“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified. 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,” Professor Christine Blasey Ford plans to say in her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, according to prepared remarks released to media Wednesday evening.
While Ford is one of three women to publicly accuse the US Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault, she is currently the only alleged victim slated to speak at the Thursday hearing ahead of a vote scheduled for Friday.
Describing the night Ford says Kavanaugh attempted to rape her while his friend Mark Judge watched, Ford’s testimony reads in part:
I was pushed from behind into a bedroom. I couldn’t see who pushed me. Brett and Mark came into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. There was music already playing in the bedroom. It was turned up louder by either Brett or Mark once we were in the room. I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me. He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy. Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes… I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did this, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming… It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.
Read Ford’s full written statement:
We’re resisting Trump’s authoritarian pressure.
As the Trump administration moves a mile-a-minute to implement right-wing policies and sow confusion, reliable news is an absolute must.
Truthout is working diligently to combat the fear and chaos that pervades the political moment. We’re requesting your support at this moment because we need it – your monthly gift allows us to publish uncensored, nonprofit news that speaks with clarity and truth in a moment when confusion and misinformation are rampant. As well, we’re looking with hope at the material action community activists are taking. We’re uplifting mutual aid projects, the life-sustaining work of immigrant and labor organizers, and other shows of solidarity that resist the authoritarian pressure of the Trump administration.
As we work to dispel the atmosphere of political despair, we ask that you contribute to our journalism. Over 80 percent of Truthout’s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors.
24 hours remain in our fundraiser, and you can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.