As interest in Keyser mounted, press vehicles blocked the road to her home, and she was forced to move into a hotel. Keyser had no idea she was going to be named as a participant at the gathering in question, had never spoken to Ford about it, and had not heard from Ford or her lawyer either before or immediately after the story was published. She tried to get in touch with Ford for help understanding why she was being targeted but couldn’t reach her until Wednesday, September 19, and then only briefly. Her greatest concerns were Ford’s current condition and trying to understand how she herself had been involved. She was also worried that she may have ignored Ford’s cries for help. Ford said she had never told her about what happened. She tried to talk some more about the alleged incident so she might recall it better. Other than suggesting Keyser was the driver that night, Ford had nothing else to offer. It later struck some friends of Keyser as strange, given the gravity of the accusation, that Ford’s lawyer, Debra Katz, never contacted her before she was named as a witness.
Displaced from her home, Keyser was operating on the assumption that Ford’s account was correct. She spent the time in the hotel trying to remember anything about Kavanaugh, the night in question, her involvement, and the general geography of where the party might have taken place. She looked at photos of Kavanaugh from the internet and yearbooks to try to help her remember anything, but she kept coming up dry.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which by this point had heard that Keyser was one of Ford’s named witnesses, sent her an email requesting information. A friend of hers and Ford’s asked to see the email. After reading it, the friend was relieved it wasn’t a subpoena and hoped Keyser would not respond to it. At this point, Keyser thought she was expected either to support the entire account or to say nothing. She was loyal to her friends; she loved Ford and wanted to support her; and she did not want Kavanaugh on the Court for the next thirty years. She also felt bound to tell the truth. After much effort Keyser knew two things: she had no recollection of the event Ford described, and she did not know Brett Kavanaugh. She felt that it was important to say this, which she did, through her attorney, in her first written statement submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee. After the statement went public, Keyser texted Ford on September 22, “I wish I could have been more supportive and that my statement was more helpful.”
Keyser was upset that Kavanaugh repeatedly referred to her statement in his testimony to “refute” Ford’s account. Keyser did not recall this event and was convinced she did not know Kavanaugh. At this time, however, she did not doubt Ford’s account. She informed friends and her lawyer in text messages that Kavanaugh’s use of her statement angered her. She had already told a reporter that she believed Ford and felt this statement had been overlooked. While she did not want to reiterate her belief, she stood by her statement that she did not recall the event or know Kavanaugh.
Perhaps motivated by Keyser’s texts, one of these friends, a woman, called Keyser’s lawyer and insisted that he and Keyser had both perjured themselves. She was certain that Keyser must have known Kavanaugh. After all, she reasoned, Keyser had dated Mark Judge, and Judge was always with Kavanaugh. In fact, however, Keyser had gone on only one date with Judge, to a very large house party, and she had no recollection of Kavanaugh’s being there or of ever meeting him.
Keyser’s lawyer called for an immediate meeting, and he and Keyser went to the friend’s home the next day, Friday, the twenty-eighth. She again insisted that Keyser must have known Kavanaugh since she went out with Mark Judge, and had therefore committed perjury in her statement. Angered that her friend was pushing her to amend her statement, Keyser emphatically maintained that it was accurate. She really did have no recollection of Kavanaugh even after a very diligent effort to try to remember him. Getting another friend on the phone, Keyser reiterated that she stood by her statement and was not going to lie to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Nonetheless, while she would not change what she had said, Keyser decided to let the committee know she still believed her friend. That same night, when the supplemental FBI investigation was announced, Keyser submitted an additional statement through her lawyer to the committee indicating her willingness to participate in the investigation. She reaffirmed that she did not know Kavanaugh and had no recollection of the gathering, but she stated that she nonetheless believed her friend.
Keyser told the FBI investigators the same thing: she didn’t know Kavanaugh and didn’t remember the event described by Ford. She felt relief at having followed through on her desire to cooperate with the legal process. And then she was able to do something she hadn’t done since the ordeal had started—sleep, recover, and reflect.
Over the next few days, Keyser again carefully reviewed all available pictures of Kavanaugh, went through maps of the area, and retraced her steps based on Ford’s statement and testimony. In addition to remembering more details of the summer of 1982, she also paid more attention to the news and the information that had been revealed about Ford’s allegations. Adding up the facts, she lost confidence in Ford’s account of the incident and came to the conclusion that she had to supplement her statement to the FBI. She asked her attorney to set that up.
During the second interview, Keyser described the summer with much more detail, adding that she didn’t believe there was any way she was at this gathering. She expressed concern at the pressure she had felt to go along with the story or to keep quiet and told the FBI about the meeting with her friends on September 28 in which she had felt coerced to change what she said. She detailed certain parts of the story that didn’t make sense to her. She also expressed her concern that her statement might be discounted because of her addiction problems throughout her adult life, but she made sure to reveal those problems so the FBI would have all the facts it needed. Saddened that her testimony might affect the lives of her dear friends, she nonetheless felt compelled to ensure that her accounting was completely accurate. Notably, she did not express any of these concerns publicly, only confidentially with the FBI.
Pressure to corroborate Ford’s story also came from outside Keyser’s circle of friends. Sara Corcoran, a journalist who was several years behind Ford and Keyser at Holton-Arms, published an aggressive and tasteless open letter that recounted the paralysis of Keyser’s high school boyfriend, Bill, in the Columbia Country Club pool. “I still remember the chaotic scene, the paramedics, and the shock of what happened. Our parents often warned us about diving into the shallow end or at any depth.” After that gruesome opening, Corcoran continued: “It was incredibly unfair to both of you that Bill broke his neck and died shortly thereafter. You were an inspiration to those of us young members at the club and students at Holton-Arms School. I am asking you [to be] an inspiration to us again by coming to the defense of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.” Playing on the trauma and guilt she had tried to stir up, Corcoran went on, “I know it seems like it is easier to turn away and revisiting the past is never easy, but your statements harmed the validity of Dr. Ford. . . . There was nothing you could have done to save Bill from the fate that awaited him, but you can save Christine.”8
Ashley Kavanaugh had two major events to run as town manager. The first was on Independence Day. Her husband had missed it because of an interview with the vice president about the Supreme Court appointment. Her second event was a big neighborhood block party, scheduled for Sunday, September 30. It had already been rescheduled from the previous weekend because of rain. Even with all she was going through, and with the FBI investigation again pushing back the vote on her husband, she was determined to run the event, which had its largest turnout ever. Hoping to spare her neighbors the public scrutiny her family had been enduring, she asked the press if they’d be willing not to camp in front of their home that day, promising they wouldn’t use the occasion to try to sneak out. They honored her request.