his hand over her mouth. “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” said Ford, now a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern California. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”20
She said she had not told anyone about the incident until 2012, during couples therapy with her husband. She provided excerpts from what she said were her therapist’s notes, which recorded that four boys at an “elitist boys’ school” attacked her. The discrepancy in the number of boys involved was the fault of her therapist, she said.
Brown described Ford, “a registered Democrat who has made small contributions to political organizations,” as “a professor at Palo Alto University who teaches in a consortium with Stanford University, training graduate students in clinical psychology. Her work has been widely published in academic journals.” The article included but downplayed evidence that contradicted Ford’s insistence that she wanted to keep quiet, noting for example that Ford had “engaged Debra Katz” more than a month previously and that she had taken a polygraph test in early August to buttress her credibility.
Ford’s memory was foggy, Brown reported. She thought the incident might have happened in 1982. She wasn’t sure whose house they were in, how she got there, or where exactly it was. She had drunk only one beer, she said, but Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, were heavily intoxicated. Brown mentioned that Kavanaugh’s yearbooks made references to drinking and that Judge was public about his own heavy drinking in high school.
Ford managed to flee from the house where she was assaulted, Brown reported, but she wasn’t sure how she got home. The attack deeply affected her for the next four to five years and later induced anxiety and post-traumatic stress. The story could not have been more sympathetic to Ford.
The worst part of the day for Kavanaugh was calling his mother. He knew she would be devastated. The hearings and follow-up questions had been abusive, but a public accusation of sexual assault showed how much worse it could get.
McGahn reassured Kavanaugh, reminding him that they had always known something like this might happen. Was it a case of something “going south” with someone he’d dated? Kavanaugh flatly denied he had ever sexually assaulted anyone, much less this woman, whom he didn’t even remember meeting. McGahn had already talked to President Trump, who showed no interest in abandoning Kavanaugh. That show of support was an important first step, but in the wake of the Post story, it would be difficult to convince others.
Then, pondering the newly revealed details of the accusation, Kavanaugh realized that crucial evidence of his innocence might be sitting in his basement. His father had started keeping detailed daily calendars in 1978. Kavanaugh followed suit in 1980, continuing the practice with more or less diligence ever since. These detailed daily records, almost like a diary, provided contemporary evidence of where he had been and what he had done almost every day of his life since high school. He went to the basement and pulled out his calendars for the summer of 1982 to see what they showed.
Reviewing those calendars was like traveling back in time to high school. He was preoccupied with colleges, basketball camp, going to the beach with his friends, and visiting his “Gramy” in Connecticut. Above all, he was focused on sports, which had been an obsession since he started playing basketball in the fourth grade and football and baseball in the fifth grade.
He would continue with basketball and football throughout high school. When he wasn’t playing or practicing sports, he was thinking about them or watching games on television. He went with his father to Redskins football games, Washington Bullets basketball games, Baltimore Orioles baseball games, and Washington Capitals hockey games. They’d also attend University of Maryland basketball games.
Sports focused his competitive instincts, taught him how take a hit and get back up, and provided camaraderie. He broke his collarbone in the ninth grade in football practice. The pain was brutal, but even worse was missing the last two games of the season and half the basketball season. Being sidelined so long drove him crazy, but it taught him patience.
His own coaches taught him lessons he’d later impart to the athletes he coached—keeping things in perspective and being sure you could say you gave it your all even if you lost. He learned about the importance of practices, workouts, and summer preparation. And he learned about the bonding that comes from being on a team with a great