The US Senate is expected to move ahead to vote today (Oct. 6) on Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. But late last night, a letter addressed to the body from Keith Koegler, a friend of Christine Blasey Ford and one of her corroborating witnesses, was released, in which he urged senators “to do what is right.”
In it, Koegler said he and at least seven others who had known about the alleged sexual assault that occurred when Ford and Kavanaugh were in high school were not interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation.
“The process by which the Senate Judiciary Committee has ‘investigated’ the facts relating to the assault has been a shameless effort to protect Judge Kavanaugh,” he wrote. “The fact that the FBI did not interview either Christine or Judge Kavanaugh, by itself, renders absurd any assertion that the investigation was ‘thorough.'”
Koegler had previously submitted a letter to the Senate on Sept. 24 detailing an email exchange between him and Ford, in which she named Kavanaugh as her alleged attacker—this occurred shortly after the announcement of justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the bench and more than a week before Trump named Kavanaugh as his Supreme Court pick.
“I have no power,” Koegler wrote in his new statement. “I can only ask you to do what is right.”
Read the full letter below:
Members of the U.S. Senate:
My name is Keith Koegler. I am one of Christine Blasey Ford’s corroborating witness. For those of you who aren’t lawyers, the term “corroborating witness” is not synonymous with “eye witness”—someone can be a corroborating witness without having physically been present at the scene of a crime. Indeed, in matters involving sexual assault, there are often no eyewitnesses.
Since attending the hearing eight days ago, I have grown increasingly concerned that Senators would ignore the import of Christine’s testimony in their rush to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. For the record:
- I believe, with every fiber of my being, that Christine Blasey Ford has testified truthfully about her assault by Brett Kavanaugh. I have the benefit of knowing Christine, but if you saw her testimony and you didn’t find her credible, you know nothing about sexual assault.
- The process by which the Senate Judiciary Committee has “investigated” the facts relating to the assault has been a shameless effort to protect Judge Kavanaugh. The fact that the FBI did not interview either Christine or Judge Kavanaugh, by itself, renders absurd any assertion that the investigation was “thorough.” There are a minimum of seven 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. I am one of them.
- Here are some of the things the FBI would have learned by interviewing me:
- I have a copy of the email thread between Christine and me in which she made it clear that Brett Kavanaugh was the judge who had assaulted her as a teenager. We exchanged those emails on June 29, 2018, two days after Justice Kennedy’s retirement announcement, before there was a shortlist for his replacement. It wasn’t until July 09, 2018, that the President nominated Judge Kavanaugh.
- Christine has accurately described the sequence of events that occurred in the months that followed, including her interactions with the Washington Post, Representative Anna Eshoo’s office, and Senator Diane Feinstein’s office. I know because I had regular contact with her during that time.
- There was no “grand conspiracy” to conduct a “political hit job” on Judge Kavanaugh—this was always about one woman struggling with a perverse choice: Suffer a brutal toll on herself and her family to fulfill a sense of civic duty and (possibly, though not likely) avoid spending the rest of her life looking at the face of the man who assaulted her as a teenager on the United States Supreme Court or, alternatively, live in silence with the knowledge that she might have been able to make a difference.
- Christine has been afraid of flying her entire adult life. Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell repeatedly challenged Christine about her of flying, in an effort to impugn Christine’s general credibility. I could have provided the FBI with the names of at least half a dozen people who have flown with Christine and can attest to the fact that she has panic attacks before she flies. She controls those attacks with medicine prescribed by a doctor.
- As Senator Flake anticipated in a speech before the hearing last week, coming forward has forced Christine, her husband, and their two sons to endure treatment that no human being should have to suffer. Within hours after the first news story was published, throngs of reporters descended on their home, driving the family (perhaps permanently) out of the neighborhood. The family has been subjected to a near constant barrage of harassing entails, phone calls and social media attacks (“die, you fucking cunt”), many of them obviously coordinated and many threatening death or bodily harm. Because of the attacks, Christine hasn’t spent more than three consecutive nights in the same place. They have had to hire a security firm 24/7, and they have to be transported from place to place in secret. Christine hasn’t slept more than three hours at a time since September 16th. She has trouble eating. She has had to relinquish her teaching responsibilities for the semester. And the list goes on. Perhaps forever.
I have no power. I can only ask you to do what is right. Please ask yourselves if you want to spend the rest of your lives looking at the face of Brett Kavanaugh, the man who lied about assaulting Christine Blasey Ford as a teenager, on the United States Supreme Court.
Keith Koegler
Palo Alto, CA
October 5, 2018