Christine Blasey Ford’s Attorneys Reveal Statement From Corroborating Witness

In a signed declaration, Keith Koegler said Ford told him of Brett Kavanaugh's alleged assault back in 2016 -- long before his nomination.
LOADINGERROR LOADING

Christine Blasey Ford’s legal team has released a statement from her friend Keith Koegler, who provided an account that appears to corroborate Ford’s testimony accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, but the FBI did not interview him.

In a letter to the Senate, Koegler expressed concern over its decision to rush Kavanaugh’s confirmation process without hearing from Ford’s corroborating witnesses, including himself.

The letter was obtained by Fox News anchor Shannon Bream and MSNBC’s Kyle Griffin.

“There are a minimum of 7 additional people, known to the White House, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the FBI who knew about the assault prior to the nomination who were not interviewed,” Koegler wrote. “I am one of them.”

Koegler had previously said in a sworn affidavit submitted in September that Ford, a Palo Alto University professor, told him about the alleged assault in 2016, around the time former Stanford University student Brock Turner was sentenced for raping an unconscious woman. He said she told him about it again three months ago in an email.

Koegler identified himself as a close friend of Ford and her husband, saying he has known them for more than five years and had coached their son’s baseball team.

In the signed declaration, he shared an account of two interactions he had with Ford in which she spoke about Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault years before he was nominated to the Supreme Court.

Koegler said he first heard Ford mention the assault while the two were watching their kids play together in the early summer of 2016. They were discussing Turner’s sentencing when Ford revealed she was assaulted.

“Christine expressed anger at Mr. Turner’s lenient sentence, stating that she particularly was bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C.,” Koegler wrote.

Koegler said that interaction with Ford was memorable because it was around the same time Turner was sentenced to six months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman after a party. He added that the “common public perception” at the time was that the sentencing was “too light.”

The second time Koegler said Ford brought up the assault was in an email on June 29, 2018, two days after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation.

Ford wrote Koegler an email saying that the person who assaulted her was the president’s “favorite for SCOTUS,” he said.

Koegler wrote back, “I remember you telling me about him, but I don’t remember his name. Do you mind telling me so I can read about him?”

“Brett Kavanaugh,” Ford replied in an email, according to Koegler.

Koegler was one of three friends of Ford who submitted affidavits saying she had told them about the alleged assault before Kavanaugh’s nomination was ever announced.

Their statements received little attention, however, likely because they came out at around the same time as Julie Swetnick’s allegation that she had spotted Kavanaugh at a house party where a “gang rape” occurred in the early 1980s.

Republicans guaranteed Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on Friday, weeks after Ford came forward publicly accusing Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both teens.

After a contentious hearing with testimony from both Kavanaugh and Ford, the FBI launched a limited investigation into the allegation without interviewing either Kavanaugh or Ford.

Ford’s lawyers on Friday denounced the Senate and the FBI probe, calling the inquiry “not a meaningful investigation in any sense of the word.”

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot