Ford’s partying and interactions with boys and young men and the attention they drew had dismayed her family. Some journalists noticed that a letter from “members of Christine Blasey Ford’s family” did not include the signatures of any blood relatives. In a story headlined “Christine Blasey Ford’s Family Has Been Nearly Silent Amid Outpouring of Support,” the Washington Post took her parents and brothers to task for failing to sign her in-laws’ letter. Her father, Ralph Blasey, responded, “I think all of the Blasey family would support her. I think her record stands for itself. Her schooling, her jobs and so on.” Later he added, “I think any father would have love for his daughter.”37
The media tended to skim over Ford’s political views, which ran decidedly to the left and were at variance with most of her family’s. Facebook friends reported that she had regularly expressed her hostility to the Trump administration before she deleted her profile around the time of Kavanaugh’s nomination. After her retreat from social media, only a few references to her political opinions remained, one mentioning a hat she wore in homage to the anti-Trump “pussy hat” protesters, another protesting Trump’s policy on border security.38
In one of the Washington Post’s deferential profiles of Ford, her husband had suggested that any strain in the family was due to those “differing political views” and misogyny: “It was a very male-dominated environment. Everyone was interested in what’s going on with the men, and the women are sidelined, and she didn’t get the attention or respect she felt she deserved.” The same article emphasized that Ford’s father and Kavanaugh’s father belonged to the same all-male golf club, Burning Tree.
The Post suggested that Ford’s family was afraid to defend her, quoting her sister-in-law as saying that supporters of sexual assault victims have trouble coming forward. Hale Boggs III, the scion of a prominent Democratic family and a friend of the Blaseys, remarked, “It’s got to be such a difficult situation for that family. It’s a very close-knit community where a lot of families know each other.”39 Still, a number of persons close to the family reported that staying silent was actually the family’s way of supporting Christine.
It was not fear of showing support for Ford that kept others in the community quiet but the opposite. While many high school acquaintances of Ford’s revealed unflattering details about her behavior in high school—some of them truly salacious—the media’s hostility to Kavanaugh made them fear for their livelihood if their names were attached to the stories. Some worried that their children’s college applications would be affected. And some were reluctant to expose Ford to the kind of ferocious public criticism to which Kavanaugh had been subjected, even if what they said was true.
A person claiming to be an acquaintance of the Blasey family told the Judiciary Committee that several persons who knew Christine in high school had information regarding her drinking and partying, but none was willing to come forward. “I wish I could say all of the things I know,” the witness said, “but I don’t want to put myself out there.”
The president and the Senate majority leader chatted by phone after Ford’s testimony to assess each other’s reaction. Neither was wavering.
No Republican senator thought Ford had performed poorly in her testimony, but the reactions varied strongly. Some thought her attorneys had done her no favors. Others felt the gaps in her recent memory were disconcerting. And one staffer, early on, thought she was doing so well that he joked about calling in a bomb threat to stop the hearing.
But some Republican senators were more fickle. One member of the Judiciary Committee went to Senator Collins with a plan. In light of Ford’s testimony, they should go to the White House and make an offer to confirm a different nominee if Kavanaugh’s nomination were pulled. Collins, whose diligence and regard for rule of law had remained intact throughout the process, declined. She never would have recommended withdrawing the nomination based on Ford’s testimony alone. She was determined to hear Kavanaugh out.
CHAPTER NINE
Miracle
The unwillingness of nearly everyone to question Ford’s credibility publicly made the pressure on Kavanaugh before his testimony nearly unbearable. After the Fox News interview, Don McGahn encouraged Kavanaugh by reminding him there was a reason he had been nominated to the Supreme Court. His professional performance over three decades gave people confidence in him. Figure out what you want to do in Thursday’s hearing and execute it, he said. Too many people telling him too many things, McGahn thought, was making him come across as too rehearsed. Kavanaugh should just be himself.
McGahn’s advice was a huge relief and exactly what Kavanaugh needed to hear. He was being pulled in two directions, which reflected the influence of two very different Republican presidents. His temperament was a perfect match with President George W. Bush, a man adored by those who worked closely with him. But Bush’s willingness to brush off slights and to discard conservative principles for the sake of political expediency made many Americans feel he had let them down. At the other end of the spectrum was the brash outsider President Donald Trump. Reviled by the Washington establishment, he had been brought to power by an American people worried about the direction of the courts, the rise of “social justice warriors,” and the corrosive influence of the media. Voters were seeking someone willing to stand strong against these forces.
McGahn liked to remind Kavanaugh that he was a Trump nominee, but as Thursday approached, he didn’t need reminding.
Kavanaugh and Ford were supposed to submit their written statements to the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning, twenty-four hours before the hearings opened, but Kavanaugh’s wasn’t finished. He had been thinking about his statement for a while, but because of the uncertainty of Ford’s appearance, he had not gotten down to writing in earnest until Tuesday. The Kavanaugh team realized that his statement would not be ready by the ten o’clock deadline, but they were not worried about that. Strategically, it did not make sense to submit his full statement in advance, for much of its power would be in the delivery. And given Ford’s cavalier attitude toward deadlines, they doubted she would submit her statement in time. They also knew that delivering a statement in a congressional hearing that differed from the written form previously submitted was common. So shortly before noon on Wednesday, the team submitted to the committee an early draft that they knew would need more work. It consisted of seven fairly dry, biographical paragraphs but ended with the promise of more: “Additional testimony to follow.”1 Ford submitted her testimony, a close approximation of the statement she would deliver the following day, at around five o’clock p.m.
Less than two hours later, the Avenatti allegations of gang rape broke. A White House aide suggested to Chris Michel, the former clerk and Bush speechwriter helping Kavanaugh prepare his remarks, that he tear up what he had and start over. The campaign to keep him from being seated had just escalated to accusations of serial gang rape. It was time to get angry.
Kavanaugh had already taken that advice. Michel had presented him earlier in the day with his rough draft of the speech, timed to last about ten minutes. The judge retreated into his office and spent the next several hours rewriting and dramatically expanding the draft. The White House kept asking to see it and he kept declining. Finally, he told them they weren’t going to see a draft. McGahn never insisted that he share it, choosing to trust him.