, a Bush aide turned federal judge, became Donald Trump’s second conservative court nominee. Her allegations almost derailed Kavanaugh’s appointment and created headlines around the world.
Ford’s memoir, One Way Back, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
“The fact is, he was there in the room with me that night in 1982,” Ford writes. “And I believe he knows what happened. Even if it’s hazy from the alcohol, I believe he must know.
“Once he categorically denied my allegations as well as any bad behavior from his past during a Fox News interview, I felt more certainty than ever that after my experience with him, he had not gone on to become the consummately honest person befitting a supreme court justice.”
Kavanaugh’s nomination became mired in controversy after a Washington Post interview in which Ford said Kavanaugh, while drunk, sexually assaulted her at a party in Montgomery county, Maryland, when they were both in high school.
“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” Ford, then 51, told the Post. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”
Kavanaugh vehemently denied the accusation, helping fuel hearing-room rancor not seen since the 1991 confirmation of Clarence Thomas, a rightwinger accused of sexually harassing a co-worker, Anita Hill.
Supported by Republicans and Trump, Kavanaugh rode out the storm to join Thomas on the court. Trump would later add another conservative, Amy Coney Barrett, tipping the court 6-3 to the right. That court has since passed down major rightwing rulings, most prominently removing the federal right to abortion.
In her book, Ford says she thought Kavanaugh might “step down to avoid putting his family through an investigation or further scrutiny”, adding that she wanted to tell him he should “save us both the trouble”, because “I don’t want this as much as you don’t want this”.
She has been asked, she says, what she would have done if Kavanaugh had “reached out and apologised”.
She writes: “Who would he be apologising to – me? The country? What would he be apologising for – that night? The harassment [of Ford by Trump supporters] around the testimony?
“All I can guess is that if he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general … I might’ve wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know what, he was a jackass in high school but now he’s not.’
“But when my story came out and he flat-out denied any possibility of every single thing I said, it did alleviate a little of my guilt. For me, the question of whether he had changed was answered. Any misgivings about him being a good person went away.”
Ford says she decided to press through the difficulties of coming forward – meeting Democratic senators opposed to Kavanaugh, being grilled by Republicans supporting him, becoming famous herself – because of the importance of the court.
She writes: “Honestly, if it hadn’t been the supreme court – if my attacker had been running for a local office, for example – I probably wouldn’t have said anything.”
Calling this “a sad, scary thing to admit”, Ford adds: “But this was a job at one of our most revered institutions, which we have historically held in the highest esteem. That’s what I learned at school.”
Saying she was “thinking and behaving according to principle”, she adds: “I was under the impression (delusion?) that almost everyone else viewed it from the same perspective.
“Wasn’t it inarguable that a supreme court justice should be held to the highest standard? A presidency you could win, but to be a supreme court justice, you needed to live your perfection. These nine people make decisions that affect every person in the country. I figured the application process should be as thorough as possible, and perhaps I could be a letter of (non)reference.”
Ford also describes occasions on which she discussed the alleged attack as Kavanaugh rose to prominence. As well as conversations in therapy reported by the Post, she cites others triggered by high-profile events.
Among such moments, Ford says, were the 1991 Thomas hearings in which Hill was brutally grilled by senators of both parties; a 2016 criminal case in which a Stanford swimmer was convicted of sexual assault but given a light sentence; and the #MeToo movement of 2017, in which women’s stories of sexual assault led to convictions of prominent men.
After Kavanaugh was named as a potential supreme court nominee, Ford contacted Anna Eshoo, her Democratic California congresswoman, and the Post. She may have inadvertently leaked her identity, she writes, by contacting a tip line using her own phone. Either way, she was soon at the centre of a political hurricane.
“I never, ever wanted [Kavanaugh’s] family to suffer,” Ford writes, adding: “When my allegations came out publicly, the media started reporting that he was getting threats. It troubled me a lot.
“Then I remembered that I’d already had to move to a hotel because of the threats to me and my family. Again and again I thought, ‘Why is he putting us all through this? Why can’t he call those people off? Say something – anything – to condemn the harassment happening on both sides?”
Kavanaugh, she writes, was at the mercy of rightwing interests pushing for his confirmation. Ultimately, she says, he should have expected “a thorough review of [his] entire history to be part of” becoming a justice.
“If you can’t handle that,” Ford writes, “then maybe you’re not qualified for the job.”
