Anna Eshoo had spent two decades in Congress, focusing on issues like biotechnology, environmental protection, net neutrality, and access to health care for families and children. An elegant seventy-five-year-old woman with short hair and dark features, she was comfortable meeting with constituents.
On July 20, Ford met Eshoo at her Palo Alto office. The congresswoman had asked her staff to schedule Ford as her last appointment of the day, so that they would not be pressed for time.
Going into the meeting, Eshoo had two priorities: to establish her office as a safe and private space where Ford could speak freely and to follow Ford’s lead on what, if anything, to do with her recollections. She didn’t want Ford to feel forced into anything.
The two women sat down in Eshoo’s rectangular conference room.
“Tell me your story,” the congresswoman said.
They spoke for close to two hours, during which Ford haltingly shared the details of her encounter with Kavanaugh thirty-six years earlier, at times through tears.
Listening to her story made Eshoo cry, too. She asked what Ford wanted to accomplish. Ford said she wanted to share her information with the president or other key decision makers involved in the Supreme Court nomination. But because of her fierce desire to protect her family’s privacy, Ford wanted to report the incident to those people anonymously.
Ford struck Eshoo as honest. She had a strong sense of civic duty in coming forward. But there was also a sense of naivete about what that might mean, given the ease with which tips about public officials could leak to the public and the difficulties that so often ensued.
Ford mentioned that she had followed Kavanaugh’s career over the years, expecting that at some point he would be considered for the Supreme Court. She had felt compelled to speak out, she said, when he finally landed on the short list.
Eshoo sensed no partisan agenda. Ford “doesn’t have a political bone in her body,” she later said. “She was intelligent, sensitive. She had a real gentleness about her,” she added. “But she had little to no awareness about what my world is.”
Ford at that point in her life was far removed from the political culture of her native Washington. She had moved to California three decades earlier and essentially never looked back. She visited with the Blaseys once a year for family get-togethers, usually in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Her brothers, both lawyers, had remained in the D.C. suburbs, raising families, and her parents continued to live in the Potomac house where she was raised, her father working well into his eighties. But Ford had no firsthand sense of the political gamesmanship that existed inside the Beltway and the hardening of the partisanship that was by now coursing through the community in which she had been reared.
A registered Democrat, Ford had at various points been both a Republican and an independent. She held more liberal views than her family and was involved with local efforts to preserve Monterey Bay. She had participated in a local Women’s March protesting Trump administration policies in 2017 and a march to advocate for science research funding in April 2018. But for the most part, she was inactive in national politics. Her political donations in recent years had consisted of $80.50 given to Democratic causes through the nonprofit technology platform ActBlue. Of that total, $27 was directed to a committee for the progressive Bernie Sanders during the 2016 election cycle, when Trump won the presidency.
Toward the end of their conversation, Ford told Eshoo that she was in conversations with a Washington Post reporter. Eshoo found that puzzling. Wasn’t Ford hoping to stay anonymous? Tipping off the Post as a reluctant source seemed like tiptoeing into a lion’s den.
The congresswoman asked what Ford wanted her to do.
“Well, what is it that you can do?” Ford replied.
Eshoo said she could start by contacting a trusted colleague. She meant Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein, a longtime senator from California, was both Ford’s representative and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the very panel that was evaluating Kavanaugh. Ford’s information would be in more capable hands with Feinstein, Eshoo thought, given her direct role in vetting judicial appointees.
Under the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution, the president has the power to nominate federal judges, and the Senate, not the House, has the power to “advise and consent.” Advice and consent was loosely defined in the Constitution, but in modern times the Senate adopted a committee vetting process, usually culminating in multiple days of public hearings before approving or denying the confirmation with a majority vote. Still, the president maintains the constitutional right to pull his nominee at any point.
Eshoo had known Feinstein for many years, having served on the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors when Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco. She was one of the women elected along with Feinstein—as well as California senator Barbara Boxer—in 1992, the so-called Year of the Woman, just after the divisive Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings.
She reached Feinstein the following day, a Saturday. “I told her that I had something that I thought was very serious,” Eshoo recalled. Without providing Ford’s name, she explained her meeting with their mutual constituent and the account that Ford had shared.
Feinstein seemed to appreciate the gravity of the situation. She asked Eshoo to have the constituent write a letter to her, reiterating her story.
On July 29, during a visit with her parents back east, Ford sat down to write the letter. It was her first time committing her high school experience to paper, and reliving the memory was difficult. It was a short, lacerating read:
“Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during High School in the early 1980’s,” Ford wrote. “He conducted these acts with the assistance of his close friend, Mark G. Judge. Both were 1-2 years older than me and students at a local private school. The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and 4 others. Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stairwell from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music, precluding any successful attempts to yell for help. Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with Judge, who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth, I feared he may inadvertently kill me.”
The letter went on to describe how she escaped, and also mentioned running into an uncomfortable-looking Mark Judge at Safeway. But she asked in three places that it remain secret, signing before her name the phrase “In Confidence.” To Ford, a research scientist, anonymity was a cornerstone of professional life. Patients whose behavior or symptoms she reviewed were respected as private citizens. The names of volunteer participants in experiments were withheld from studies and analysis. So, although the context was different, Ford expected no less from the people around her now.
Ford emailed her letter on Monday, July 30, to Eshoo’s aide, Chapman. Per the congresswoman’s specific instructions, Chapman then immediately emailed the letter to Eshoo’s D.C. chief of staff, Matthew McMurray, who hand-delivered Ford’s letter to Jennifer Duck, Senator Feinstein’s Democratic staff director for the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Feinstein spoke on the phone with Ford the next day. Ford sounded vulnerable and emotional, very unsure of how best to proceed. Feinstein found her credible and urged her to permit an investigation. But that, in the senator’s view, entailed making the claims public. The FBI couldn’t do much with an anonymous tip, she believed, and in order to spur an official probe, she would have to share its contents with her Republican colleagues who ran the Judiciary Committee.
Ford was unbending. She was not ready to lose her anonymity. “She reiterated her desire that I keep the letter confidential and not share it with anyone when we spoke,” Feinstein later said.
Feinstein’s staff began researching whether the Judiciary Committee could hire an outside, independent lawyer to investigate Ford’s allegations. But they couldn’t—at least not without explicit permission from the GOP chairs of the Rules Committee and Judiciary Committee. And doing that risked breaking their promise to Ford to keep her allegations a secret.
Among Ford’s friends in Palo Alto, a consensus was building that she should hire a lawyer. At first, Ford was reluctant; she had brought her information to her legislators’ attention, and her confidentiality had been assured. Given her desire to stay behind the scenes, she wondered, what benefit could a lawyer bring? She didn’t like the idea of ratcheting up what was already a stressful process.
But far as they were from the corridors of Washington power, Ford’s circle knew judicial nominations were highly sensitive. Her friends Keith Koegler and Elizabeth Hewitt, a married couple who were both lawyers, were strongly in favor of Ford retaining an attorney who could advise her on working with investigators or lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford might eventually need a veteran’s advice on how to navigate public attention, if her name was inadvertently—or purposefully—leaked.
In late June or early July, just days after Ford had first wondered out loud how to convey her memories to the White House, Koegler, Hewitt, and another friend began texting contacts in and around Palo Alto for advice. Ford’s was an unusual situation, given its intimately personal nature combined with the high political stakes, and they wanted to help her proceed thoughtfully. So they canvassed fellow parents and professionals they felt they could trust to suggest ideas, without identifying Ford by name.
Word quickly got to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, who had long been rumored to be a candidate for Democratic political office, through her sister, Michelle, a pediatrician and clinical teacher at Stanford. Sheryl also advised retaining a lawyer. She put together a list of people who she had heard specialized in such cases and passed it back to Michelle, who shared it with one of Ford’s friends. Other suggestions came from family members and the office of Senator Feinstein, whom Ford had asked for referrals.
By early August, Ford was vacationing in Rehoboth Beach with Russell, their boys, and her parents. She had no intention of telling her mother and father about her experience with Kavanaugh, or the fact that she had now shared it with a U.S. senator. So when she decided it was finally time to interview some lawyers, she did so from the back of her car in a Walgreens parking lot, near the Blaseys’ beach house, where she had some privacy.
Larry Robbins, a name partner in the K Street law firm Robbins, Russell, was one of the first people she talked to. Robbins, an experienced, even-keeled litigator who had argued eighteen cases before the Supreme Court, had been recommended to Ford by a relative. Discussing her experience with Robbins, a patient listener, Ford felt an immediate comfort level.
Ford explained that she had considered contacting Kavanaugh directly. “That’s quite an idea,” Robbins replied.
From her car in the drugstore parking lot, Ford also talked to lawyers at Katz, Marshall & Banks, a boutique Washington firm that handles whistleblower and employment matters. The Katz firm had been suggested by Feinstein’s office. Its lead partner, Debra Katz, had featured prominently in a legal network founded by the National Women’s Law Center, a nonprofit organization focused on gender equity, to represent women and girls facing sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the early days of the #MeToo movement in 2017. The conversation went well enough that Ford agreed to meet Katz and Lisa Banks, her longtime legal partner, a few days later.
It was cloudy and humid on the evening of August 6 in Linthicum Heights, Maryland, when the three got together at an airport Hilton. Katz, a slim, intense attorney with close-cropped dark hair who had been visiting her father in Florida, flew into the nearby Baltimore/Washington International Airport. Katz, who was known for speaking her mind, was the more assertive of the two. Banks, a brunette with softer features who drove to the hotel straight from Washington, tended to be the more conciliatory voice.
Katz and Banks had reserved a nondescript fourth-floor conference room. Over coffee, they gave Ford a brief overview of the type of law they practiced. They also talked through Ford’s memories and motivations. Because of the heightened concerns about the future of the Supreme Court and the treatment of women, it was clear that the national reaction to Ford’s recollection could be explosive.
The lawyers found Ford entirely believable. Her conviction that the incident had happened and that the perpetrator was Kavanaugh was unshakable. Her memory of the layout of the house and other details was intricate. That Ford had met Kavanaugh on prior occasions and knew his face, they felt, gave her memory additional power. It was much less likely for a sexual assault victim to be confused about her attacker’s identity if she had met that person before.
Partway through the meeting with Ford, Katz and Banks stepped out of the room to confer. Ford had a strong case, they felt, and she would need experienced counsel. Though it had the potential to be a significant drain on their time, they wanted to help her, and were willing to do it pro bono, given how expensive the bills could eventually be.
Katz and Banks returned to the room and offered to represent Ford, who accepted. They arranged a polygraph test for the next day.
On August 7, a former FBI agent named Jeremiah Hanafin arrived at the Hilton with a Dell Inspiron notebook computer, an arm cuff for measuring heart rate, and a pneumograph for tracking chest activity. He greeted Ford and Banks, who had reconvened in a separate but similar conference room. The three talked at length about Ford’s recollections of Kavanaugh. Then Hanafin asked Ford to provide a written account of those memories and left her alone with Banks.
Ford filled a legal-pad page with her account, pinpointing the same details she had given Feinstein. When Hanafin returned, she signed the statement “Christine Blasey,” in a sloping cursive; the former FBI agent would use the document as the basis for asking questions. Then Banks left the room and sat in the hallway while Hanafin talked to Ford one-on-one.
Their conversation and the polygraph that was administered afterward made for a strenuous experience. Having just attended the funeral of her grandmother, who had died at age one hundred after a stint in hospice, Ford had only one night in the Washington area before flying to visit her husband Russell’s family in Manchester, New Hampshire. The test took far longer than she had expected and seemed to cover her whole life story. It was painful to relive the Kavanaugh experience in such detail.
The examination rested on two key questions: (1) “Is any part of your statement false?” and (2) “Did you make up any part of your statement?” Ford answered no to both questions. Hanafin concluded that the test results did not indicate deception.