Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, participated in a women’s march protesting President Donald Trump last year, according to a friend of Blasey Ford’s who spoke to The Mercury News.
The California newspaper quoted Rebecca White, described as “one of Blasey Ford’s neighbors and a good friend.” In the article, White praises Ford’s “honesty and truth” and claims Ford told her about the alleged attack in 2017 without using Kavanaugh’s name. She also revealed a previously unreported detail about Blasey Ford’s politics: That Ford took part in a women’s march protesting President Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh.
The Mercury News, in an article by journalist Julia Prodis Sulek, reported that White told its journalist that “Blasey Ford participated in a local Women’s March protesting Trump last year.”
Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct that dates to the 1980s, when both of them were in high school. Because the Supreme Court nomination is so politicized – Kavanaugh would replace centrist Anthony Kennedy on the court – Christine Ford’s politics has become a flashpoint in the debate. She’s a registered Democrat, according to The Washington Post; that’s the newspaper she allowed to print her name.
Christine Ford came forward on September 16, 2018 to The Washington Post and revealed that she was the anonymous woman who has accused Kavanaugh, who has strenuously denied the accusations. In the interview with The Post, Ford accused Kavanaugh of pinning her down and groping her before she escaped; she says another high school friend of Kavanaugh’s named Mark Judge was in the room. Judge, a D.C.-based writer, previously told The Weekly Standard – before Christine Blasey Ford was named – that the account was false.
Ford works as a professor at Palo Alto University and teaches in consortium with Stanford University. She has written or helped write more than 50 journals, book chapters, and other articles. One study focused on trauma as a result of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
In addition to the women’s march, Kavanaugh once donned a knitted brain cap modeled after the well-known pink p*ssy hats for a science march. A 2017 article in the Mercury News says that Blasey Ford was planning to attend a science march wearing a knitted brain hat that was supposed to resemble the pink p*ssy hats that many have used to protest Donald Trump and advocate for women’s rights.
“It’s a science party!” the article quotes “biostatistician Christine Blasey, of Palo Alto” as saying. It says she would “wear an elaborately knitted cap of the human brain — yarn turned into a supersized cerebral cortex — inspired by the ‘pussy hats’ donned during the Women’s Marches.” The article describes the march as involving people, in general, who are “deeply worried that political leaders are ignoring scientific evidence, aren’t committed to fighting climate change and are calling for significant cuts to national science programs.” It didn’t specifically attribute those views to Blasey, though.
Kavanaugh has denied the allegations, saying, “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
Christine Blasey Ford Has Made Some Political Contributions, Including to Bernie Sanders
Ford’s 1983 yearbook photo
The Washington Post reports that Christine Ford is a “registered Democrat who has made small contributions to political organizations.”
The federal campaign donation website lists these donations for Christine Blasey, which is how Ford is known professionally. Among them:
One donation was earmarked for the Democratic National Committee:
One was designated for Bernie Sanders.
In 2014, a donation was earmarked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee:
Blasey Ford’s lawyer is Debra Katz, a prominent sexual harassment civil rights attorney known in the #metoo movement. According to the FEC website, Katz is a Democratic campaign donor.
Christine Ford Signed a Letter Demanding an End to Trump’s Family Separations at the Border
Christine Ford signed a letter with many other health professionals demanding that Trump stop his controversial policy on family separations at the border. She signed the letter as Christine Blasey, and it was used as an exhibit in an ACLU lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Christine Blasey Ford’s letter may stem from her research into “child maltreatment issues.” For example, she is the co-author on a journal article titled, “Does Gender Moderate the Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment and Adult Depression?” The abstract for that journal – one of many research articles she’s been involved in – reads in part: “In a sample of 5,673 adult Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) patients, the authors employed the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8) to assess major depressive disorder (MDD) and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) to assess five different types of childhood maltreatment: emotional, physical, and sexual abuse, as well as emotional and physical neglect.”
The letter signed by Christine Blasey was also released as a press release on June 14, 2018. “America’s Health Professionals Appeal to Trump Administration: End Family Separation at Border Immediately” it’s headlined. (At the time, the family separation policy was hotly criticized by people on both sides of the political aisle, and Trump eventually said he was changing the policy.)
The press release on the letter says in part: “Thousands of medical voices from across the United States have joined forces with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to urge the Trump administration to immediately halt the separation of migrant and asylum seeking children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. A letter, addressed to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, signed by more than 5,000 experts across the health and child development fields, and calling for swift action, was delivered today to the administration.”
“It should not be U.S. policy to traumatize children, and especially not as a form of indirect punishment of their parents,” the letter reads.
“Forced separation of children and parents, especially in connection with the detention of a parent, can constitute an adverse childhood experience, which research links with disrupted neurodevelopment, resulting in social, emotional, and cognitive impairment, and even negative intergenerational effects,” the letter adds.
You can read the press release here. It was released by the organization Physicians for Human Rights.
The letter, which is addressed to Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, opens, “As medical and mental health professionals and researchers working in the United States, we are gravely concerned about the Trump administration’s practice of separating migrant and asylum-seeking families at the U.S.-Mexico border. Such a practice is profoundly harmful to children and to families, in addition to violating fundamental human rights. We urge you to immediately end forced separation of families at the border, and instead keep families together in community-based settings while their immigration proceedings are pending.”
The letter also argues, “The intentional infliction of pain on children and their families is not just inhumane, it also fails to meet the stated goals of deterrence. Punishing parents with family separation may cause damage to their children, and it will not change the realities that drove the parents to seek safe haven in the United States.”
It’s signed Christine Blasey, PhD, psychologist.
The letter was used as an exhibit in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to end the family separations policy. The lawsuit against ICE demanded family reunification. You can read it here.