October 8, 2018

USA: Christine Blasey Ford Has No Plans To Further Pursue Attempted Rape Accusations She Made Against Kavanaugh. Her Family, Friends, Boyfriend, Witnesses ALL Explicitly Or Implicitly SAY SHE LIED.

ABC News
written by Staff
Saturday October 6, 2018

WASHINGTON -- With the Senate voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as an associate justice of the Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford has no further plans to pursue her sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh, according to her lawyers.

Ford only wanted to speak with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, her attorneys told CNN on Friday. Ford does not want the situation to "drag on into the next Congress should Democrats end up winning control on Capitol Hill," the network reported.

When asked about the possibility of impeachment proceedings, attorney Debra Katz told the network: "Professor Ford has not asked for anything of the sort. What she did was to come forward and testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and agree to cooperate with any investigation by the FBI, and that's what she sought to do here."

"She does not want him to be impeached?" CNN's Dana Bash later asked.

"No," Katz replied flatly.

Ford's attorney Lisa Banks added that Ford feels she did the right thing by testifying and has no regrets.

Kavanaugh's pathway to confirmation seemed unfettered until Ford accused him of drunkenly sexually assaulting her in a locked bedroom at a 1982 high school gathering. Two other women later emerged with sexual misconduct allegations from the 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

Kavanaugh's foes cast him as a product of a hard-drinking, male-dominated, private school culture in Washington's upscale Maryland suburb of Bethesda. He and his defenders asserted that his high school and college focus was on academics, sports and church.
The Daily Mail
written by Laura Collins
Thursday October 4, 2018

Christine Ford's high school friend, Leland Keyser, was 'completely blindsided' and left 'reeling' when the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape named her as a corroborating witness.

Speaking exclusively to DailyMailTV a family member close to Keyser, 52, said: 'Christine didn't give her so much as a heads up - as far as I know they haven't really spoken for several years and they're certainly not close anymore.

'Leland was completely blindsided by her name being thrown into it all. The first thing she knew about it was when she woke up on Thursday morning and her name was just everywhere. It was crazy.'

Pictured here for the first time since the news Ford had named her as a witness, Keyser showed the strain of being catapulted into this political maelstrom.

The family member who asked not to be named explained: 'She's just trying to get through it and hoping for it all to die down.

'It really felt a lot like Christine was the one called to the principal's office to give an account of something and just threw her under the bus. You know, just reached for a name.'

Keyser's attorney, Howard J Walsh III, last night confirmed that his client has spoken with the FBI and that when she did so she could not corroborate Ford's account.

Instead she doubled down on the statements she has already given to the Senate Committee in which she has denied all knowledge of the supposed party, the alleged assault or of Kavanaugh, 53.

Ford, 51, accused the Supreme Court nominee of attempting to rape her in a drunken attack in 1982 at a home in Montgomery County near Columbia Country Club.

According to Ford, Kavanaugh held her down and put his hand over her mouth to stop her screaming while he groped at her and pulled at her clothes.

She said that she was afraid that he might 'accidentally kill her.'

Ford claims that Kavanaugh's friend, Mark Judge was in the room at the time.

Both Kavanaugh and Judge - who has also been interviewed by the FBI - vehemently deny these charges.

Patrick Smyth, another man named by Ford as a party-goer, and who attended Georgetown Preparatory School with Kavanaugh and Judge, has also denied being there.

Keyser - whom Ford described as her 'best friend' at Holton-Arms preparatory school - was her final hope for corroboration.

But Keyser's relative revealed the mother-of-two's shock at being named as a witness by a woman to whom she has barely spoken in recent years.

And they expressed anger at Ford's suggestion that Keyser could not recall the party because of the 'significant health challenges' she has faced in recent years.

Ford attempted to brush aside Keyser's statement telling members of the Senate Committee: 'Leland has significant health challenges, and I'm happy that she's focusing on herself and getting the health treatment that she needs, and she let me know that she needed her lawyer to take care of this for her, and she texted me right afterward with an apology and good wishes, and et cetera.

'So I'm glad that she's taking care of herself. I don't expect that P.J. and Leland would remember this evening.

'It was a very unremarkable party. It was not one of their more notorious parties, because nothing remarkable happened to them that evening. They were downstairs.'

Speaking in her defense Keyser's loved one noted: 'I think it's quite convenient that she named the person who is frankly probably the least physically capable of all of them to stand up and be subjected to questioning or give her account.'

The family member went on to explain that the 'health challenges' faced by Keyser have not impaired her memory.

But they admitted that being caught up in the Kavanaugh scandal has proved physically trying at a time when Keyser is not in good health.

The relative said: 'Leland is not a well woman. She has had years of injuries that have seen her have 14 operations on her neck and back. She just wants to get better.'

She is also under enormous emotional stress.

An open letter to Keyser published on Tuesday in The Daily Caller dragged up a tragedy from her past in a bizarre attempt to cast doubt on Keyser's insistence that she remembers nothing and push her to confront past memories, however painful.

The letter, written by Sara Corcoran, publisher of National Courts Monitor who knew Keyser in her youth, recalled the day in July 1988 when Keyser's boyfriend dived into the shallow end of the swimming pool at Columbia Country Club. He broke his neck and died.

Corcoran wrote: 'I remember how you suffered…. sometimes it seems like it is easier to remain silent, but I also feel you know where the house was and who was there.'

She stated: 'There was nothing you could have done to save Bill from the fate that awaited him, but you can save Christine.'

Keyser's talent saw her become a professional golfer and she met her first husband, Fox News' Bob Beckel, at that same country club. They were married for ten years and had two children - son Alex and daughter Mackenzie - before divorcing in 2002.

Keyser went onto remarry leadership coach John Keyser but they too have since split.

Injury forced her to step down from her role as a golf coach at Georgetown University and have, her family member said, plagued her for years.

Keyser has been consistent in statements give to the Senate Committee by her attorney ahead of the FBI's interview on Saturday in which she reiterated what she had told the committee.

According to Walsh: 'Simply put, Ms Keyser does not know Mr Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party of gathering where he was present with, or without, Dr Ford.'

After Trump called for an FBI investigation Walsh submitted a second statement on his client's behalf in which he said, 'Ms Keyser has asked that I communicate to the Committee her willingness to cooperate fully with the FBI's supplemental investigation of Dr Christine Ford's allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh .'

He went onto reiterate: 'However, as my client has already made clear, she does not know Judge Kavanaugh and has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without Dr Ford.'

Trump has given the FBI until Friday to wrap up their investigation.
The Wall Street Journal
written by Natalie Andrews, Rebecca Ballhaus and Sadie Gurman
Friday October 5, 2018

A friend of Christine Blasey Ford told FBI investigators that she felt pressured by Dr. Ford’s allies to revisit her initial statement that she knew nothing about an alleged sexual assault by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh, which she later updated to say that she believed but couldn’t corroborate Dr. Ford’s account, according to people familiar with the matter.

Leland Keyser, who Dr. Ford has said was present at the gathering where she was allegedly assaulted in the 1980s, told investigators that Monica McLean, a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a friend of Dr. Ford’s, had urged her to clarify her statement, the people said.

The statement to the FBI offers a glimpse into how Dr. Ford’s allies were working behind the scenes to lobby old classmates to bolster their versions of the alleged incident, as were Judge Kavanaugh’s.

Judge Kavanaugh, whose Supreme Court nomination will be debated in the Senate Friday, has denied the allegations of sexual misconduct.

On Thursday, a day after sending to the White House the report on its investigation into the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, the FBI sent the White House and Senate an additional package of information that included text messages from Ms. McLean to Ms. Keyser, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ms. McLean’s lawyer, David Laufman, said in a statement: “Any notion or claim that Ms. McLean pressured Leland Keyser to alter Ms. Keyser’s account of what she recalled concerning the alleged incident between Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh is absolutely false.”

Ms. Keyser’s lawyer on Sept. 23 said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had no recollection of attending a party with Judge Kavanaugh, whom she said she didn’t know. That same day, however, she told the Washington Post that she believed Dr. Ford. On Sept. 29, two days after Dr. Ford and the judge testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Keyser’s attorney sent a letter to the panel saying his client wasn’t refuting Dr. Ford’s account and that she believed it but couldn’t corroborate it.

A person close to the former classmates said it was her understanding that mutual friends of Dr. Ford and Ms. Keyser, including Ms. McLean, had contacted Ms. Keyser after her initial statement to warn her that her statement was being used by Republicans to rebut the allegation against Judge Kavanaugh. The friends told Ms. Keyser that if she had intended to say she didn’t remember the party—not that it had never happened—that she should clarify her statement, the person said, adding that the friends hadn’t “pressured” Ms. Keyser.

Judge Kavanaugh and his allies also lobbied former classmates to defend him. Ahead of a Sept. 23 New Yorker article about an allegation by Deborah Ramirez that Judge Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her in their freshman year at Yale, a former classmate, Karen Yarasavage, said she had gotten a call from “Brett’s guy” and that “Brett asked me to go on record,” according to a memo about the conversation by another former classmate. Ms. Yarasavage is quoted anonymously in the New Yorker piece, the memo said. The judge denied the claim that he exposed himself.

Judge Kavanaugh, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday, said he had been “subjected to wrongful and sometimes vicious allegations” and that his youth had been “ridiculously distorted.”

If confirmed, he wrote, he would “keep an open mind in every case, and always strive to preserve the Constitution.”

Ms. Keyser’s interview with the FBI—which is subject to perjury laws—may influence the Senate debate on the judge’s confirmation. Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who has said he would vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh, told reporters earlier Thursday that he found the most significant interviews in the FBI report to be those from people close to Dr. Ford who wanted to corroborate her account and were “sympathetic in wishing they could, but they could not.”

Howard Walsh, a lawyer for Ms. Keyser, declined to comment.

The FBI declined to comment on the investigation.

There is no indication Dr. Ford and her legal team were involved in any effort to discuss Ms. Keyser’s statement with her, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI didn’t interview Dr. Ford for its investigation, which her lawyers late Wednesday said wasn’t appropriately comprehensive and “cannot be called an investigation.”

Attorneys for Dr. Ford declined to comment for this article.

In his testimony last week, Judge Kavanaugh sought to use Ms. Keyser’s initial statement to undercut his accuser. “Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a long-time friend of hers,” he said. “Refuted.”


Two days later, Ms. Keyser’s lawyer said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Ms. Keyser does not refute Dr. Ford’s account, and she has already told the press that she believes Dr. Ford’s account.” Mr. Walsh added: “However, the simple and unchangeable truth is that she is unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in question.”

In her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Dr. Ford said she had never told Ms. Keyser about her assault. “She didn’t know about the event. She was downstairs during the event and I did not share it with her,” Dr. Ford said.

Dr. Ford also said she didn’t “expect” that Ms. Keyser would remember the evening, calling it a “very unremarkable party.” She added: “Leland has significant health challenges, and I’m happy that she’s focusing on herself and getting the health treatment that she needs, and she let me know that she needed her lawyer to take care of this for her, and she texted me right afterward with an apology and good wishes, and et cetera.”

This is Ms. McLean’s second appearance in the weeks long drama around Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. On Wednesday, she issued a statement rejecting an assertion that Dr. Ford had coached her on how to take a polygraph test. The assertion was made by a former boyfriend of Dr. Ford in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Posted by Princess Mononoke at 7:35 PM

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