The Washington Post reported this afternoon that Stanford professor Christine Blasey Ford is the woman behind the confidential letter given to Sen. Dianne Feinstein accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault as a teenager. According to the Post, Ford initially refrained from revealing the alleged information of a horrendous sexual assault due to privacy concerns for herself and her family. But she thought it was her duty to come forward on the record after the advice of Washington lawyer Debra Katz. Katz, however, has a long history of dismissing sexual assault allegations against liberal politicians, donating to left-wing causes, and even publicly demonizing all Trump advisors as "miscreants" who are worse than deplorables.
Ford kept the following account to herself until a 2012 couples' therapy session and declined to initially name Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge according to her therapist's notes from the appointment:
Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County.
While his friend watched, she said, Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed on her back and groped her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it. When she tried to scream, she said, he put his hand over her mouth.
“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”
Ford said she was able to escape when Kavanaugh’s friend and classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, Mark Judge, jumped on top of them, sending all three tumbling. She said she ran from the room, briefly locked herself in a bathroom and then fled the house.
Over the summer of 2018, as it became apparent that Kavanaugh was going to be nominated for the Supreme Court, Ford debated whether she should come forward publicly with this information. According to the Post, Ford "engaged Debra Katz, a Washington lawyer known for her work on sexual harassment cases. On the advice of Katz, who believed Ford would be attacked as a liar if she came forward, Ford took a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent in early August."
After Sen. Feinstein announced the accusatory letter last week, Ford decided she had to come on the record to avoid public scrutiny and speculation. It was Katz who provided the results of that polygraph test to the Post. The results "concluded that Ford was being truthful when she said a statement summarizing her allegations was accurate."
But, readers should remember that Katz treated Paula Jones' accusations of sexual harassment against President Bill Clinton very differently in the 1990s. According to court documents, Jones claimed that then-Arkansas governor Bill Clinton summoned her to his hotel room where she was working as a receptionist. While in the room he "unexpectedly reached over to (her), took her hand, and pulled her toward him, so that their bodies were close to each other." She backed away, but he pursued, saying, 'I love the way your hair flows down your back' and 'I love your curves. He then "put his hand on her leg, started sliding it toward her pelvic area, and bent down to attempt to kiss her on the neck, all without her consent.' Jones claimed she said, "What are you doing?" and had to escape to a nearby sofa where she attempted to distract the governor by talking about his wife.
However, when she was sitting on the sofa, Clinton came close to her and "lowered his trousers and underwear, exposed his penis (which was erect) and told (her) to 'kiss it.'" Jones then attempted to leave but the governor said, "'Well, I don't want to make you do anything you don't want to do,' and then pulled up his pants and said, 'If you get in trouble for leaving work, have Dave call me immediately and I'll take care of it.' She left the room (the door of which was not locked), the governor 'detained' her momentarily, 'looked sternly' at her, and said, 'You are smart. Let's keep this between ourselves,'" according to court documents.
Jones claims she initially kept the incident to herself for fear of workplace retribution since Clinton knew her boss. Katz dismissed Jones' assertions on March 30th,1998 on CNN's "Talkback Live" saying that, "Paula Jones' suit is very, very, very weak. She's alleged one incident that took place in a hotel room that, by her own testimony, lasted 10 to 12 minutes. She suffered no repercussions in the workplace."
Likewise, Katz again said on CBS' Evening News on April 2nd, 1998 that Jones' allegation could not hold up in court because, "Clearly a one-time incident that took place in 10 to 12 minutes, she was not forced to have sex, she left on her own volition, the courts increasingly are finding that that is not enough to create a sexually hostile work environment claim."
Katz continued to argue throughout the 90s that because Jones could not show that the harassment was "severe and pervasive," she did not have a case. In 1998, Katz told the media that, "If a woman came to me with a similar fact pattern, that is someone in the company above her propositioned her but only once and she suffered no tangible job detriment. I would probably tell her that I'm sorry, it's unfair, but you don't have a case.’ Katz said that courts have generally held that a one-time proposition does not constitute harassment. If it's one time, it has to be severe, almost a sexual assault, not just a touching of somebody's breast or buttocks or even forceful kissing."
Jones has since maintained her incident with Bill Clinton left her traumatized and demoralized. The president was forced to settle for $850,000.
Yet, Katz continued to dismiss certain episodes of sexual misconduct throughout the years. Fast forward to 2017 and Katz defended then Sen. Al Franken after a photo appeared of him mock groping a female colleague while working as a comedian. At the time Katz said, "Context is relevant. He did not do this as a member of the U.S. Senate. He did this in his capacity of someone who was still functioning as an entertainer," and dismissed concern it was sexual harassment.
Since 2004, Katz has donated at least $26,000 to Democratic politicians including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Kerry. She also donated to groups such as MoveOn.org, the DNC Services Corp, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Likewise, in March 2017 Katz declared via Facebook that, "These people are all miscreants. The term ‘basket of deplorables’ is far too generous a description for these people who are now Senior Trump advisors," after a report surfaced that Department of Homeland Security advisor Frank Wuco made anti-Islamic remarks which prompted his resignation.
