Another Woman Has Accused Brett Kavanaugh Of Sexual Misconduct

One week after California professor Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to sexually assault her when they were both in high school, a woman named Deborah Ramirez has come forward with new misconduct allegations against the nominee. According to a new report from the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer, Senate Democrats are investigating Ramirez’s claim, which dates from when she attended Yale University with Kavanaugh during the 1983-84 academic year.

“This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanagh. It should be fully investigated,” Senator Mazie Hirono told the New Yorker. “These allegations seem credible, and we’re taking them very seriously. If established, they’re clearly disqualifying,” an anonymous aide from another Democratic Senator’s office investigating the claims added.

Farrow and Mayer reported that Republicans also learned about the accusation last week, and that they “issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote” soon after.

Ramirez, 53, and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale at the time of the alleged incident. According to the New Yorker, she was hesitant to come forward because she was drinking at the time the alleged attack occurred.

The New Yorker reports:

Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as the Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)

A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.” […]

“I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”

One of Ramirez’ classmates, who wanted to remain anonymous, told the New Yorker that he remembered hearing about the incident in the days after it occurred. He told the magazine that he was “one hundred per cent sure” that Kavanaugh was the person he was told exposed himself to Ramirez.

Other former students remembered similar incidents occurring, and confirmed to the magazine that they recall Kavanaugh’s involvement:

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a member of Kavanaugh and Ramirez’s class at Yale, said Kavanaugh’s college behavior had become a topic of discussion among former Yale students soon after Kavanaugh’s nomination. In one e-mail that Krasberg received in September, the classmate who recalled hearing about the incident with Ramirez alluded to it and wrote that it “would qualify as a sexual assault,” he speculated, “if it’s true.”

College friends of Kavanaugh and the alleged witnesses denied the incident or said they didn’t remember the party.

The White House issued statements from both Kavanaugh and an administration spokesperson in response to the story.