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Christine Blasey Ford’s memoir “One Way Back” about the way her life turned upside down after accusing then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault ends with a note of frustration with the way her situation was handled, even by those sympathetic to her.
“I wanted this book to set the record straight, but if I’m being perfectly honest, I was also kind of bitter that I was the one who had to do it,” she writes. “There were all these brilliant politicians, lawyers, publicists, activists, and journalists around me, but I was ultimately the one who had to paddle back out and fix it.”
Ford is a prolific surfer and thus surfing and water metaphors abound in her account of how, in 2018, she became the center of the political universe when she accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a high school party in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh emphatically denied the charge, and with no time, location or corroborating witnesses to bolster her account, it became the definitive he-said, she-said story, culminating in a wrenching day of testimony where Ford and Kavanaugh made their cases.
Ultimately, readers know how that story ends: Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed thanks to the small GOP majority at the time, and Ford’s and Kavanaugh’s respective camps remain convinced to this day that their person was wrongfully treated.
CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD RETURNS TO SPOTLIGHT, WITH SYMPATHETIC PRESS IN TOW
Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 2018, has returned to the media spotlight. (Left: (Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Right: (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images))
Now, Ford has emerged with an account of what her life was like as she debated coming forward and was eventually thrust into the spotlight. Ford didn’t provide any new revelations about the night she says Kavanaugh attacked her, but she remains steadfast that it happened.
After Kavanaugh was nominated by President Trump to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, Ford detailed how she wound up with a legal team and was brought to the attention of Washington once she came forward with her story.
In one instance, she recounted having a shouted conversation with then-85-year-old Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who yelled on the phone, “Were you…raped?!” Ford shouted back, “No!”
Her lawyers at one point recommended she not go forward with the accusation, after she’d already forewarned her family, taken a polygraph and contacted former boyfriends. A furious Ford described “crying tears of rage” and accusing her attorneys of not looking out for her best interests.
“I’m out in the middle of the f—ing ocean!” she yelled at one point when it appeared that her story in the saga would end there.
But quite abruptly on the next page, Ford wrote that “one way or another, Feinstein did end up sharing the information with her fellow Democrats.” She claimed her lawyers overheard an argument among Democratic senators in the Capitol committee room in early September 2018 that appeared to be about Feinstein sitting on Ford’s story for too long.
That was it; Ford then began getting calls and emails from journalists about a “Palo Alto woman who had sexual assault allegations” against Kavanaugh.
VideoFord talked about shouting at and throwing out a BuzzFeed reporter her younger son had let inside their house, removing blue dye from her hair before her testimony so “I would present as professionally as possible,” and how her father thought testifying was a “bad idea.” Later in the book, she described feelings of estrangement from him and her brothers.
She had hoped to remain private, but through a series of unfortunate events – she still doesn’t know who leaked her letter and essentially her identity to the press – she found herself in front of the world on Sept. 27, 2018, calling herself “terrified” and accusing Kavanaugh of a drunken, frightening assault. In a testament to her own naïveté, or perhaps due to poor prep, she claims not to have realized until minutes beforehand that her testimony would be nationally televised; the day’s proceedings turned out to have 20 million viewers.
Regarding Kavanaugh, Ford wrote that if he had come to her and “leveled with me” and apologized, “I might’ve wobbled a bit.” But since he emphatically denied her story, “any misgivings about him being a good person went away.”
“I believe he knows what happened. Even if it’s hazy from the alcohol, I believe he must know,” she wrote.
In the aftermath of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, she also discussed the threats and the uplifting letters she received, the feelings of abandonment she had about her character being attacked, the massive financial costs she endured from legal and security fees, and therapeutic meetings with Clarence Thomas accuser Anita Hill and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.
Christine Blasey Ford appears on “CBS Sunday Morning” on March 17, 2024. (Screenshot/CBS Sunday Morning)
In interviews last week, Ford said despite everything, she was glad she came forward and that the experience was “survivable.”
Ending the book fittingly with a surfing metaphor, she challenged “regular, imperfect people” to take their chances on the waves, even when scared or uncertain.
“When enough of us do it, justice will finally prevail,” she claims.
The Federalist editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway, who co-wrote the bestselling book “Justice on Trial” about the Kavanaugh confirmation process, told that Ford’s account remained not credible.
“Nobody is buying this book because nobody bought her story. She doesn’t know when or where the alleged event happens. Her named witnesses said it didn’t happen and even her father supported Kavanaugh’s nomination. What the media and Democrats did to Brett Kavanaugh remains reprehensible and everyone involved should feel deep shame,” Hemingway, a Fox News contributor, said.
David Rutz is a senior editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @davidrutz.
