A man who dated Brett Kavanaugh’s primary accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, for six years claims she had no fear of flying, no fear of small spaces or rooms with single exits, and once used her psychology training to prepare a friend for a polygraph examination, according to a Tuesday Fox News report.
In a sworn statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee dated Tuesday, the California man claims to have met the then-Christine Blasey “in 1989 or 1990,” then had been romantically involved with her for about six years from 1992 to 1998. In that time, he claims to have witnessed Ford, then studying psychology, coach a close friend as she prepared for government administered polygraph exams. Fox News’s Shannon Bream posted a redacted version of the letter on Twitter:
BREAKING:Fox’s @johnrobertsFox obtains letter from Ford ex-boyfriend alleging:dated for 6 yrs, never told of sex assault, Ford coached friend on taking polygraph, flew frequently w/o expressing any fear of flying/tight spaces/limited exits.Doesn’t want to b/c “involved”.
The man’s claims appear to contradict Ford’s testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, where she told outside counsel Rachel Mitchell that she “never” gave “tips or advice to somebody looking to take a polygraph test.”
The alleged ex-boyfriend also claims that Ford frequently flew, including in small propeller aircraft, without complaint over the course of their relationship and had no fear of small spaces or rooms with only one exit. Ford’s claims that phobias of these things have plagued her since the early 1980s as a result of a 17-year-old Kavanaugh attacking her have been central elements of her story.
Further, the man claims Ford never mentioned being a victim of sexual assault in the eight years they knew each other and never once mentioned Kavanaugh’s name. Finally, he claims their relationship ended amid infidelity and credit card fraud on her part. He does, however, claim that he “finds Ford believable” and did not “want to become i
nvolved” with the investigatory process.
Exactly when the Senate Judiciary Committee staff came into possession of the letter is not clear. Mitchell’s specific questioning about polygraph prepration during Ford’s committee testimony, however, may indicate committee staff had some knowledge of the allegations laid out in the letter at least as early as last week.
The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh last Wednesday regarding a letter delivered to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in which an anonymous woman claims she was repeatedly raped by the judge without providing any details to investigate.
According to committee transcripts released Sunday, the accuser, who signed the mysterious letter as “Jane Doe,” alleges Kavanaugh and a friend raped her “several times” after giving her a lift home from a party — making no attempt to claim a time or place for the lurid story.
The accuser claims Kavanaugh groped her, slapped her, and force her to perform sexual acts. “They forced me to go into the backseat and took 2 turns raping me several times each. They dropped me off 3 two blocks from my home,” the accuser wrote, claiming the pair told her, “No one will believe if you tell. Be a good girl.”
The letter, marked with the word “urgent,” did not include a return address, nor did it offer clues regarding the accuser’s background. “A group of white men, powerful senators who won’t believe me, will come after me” if I reveal the incident, the accuser wrote, prompting observers to speculate the sender could be a minority.
The accusation was met with a vehement denial from Kavanaugh, who characterized the allegation as nothing short of “ridiculous.”
“Nothing ever – anything like that, nothing,” the Supreme Court nominee told senators concerning the accusation. “I mean, that’s – the whole thing is just a crock, farce, wrong, didn’t happen, not anything close.”
Read the full letter below (Spaces added for easier reading):
Dear, Senator Grassley, et al.
The current situation regarding the accusations made by Dr. Ford against Brett Kavanaugh have prompted me to write you today. I have moved on with my life since he forced himself on me as well. The times were so different, and I didn’t expect to be taken seriously, embarrass my family, be believed at all. I was at a party with a friend. I had been drinking. She left with another boy, leaving me to find my own way home. Kavanaugh and a friend offered me a ride home. I don’t know the other boy’s name. I was in his car to go home. His friend was behind me in the backseat. Kavanaugh kissed me forcefully.
I told him I only wanted a ride home. Kavanaugh continued to grope me over my clothes, forcing his kisses on me and putting his hand under my sweater. ‘No,’ I yelled at him. The boy in the backseat reached around, putting his hand over my mouth and holding my arm to keep me in the car. I screamed into his hand. Kavanaugh continued his forcing himself on me. He pulled up my sweater and bra exposing my breasts, and reached into my panties, inserting his fingers into my vagina. My screams were silenced by the boy in the backseat covering my mouth and groping me as well. Kavanaugh slapped me and told me to be quiet and forced me to perform oral sex on him. He climaxed in my mouth. They forced me to go into the backseat and took turns raping me several times each.
They dropped me off two blocks from my home. ‘No one will believe if you tell. Be a good girl,’ he told me. Watching what has happened to Anita Hill and Dr. Ford has me petrified to come forward in person or even provide my name. A group of white men, powerful senators who won’t believe me, will come after me. Like Dr. Ford, I’m a teacher, I have an education, a family, a child, a home. I have credibility. Just because something happens a long time ago, because a rape victim doesn’t want to personally come forward, does not mean something can’t be true.
Jane Doe, Oceanside, California.
On Monday, the White House issued revised guidance to the FBI that agents can interview anyone they deem relevant as part of their investigation of Kavanaugh. President Donald Trump ordered the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh’s background investigation Friday after several women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
Speaking at a White House Rose Garden event, President Trump told reporters that he continues to support Kavanaugh, describing him as a “fine man.” “I think he’s a great scholar … he focused on being number one at Yale, on being number one in high school, at being number one at law,” the president added. “I can so understand that.”
Kavanaugh has strongly denied all allegations, issuing the following statement through the White House on Friday:
“Throughout this process, I’ve been interviewed by the FBI, I’ve done a number of ‘background’ calls directly with the Senate, and yesterday, I answered questions under oath about every topic the Senators and their counsel asked me. I’ve done everything they have requested and will continue to cooperate.”
According to multiple reports, the investigation could wind down as earlier as Monday or Tuesday.
Dana Bash
✔@DanaBashCNN
GOP senator tells me that @senatemajldr told WH Friday the 3 key GOP Senators wanted the FBI to interview 4 people: PJ Smyth, Leland Keyser, Mark Judge & Deborah Ramirez. Senator tells me with that limit – FBI could be done by today or Tuesday #Kavanaugh
In a Senate floor speech Monday afternoon, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) vowed lawmakers will vote this week on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. “The goalpost keeps shifting, but the goal hasn’t moved an inch. Not an inch,” said the Kentucky senator. “Let me make it very clear. The time for endless delay and obstruction has come to a close. Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation is out of committee. We’re considering it here on the floor… We’ll be voting on it this week.”
EXCLUSIVE: RELEASED TEXT MESSAGES AND EMAILS SHOW MUELLER TEAM’S COZY RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESS
Released messages document how Mueller’s spokesman took dozens of meetings with reporters over three months in 2017.
Reporters from nearly every major media outlet have been jockeying for influence and favoritism within the special counsel’s office.
One awkward exchange illustrates a reporter from CNN trashing an article written by White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
Hundreds of pages of emails and text messages released from the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) special counsel’s office through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show an ongoing relationship between Robert Mueller’s team and the press, according to an investigation by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Please don’t forget that the corrupt Peter Strzok was on his team also.
The documents, released in September, span months of communication and include messages from reporters ranging from a variety of outlets, including TheDCNF, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed.
While the vast majority of correspondences between Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr and a variety of journalists ends with a “no comment,” the messages expose Mueller’s team was willing to meet with a number of reporters in private meetings and over the phone.
Coordinating such meetings cuts against the narrative that the special counsel has been hesitant to give information to the press, instead opting to give information only through public announcements and statements.
No matter if snopes lies about these SOB’s, they are friends and criminals in bed together. (Click The Picture)
The New York Times ran a story in August poking fun at the secrecy of the special counsel, with one reporter writing that Carr’s “‘no comment’ replies have become a running dark joke among the Washington press corps.”
But on July 21st, 2017, Adam Goldman from TheNYT sent an email to Carr about arranging a “touch base” meeting, according to documents provided by the DOJ.
That meeting was later rescheduled, but it is just one in a pattern of meetings and private calls from reporters jockeying for opportunities to solicit information from an investigation that has been labeled as “leak proof” from the press.
Ironically, Vox was one of those exact outlets that proclaimed Mueller’s team as immune to leaks — despite one of its reporters communicating extensively with Carr via text.
During one interaction, Alex Ward asks Carr off the record if the investigation would continue should President Donald Trump fire Mueller.
“As guidance only, the [Deputy Attorney General] testified last week that he, not the President, would be the one to make the decision. 28 CFR 600 outlines under what circumstances a Special Counsel can be removed. If it came to that, a replacement would likely be found,” Carr answers.
A day later, Carr aids Ward in describing the room in which the investigation takes place. Despite Carr’s assistance, he is never mentioned in Ward’s piece published over a month later.
From late July until the end of September 2017, Carr held at least dozens of meetings with various reporters. Those meetings have rarely been discussed with the public, by both the government or the press, until the release of these documents.
TheDCNF could not find any evidence of impropriety by Mueller’s office, nor any evidence that Carr favored specific outlets.
Regardless, the messages document hours of conversations and meetings between a spokesman involved in a politicized investigation and reporters eager to cover for him in hopes of further access.
Other messages released by the DOJ illustrate more awkward interactions, showing how some reporters will even undermine colleagues in order to build trust in their relationship with the special counsel’s office.
CNN’s Evan Perez, who had extensive conversations with Carr from at least May through August 2017, expressed frustration at a story co-authored by the network’s White House correspondent Jim Acosta.
“I had nothing to do with it. Didn’t see it until after it was published. I would not have published that. But I’m also in a poor position to stop things,” Perez said of Acosta’s reporting.
Perez then communicates concern that the story could damage the validity of the special counsel’s investigation because of the attorney general’s politics.
“By the way, this story and the pick up its [sic] getting makes it so the public will think Mueller is in bed with (one of) the most partisan left-leaning AG in the nation. I’m sure he has good people working there but the leadership has a pretty partisan agenda,” Perez says to Carr.
“Maybe that’s what the Special Counsel wants,” he adds.
A month later, Perez ran a follow-up story on the Mueller investigation, prompting Carr to offer a phone call in case he needed any additional information or clarifications.
The New York Times, in an article that was published on Monday, accused conservatives of trying to use the Vatican child sex abuse scandal to advance their own agenda.
According to the article, conservatives are using the letter and the scandal to push for a stronger condemnation of homosexuality from the Catholic Church.
The article said, “An ideologically motivated opposition has weaponized the church’s sex abuse crisis to threaten not only Francis’ agenda but his entire papacy.”
It went on to say, “At the Conference of Catholic Families, a rival, conservative event to the Vatican’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin this past weekend, organizers found the pope’s recent condemnation of abuse unsatisfactory because he did not call out homosexuality. That, they say, has turned seminaries into ‘cesspits.’”
In recent months, critics have been quick to claim “conservatives pounce” on a number of occasions — they “pounced” with regard to fact-checking rising Democratic Socialist star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
That sound you hear is a bunch of left-wing activists masquerading as journalists feverishly writing a bunch of breathless “Conservatives pounce on NYT” stories to help distract from the paper’s racist new hire.
SOURCES: CHINA HACKED HILLARY CLINTON’S PRIVATE EMAIL SERVER
A Chinese-owned company penetrated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server, according to sources briefed on the matter.
The company inserted code that forwarded copies of Clinton’s emails to the Chinese company in real time.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General warned of the problem, but the FBI subsequently failed to act, Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert said during a July hearing.
A Chinese-owned company operating in the Washington, D.C., area hacked Hillary Clinton’s private server throughout her term as secretary of state and obtained nearly all her emails, two sources briefed on the matter told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Chinese firm obtained Clinton’s emails in real time as she sent and received communications and documents through her personal server, according to the sources, who said the hacking was conducted as part of an intelligence operation.
The Chinese wrote code that was embedded in the server, which was kept in Clinton’s residence in upstate New York. The code generated an instant “courtesy copy” for nearly all of her emails and forwarded them to the Chinese company, according to the sources.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) found that virtually all of Clinton’s emails were sent to a “foreign entity,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican, said at a July 12 House Committee on the Judiciary hearing. He did not reveal the entity’s identity, but said it was unrelated to Russia. (RELATED: Gohmert: Watchdog Found Clinton Emails Were Sent To ‘Foreign Entity’)
Two officials with the ICIG, investigator Frank Rucker and attorney Janette McMillan, met repeatedly with FBI officials to warn them of the Chinese intrusion, according to a former intelligence officer with expertise in cybersecurity issues, who was briefed on the matter. He spoke anonymously, as he was not authorized to publicly address the Chinese’s role with Clinton’s server.
Among those FBI officials was Peter Strzok, who was then the bureau’s top counterintelligence official. Strzok was fired this month following the discovery he sent anti-Trump texts to his mistress and co-worker, Lisa Page. Strzok didn’t act on the information the ICIG provided him, according to Gohmert.
Gohmert mentioned in the Judiciary Committee hearing that ICIG officials told Strzok and three other top FBI officials that they found an “anomaly” on Clinton’s server.
The former intelligence officer TheDCNF spoke with said the ICIG “discovered the anomaly pretty early in 2015.”
“When [the ICIG] did a very deep dive, they found in the actual metadata — the data which is at the header and footer of all the emails — that a copy, a ‘courtesy copy,’ was being sent to a third party and that third party was a known Chinese public company that was involved in collecting intelligence for China,” the former intelligence officer told TheDCNF.
“The [the ICIG] believe that there was some level of phishing. But once they got into the server something was embedded,” he said. “The Chinese are notorious for embedding little surprises like this.”
The intelligence officer declined to name the Chinese company.
“We do know the name of the company. There are indications there are other ‘cutouts’ that were involved. I would be in a lot of trouble if I gave you the name,” he told TheDCNF.
A government staff official who’s been briefed on the ICIG’s findings told TheDCNF that the Chinese state-owned firm linked to the hacking operates in Washington’s northern Virginia suburbs. The source was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter.
The company that penetrated Clinton’s server was not a technology firm and it served as a “front group” for the Chinese government, the source told TheDCNF.
The Fairfax and Loudoun county governments told TheDCNF that 13 state-owned Chinese companies operate in the area. Of those, three were not technologically oriented.
Fairfax County Economic Development Authority communications manager Seth Livingston told TheDCNF that all of the nine firms operating in his county were there in 2009 when Clinton began as secretary of state.
“Our Asian folks believe that all of the companies have been around and known to us since that time period,” he said in an email.
“This is the most combed over subject in modern American political history,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill told TheDCNF. “The FBI spent thousands of hours investigating, and found no evidence of intrusion. That’s a fact.”
“But in an age where facts are alternative and truth isn’t truth, it’s no surprise that an outlet like the Daily Caller would try to distract us from very real and very immediate threats to our democracy brought by the man occupying the White House,” he continued.
Department of State Inspector General Steven A. Linick and then-ICIG I. Charles McCullough III scrutinized Clinton’s server in 2015. McCullough told Congress in July 2015 that her emails contained classified material.
“IC IG was involved in the classification review of certain information drawn from the private email server,” an agency spokeswoman told TheDCNF. She declined to comment further.
The two IGs asked the Department of Justice to investigate whether the classified information was compromised, according to a July 23, 2015, New York Times report based on unnamed senior government officials.
The FBI issued a referral to the Justice Department in July 2015. The bureau warned that classified information may have been disclosed to a foreign power or to one of its agents.
“FBIHQ, Counterespionage Section, is opening a full investigation based on specific articulated facts provided by an 811 referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community, dated July 6, 2015 regarding the potential compromise of classified information,” a July 10, 2015, FBI memo stated.
An 811 referral informs the FBI of classified information that was potentially released to a foreign power or agent of a foreign power.
“This investigation is also designated a Sensitive Investigative Matter (SIM) due to a connection to a current public official, political appointee or candidate,” the memo stated.
Then-FBI Deputy Director Mark F. Giuliano sent a follow-up memo on July 21, 2015, to President Barack Obama’s deputy attorney general, Sally Yates, about two conversations he had with her about the criminal referral.
“On 13 July 2015 and 20 July 2015, I verbally advised you of a Section 811(c) referral from the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community received by the FBI on 06 July 2015. The referral addressed the mishandling of classified information on the personal e-mail account and electronic media of a former high-level us Government official,” according to the FBI memo, which was hand delivered to Yates.
Justice Department spokesman Devin M. O’Malley declined to comment on this story.
Former FBI Director James Comey acknowledged in his recent book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” that the FBI was conducting a criminal investigation into Clinton’s conduct.
London Center for Policy Research’s vice president of operations, retired Col. Anthony Shaffer, told TheDCNF that Clinton’s server was vulnerable to hacking.
“Look, there’s evidence based on the complete lack of security hygiene on the server. Fourteen-year-old hackers from Canada could have probably hacked into her server and left very little trace,” Shaffer said. “Any sophisticated organization is going to be able to essentially get in and then clean up their presence.”
And a former consultant to the U.S. trade representative, Claude Barfield, told TheDCNF: “The Chinese were in the process of really gaining technological competence in 2009 to 2010. This begins to really take off in the early years of the Obama administration. The Obama administration was kind of late and there was this slow reaction about how sophisticated the Chinese were.”
Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Brennan called President Donald Trump’s decision Wednesday to revoke his security clearance an “attempt to suppress freedom of speech” and to “punish critics.”
John O. Brennan
✔@JohnBrennan
This action is part of a broader effort by Mr. Trump to suppress freedom of speech & punish critics. It should gravely worry all Americans, including intelligence professionals, about the cost of speaking out. My principles are worth far more than clearances. I will not relent.
NBC News
✔@NBCNews
BREAKING: President Trump is revoking former CIA Director and high-profile Trump critic John Brennan’s security clearance, White House says. https://nbcnews.to/2w9hobN
Brennan was a controversial figure during the Obama administration
White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders read a statement earlier Wednesday from the president that explained his decision, citing his constitutional authority and duty to protect the nation’s secrets:
Mr. Brennan has a history that calls in to question his objectivity and credibility. In 2014, for example, he denied to Congress that CIA officials under his supervision had improperly accessed the computer files of congressional staffers. He told the Council on Foreign Relations that the CIA would never do such a thing. The CIA’s Inspector General however contradicted Mr. Brennan directly, concluding unequivocally that agency officials had indeed improperly accessed congressional staffers files. More recently, Mr. Brennan told Congress that the intelligence community did not make use of the so-called Steele dossier in an assessment regarding the 2016 election, an assertion contradicted by at least two other senior officials in the intelligence community, and all of the facts.
Additionally, Mr. Brennan has recently leveraged his status as a former high ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations, wild outbursts on the internet and television about this administration. Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct, characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets and facilities, the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos.
The president also said that the clearances of several other former Obama administration officials — “James Clapper, James Comey, Michael Hayden, Sally Yates, Susan Rice, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, and Bruce Ohr” — was also under review. Yates was briefly acting Attorney General under Trump before she was fired for refusing to enforce the travel ban, a revised version of which was later upheld by the Supreme Court. Ohr still works at the Department of Justice.
Brennan, who describes himself in his Twitter profile as “Nonpartisan American who is very concerned about our collective future,” has emerged as a vociferous, even alarmist, critic of President Trump. Last month, he accused the president of treason for his press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin, and hinted that Republicans should help impeach him.
John O. Brennan
✔@JohnBrennan
Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of “high crimes & misdemeanors.” It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???
The left has argued in recent weeks that conservatives who are banned from social media platforms or targeted by boycotts do not have a “free speech” argument — yet that is the same argument Brennan invokes in defense of his former privilege to access the nation’s secrets.
