Tuesday, September 25, 2018

THE ACCUSATIONS KEEP PILING ON

Brett Kavanaugh DENIES second sexual misconduct allegation: Yale classmate of SCOTUS nominee claims he 'exposed himself to her in the early 1980s without consent at a drunken dorm party'

By Ariel Zilber

Daily Mail
September 24, 2018

Brett Kavanaugh has denied sexual misconduct allegations made by a second woman.

The Supreme Court nominee rejected claims by Deborah Ramirez, 53, that he 'thrust his penis in her face and caused her to touch it without her consent' during a dorm party at Yale University in the 1980s.

The alleged incident, which is said to have taken place during the 1983-84 academic year, was first reported on Sunday by The New Yorker.

She told the magazine she only came forward now because she had been drinking during the evening and admits there are 'gaps in her memory' when recollecting the story.

Kavanaugh denied the latest allegations against, slammed them as a 'smear' and said he looks forward to be able to clear his 'good name' when he testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

He said in a statement: ‘This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen,’ the judge wrote in a statement.

‘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.’

According to The New Yorker, the offices of at least four Democratic senators received word of the allegations and at least two of them have begun investigating.

Senior Republicans also learned of the new allegations last week.

Republicans renewed calls to accelerate the vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation when they were told about this allegation last week.

'This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanagh,' said Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.

'It should be fully investigated.'

President Donald Trump was notified of the allegations before the story went public, according to NBC News.

Trump has not changed his views on Kavanaugh and still supports him.

The White House also released a statement in response to The New Yorker story.

'This 35-year-old, uncorroborated claim is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign by the Democrats designed to tear down a good man,' said White House spokesperson Kerri Kupec.

'This claim is denied by all who were said to be present and is wholly inconsistent with what many women and men who knew Judge Kavanaugh at the time in college say.

'The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh.'

The White House is distributing a set of talking points aimed at discrediting Ramirez, according to political reporter Gabe Fleisher.

The sheet notes that Ramirez acknowledged to The New Yorker that there were ‘significant gaps in her memories of the evening.’

The White House also notes that Ramirez ‘was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.’

It was only after ‘six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney’ - who the White House noted was ‘provided by the Democrats’ - did she feel ‘confident enough of her recollections.’

Ramirez told The New Yorker that she attended the New Haven, Connecticut-based Ivy League school where she studied studied sociology and psychology.

After graduating from college, she says she worked for an organization aimed at helping victims of domestic violence.

Ramirez acknowledged to The New Yorker that she hesitated to come forward. She said she, too, had been drinking during the alleged incident.

She claims the incident took place during her and Kavanaugh's freshman year at Yale.

Ramirez said she was invited by a friend on the women's soccer team to a dorm room party.

The party took place in a room at Lawrance Hall, a student residence hall located in Yale's Old Campus.

Ramirez recalls that the students at the party were taking part in a drinking game.

'We were sitting in a circle,' she said. 'People would pick who drank.'

She recalls being picked repeatedly, which meant drinking large amounts of alcohol in a relatively short time.

Ramirez said she got drunk very fast.

She alleges that another male student used a 'gag plastic penis' which was pointed in her direction.

Soon afterward, Ramirez recalls being on the floor and slurring her words.

She then says another male exposed himself to her.

'I remember a penis being in front of my face,' Ramirez said.

'I knew that's not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.'

At that moment, Ramirez said she commented: 'That's not a real penis.'

She said that the other students began laughing at her and taunting her.

One of the students allegedly told her to 'kiss it.'

She said she pushed the person away, forcing her to touch it.

Ramirez said she was unnerved by what happened, particularly given her religious upbringing as a devout Catholic from Connecticut.

'I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,' she said.

'I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.'

Ramirez said she remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing as he pulled up his pants.

'Brett was laughing,' she said.

'I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.'

Ramirez said she remembers another student talking about the incident.

'Somebody yelled down the hall, "Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face",' she said.

'It was his full name. I don’t think it was just "Brett."

'And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.'

Ramirez acknowledges that there are 'gaps in her memory,' according to The New Yorker, particularly given the fact that she was intoxicated.

But she says she's confident it was Kavanaugh who exposed his genitalia to her that night.

She said: 'I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.'

Ramirez said her most vivid memory from that incident was the laughter from Kavanaugh and the other students at her expense.

'It was kind of a joke,' she recalled. 'And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.'

Ramirez declined to name the other two males involved in the incident.

One of the male students who was alleged to have been egging Kavanaugh on told The New Yorker that he doesn't remember the judge exposing himself to Ramirez.

'I don’t think Brett would flash himself to Debbie, or anyone, for that matter,' he said.

When asked why he thought Ramirez was making the allegation, he said: 'I have no idea.'

When asked if he was egging on Kavanaugh, the classmate said: 'I have zero recollection.'

Meanwhile, a group of Yale classmates alleged to have been involved in the incident have come out with a statement in support of Kavanaugh.

Two of the male classmates involved in the incident who were named by Ramirez released a statement disputing her account.

That statement was supported by the wife of a third male student that Ramirez said was involved as well as three other classmates - Dino Ewing, Louisa Garry, and Dan Murphy.

'We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale,' the statement read.

'He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place.

'Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale.

'We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it - and we did not.

'The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett.

'In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett’s Supreme Court nomination was pending.

'Editors from the New Yorker contacted some of us because we are the people who would know the truth, and we told them that we never saw or heard about this.'

The wife of the third male student named by Ramirez said she and Ramirez were close friends during their days at Yale and that this incident was never mentioned.

'This is a woman I was best friends with,' she said.

'We shared intimate details of our lives. And I was never told this story by her, or by anyone else.

'It never came up. I didn’t see it; I never heard of it happening.'

She said she and Ramirez were part of a 'larger social circle' that also included Kavanaugh.

Ramirez is a registered Democrat. The woman speculated that the allegation could be politically motivated, though she later told The New Yorker she was not certain this was the case.

Ramirez denied that her coming forward was motivated by politics.

She said her interests are to work 'toward human rights, social justice, and social change.'

When told about the statement released by students in support of Kavanaugh, Ramirez said she was 'disappointed and betrayed' by those who doubted her allegation 'because I clearly remember people in the room whose names are on this letter.'

The New Yorker reported that it spoke to a classmate of Ramirez, who said he heard about the incident from another student and that he was 'one hundred per cent sure' it was Kavanaugh.

The classmate declined to be identified.

'I’ve known this all along,' he said.

'It’s been on my mind all these years when his name came up. It was a big deal.'

Ramirez's classmate said he remembered details of the incident because he believed it was extreme behavior, even for alcohol-fueled parties on campus.

The classmate alleged that Kavanaugh and his social circle would often drink to excess.

He said he recalled Kavanaugh as 'relatively shy' when sober, but after a few drinks could become 'aggressive and even belligerent.'

The New Yorker spoke to other members of the same class as Kavanaugh and Ramirez.

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, said that Yale alumni had started talking among themselves about Kavanaugh's behavior in college after it became apparent he would be picked for the Supreme Court.

A number of Ramirez's classmates vouched for her integrity and honesty.

'Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,' said James Roche, a classmate who is now the CEO of a software company in San Francisco.

'She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.'

Roche said that while he never witnessed Kavanaugh behave inappropriately toward women, he does recall that the judge was 'frequently, incoherently drunk.'

'Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely,' Roche said.

'Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.'

Another classmate who knew Ramirez said she also found the allegation credible.

'Debbie’s always been a very truthful, kind - almost to the point of being selfless - individual,' said Jennifer Klaus.

Another classmate told The New Yorker that while she was not aware of these specific allegations against Kavanaugh, the type of behavior described was not uncommon during on-campus alcohol-fueled parties.

'I believe it could have happened,' the Yale student said.

She said she remembers Ramirez being taunted by Kavanaugh's male friends.

'They were always, like, "Debbie’s here!," and then they’d get into their "Lord of the Flies" thing,' she said.

She said that during Kavanaugh's time at Yale, he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

The frat, known as 'Deke', was reportedly notorious for wild parties that some believed went too far with women who attended.

Kavanaugh was also a member of an all-male secret society known as Truth and Courage, which also went by the nickname 'Tit and Clit.'

Ramirez said she did not go public with the story because she blamed herself for drinking.

'It was a story that was known, but it was a story I was embarrassed about,' she said.

'Even if I did drink too much, any person observing it, would they want their daughter, their granddaughter, with a penis in their face, while they’re drinking that much?' she said.

'I can say that at fifty-three, but when I was nineteen or twenty I was vulnerable. I didn’t know better.'

Ramirez said that Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court was a key factor in her going public.

She said she also blames those who were at the party and did not intervene.

'They’re accountable for not stopping this,' she said.

But 'what Brett did is worse.'

She said: 'What does it mean, that this person has a role in defining women’s rights in our future?'

Before The New Yorker learned of the allegations, word about Kavanaugh's behavior at Yale reached Senate aides, who then told a lawyer in Denver, Stanley Garnett.

Garnett is a former Democratic district attorney in Boulder.

Ramirez said she wanted to come out publicly when she realized that others would reveal the details first.

'I didn’t want any of this,' she said. 'But now I have to speak.'

Ramirez's allegations bear similarity to those of Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who claims that when she was 15, she was assaulted by then-17-year-old Kavanaugh when he was drunk while egged on by a male friend.

Ford sent a letter to California Senator Dianne Feinstein in July detailing the allegations stemming from the 1982 incident.

Ford will testify before a Senate panel on Thursday about her allegation, her lawyers and the committee said on Sunday.

Ramirez and her lawyer, Garnett, are calling for an FBI investigation into her allegations.

'I do believe an FBI investigation of this kind of character-related information would be appropriate, and would be an effective way to relay the information to the committee,' Garnett said.

Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is seeking 'immediate postponement' of any further action on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court amid The New Yorker report.

Feinstein sent a letter late Sunday to GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley after the report was published.

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh could be facing another headache.

Michael Avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels, has made shocking claims that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and other men would ply women with alcohol or drugs at house parties and then allow men to 'gang rape' them.

In an email to Mike Davis, the Chief Counsel for Nominations, Avenatti says he has 'significant evidence' of house parties in Washington D.C. during the early 1980s 'during which Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women'.

He said they would use 'alcohol' or 'drugs' to allow a 'train' of men to subsequently gang rape them.

Avenatti claims there are 'multiple witnesses that will corroborate these facts and each of them must be called to testify publicly'.

In a tweet with a screenshot of the email, he wrote: 'We demand that this process be thorough, open and fair, which is what the American public deserves. It must not be rushed and evidence/witnesses must not be hidden.'

Neither Kavanaugh or Judge have responded to Avenatti's latest allegations.

Earlier in the evening, the lawyer tweeted: 'I represent a woman with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge.'

'We will be demanding the opportunity to present testimony to the committee and will likewise be demanding that Judge and others be subpoenaed to testify.

'The nomination must be withdrawn.'

EDITOR’S NOTE: It wouldn’t surprise me on bit if Kavenaugh will soon withdraw his nomination.

1 comment:

Trey Rusk said...

The constant bombardment of this and other stories bores me. I don't think its healthy to constantly dwell on one topic. Fox News had 5 people in a row give their take on the story. They simply repeated what the others before them had already said. Last night I turned off the television and read.