Kavanaugh - Swetnick sex abuse allegations, 'belligerent and aggressive' drinker, bar fight, text messages to refute accuser's claim before it became public

 

-  Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick speaks out on sexual abuse allegations

-  Text messages suggest Kavanaugh wanted to refute accuser's claim before it became public

-  Police questioned Kavanaugh after bar fight in 1985

-  Brett Kavanaugh was 'belligerent and aggressive' drinker, Yale classmate says

Kavanaugh accuser Julie Swetnick speaks out on sexual abuse allegations

"I felt like somebody took me and basically said, 'You're worthless. You are nothing to us. You are disposable.'" by Kate Snow Oct.01.2018

 

....In an exclusive broadcast interview with NBC News, Swetnick claims she saw Kavanaugh behave inappropriately at parties in the early 1980s.

"He was very aggressive — very sloppy drunk, very mean drunk. I saw him — go up to girls and paw on them, try to, you know, get a little too handsy, touching them in private parts. I saw him try to shift clothing," she told Snow.

 

Swetnick said that it was only after Christine Blasey Ford came forward in a Washington Post article from September 16 to allege in Kavanaugh had attacked her during at a party that she realized she had a similar story to tell.

NBC News was unable to independently corroborate Swetnick's claims and has not spoken with anyone who says they saw Swetnick at parties with Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh has said he does not know Swetnick and has called her claims a farce.

 

Swetnick provided NBC News with the names of four friends who she said went to the parties with her. One is deceased, while two others did not respond to requests for comment. A fourth told NBC News he didn't remember Swetnick and didn't think he'd socialized with her.

Swetnick says she saw boys gathered outside closed rooms at parties but did not know what was happening behind those closed doors until she says she herself was attacked around 1982.

 

"My body was violated," she said, sighing. "My soul was broken ... I felt like somebody took me and basically said, 'You're worthless. You are nothing to us. You are disposable.'"

She described feeling unwell, being "shoved into a room" and then being raped by more than one man.

She says Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were in the same part of the house earlier that evening but she cannot be sure if they were involved....

 

Swetnick said she told her mother and a police officer about the attack shortly afterward. Both her mother and the officer are now deceased. NBC News filed a public records request for related documents, but local officials said a response could take up to 30 days....

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/kavanaugh-accuser-julie-swetnick-speaks-out-sexual-abuse-allegations-n915641

 

Text messages suggest Kavanaugh wanted to refute accuser's claim before it became public
A former classmate of the Supreme Court nominee has reached out to the FBI but hasn't received a response.
by Heidi Przybyla and Leigh Ann Caldwell Oct.01.2018

 

WASHINGTON — In the days leading up to a public allegation that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to a college classmate, the judge and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim, according to text messages obtained by NBC News.

 

Kerry Berchem, who was at Yale with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has tried to get those messages to the FBI for its newly reopened investigation into the matter but says she has yet to be contacted by the bureau.

 

The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about Ramirez’s story in advance of the New Yorker article that made her allegation public. In one message, Yarasavage said Kavanaugh asked her to go on the record in his defense. Two other messages show communication between Kavanaugh's team and former classmates in advance of the story.

 

In now-public transcripts from an interview with Republican Judiciary Committee staff on September 25, two days after the Ramirez allegations were reported in the New Yorker, Kavanaugh claimed that it was Ramirez who was “calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it,” adding that it “strikes me as, you know, what is going on here? When someone is calling around to try to refresh other people? Is that what’s going on? What’s going on with that? That doesn’t sound — that doesn’t sound — good to me. It doesn’t sound fair. It doesn’t sound proper. It sounds like an orchestrated hit to take me out.”

 

The texts also demonstrate that Kavanaugh and Ramirez were more socially connected than previously understood and that Ramirez was uncomfortable around Kavanaugh when they saw each other at a wedding 10 years after they graduated. Berchem's efforts also show that some potential witnesses have been unable to get important information to the FBI....
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/mutual-friend-ramirez-kavanaugh-anxious-come-forward-evidence-n915566

 

Text messages between Brett Kavanaugh and his classmates seem to contradict his Senate testimony David Choi

Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his staff were reportedly sending text messages to former classmates to underplay allegations that he exposed himself during a party at Yale University.
One of Kavanaugh's friends said in a message that she corresponded with "Brett" and "Brett's guy."
A recipient of the text messages said she forwarded them to the FBI because "they merit investigation by the FBI and the Senate."

She said she conveyed the contents of the messages to the FBI twice, but has not heard back as of Monday morning.
The timing of the text messages sent from Kavanaugh and members of his team may renew the inquiry surrounding testimony he gave to the Judiciary Committee last week.
Kavanaugh previously testified that he had not discussed or heard of Ramirez's allegations from The New Yorker.
But Kavanaugh later appeared to contradict himself by saying he had heard that one of his accusers was "calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered it."

Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, and his staff were reportedly sending text messages to former classmates to underplay allegations that he exposed himself during a party at Yale University.

 

The text messages, which were obtained by NBC News, were reportedly between Kavanaugh's friends, Kerry Berchem and Karen Yarasavage. Based on the contents of the messages, Kavanaugh himself may reached out to his classmates to undercut the claims made by former classmate Deborah Ramirez, who told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh had exposed himself in front of others at a dorm-room party during the 1983-84 school year.

According to one message, Yarasavage said that Kavanaugh had asked her to defend him on the record, NBC News reported. Other messages indicate that Kavanaugh's surrogates had communicated with his former classmates before the story's publication....
https://www.businessinsider.com/did-brett-kavanaugh-commit-perjury-testimony-new-yorker-article-deborah-ramirez-2018-10

 

Police questioned Kavanaugh after bar fight in 1985
Anchor Muted Background By Kate Sullivan, CNN
Mon October 1, 2018

Washington (CNN) Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was accused of starting an altercation while he was a student at Yale, according to a 1985 police report obtained by CNN, after police responded "in regards to an assault."
In the New Haven, Connecticut, police department report, a man named Dom Cozzolino said Kavanaugh had thrown ice on him and Kavanaugh's friend Chris Dudley had thrown a glass that hit him in the ear.
"The argument between the two started when Mr. Cozzolino stated that Brett Kavanaugh threw ice at him for some unknown reason and he then got hit in the ear with a glass," the report says.

Dudley denied the allegations, according to the report, "and Mr. Kavanaugh didn't (want) to say if he threw the ice or not. "

The police report does not indicate whether anyone was arrested, and New Haven's police chief, Anthony Campbell, told CNN there are no other records he is aware of involving Kavanaugh....

 

Chad Ludington, a former classmate of Kavanaugh's, has said Kavanaugh did not tell the truth about his drinking in his testimony Thursday to the Senate Judiciary Committee. In Ludington's statement released Sunday he also mentions an altercation involving Kavanaugh: "On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man's face."

Ludington told CNN's "Cuomo Prime Time" anchor Chris Cuomo that the altercation happened after a UB40 concert, when he and a group of friends were drinking at Demery's.
They were sitting near a man who they thought looked like the lead singer of UB40, Ali Campbell, and were trying to figure out whether it was him, Ludington told Cuomo.
The man noticed Ludington, Kavanaugh and the others looking at him and -- according to Ludington -- aggressively asked them to stop.

Ludington told Cuomo he initially remembered Kavanaugh then threw his beer at the man, but recently found out from the report that there were ice cubes in the thrown drink.
"We weren't drinking water, so it must've been some sort of mixed drink," Ludington told Cuomo.
The man next then "took a swing at Brett," Ludington continued, and then they were "two guys fighting -- that was all very quick."

 

Dudley then took his drink and "proceeded to smash it up against the guy's head," Ludington recalled.
There was some shouting, and then the police showed up, Ludington said. They looked around and asked questions, he said, and then Dudley was put in a squad car and taken to jail....
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/politics/nyt-police-kavanaugh-bar-fight/index.html 

Brett Kavanaugh was 'belligerent and aggressive' drinker, Yale classmate says
John Bacon, USA TODAY Oct. 1, 2018

Another Yale classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh challenged the truthfulness of the Supreme Court nominee's Senate testimony, saying Kavanaugh was often "belligerent and aggressive" when he drank.

Charles "Chad" Ludington, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, released a statement saying Kavanaugh "has not told the truth" when denying he never blacked out and downplaying his drinking as a young man.

 

"On many occasions, I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption," Ludington wrote. "When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive."

Ludington said he would not discuss Kavanaugh with the media but would tell his story to the FBI. The agency is conducting a one-week investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against the federal judge that date back to high school.

 

Last week, Seattle physician and Yale classmate Liz Swisher said Kavanaugh was a "sloppy drunk" in college. Freshman-year roommate James Roche said Kavanaugh was a "notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and … became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk."

 

Roche said he believed Deborah Ramirez, another Yale classmate, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh denied the allegations.

The New York Times reported Monday that in September 1985, Kavanaugh was involved in an altercation at a bar in which he was accused of throwing ice at another patron. The Times report cited a police report of the New Haven incident and said Kavanaugh was not arrested.

 

According to the police report, the victim in the case said that after Kavanaugh hurled the ice, a friend of Kavanaugh's threw a glass and hit the victim in the ear, causing him to bleed. The man was treated at a hospital and Kavanaugh, speaking to officers, did not want "to say if he threw the ice or not," the Times quoted the police report as saying.

 

Ludington said he was a varsity basketball player and Kavanaugh enjoyed socializing with athletes. Ludington said he "cringed" when he watched Kavanaugh describe his drinking on a Fox News TV interview and in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"In recent days, I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale," Ludington wrote. "Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker."...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/10/01/brett-kavanaugh-yale-classmate-drinking-statement/1484822002/ 

Kavanaugh Denies Fresh Harassment Allegations From College Classmate

Senate Democrats Investigate a New Allegation of Sexual Misconduct, from Brett Kavanaugh’s College Years
By Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer September 23, 2018

 

As Supreme Court, Senate Democrats are investigating a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. The claim dates to the 1983-84 academic school year, when Kavanaugh was a freshman at Yale University. The offices of at least four Democratic senators have received information about the allegation, and at least two have begun investigating it. Senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and, in conversations with The New Yorker, expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination. Soon after, Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote. The Democratic Senate offices reviewing the allegations believe that they merit further investigation. “This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. It should be fully investigated,” Senator Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii, said. An aide in one of the other Senate offices added, “These allegations seem credible, and we’re taking them very seriously. If established, they’re clearly disqualifying.”

 

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.

 

After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

 

In a statement, Kavanaugh wrote, “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name—and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building—against these last-minute allegations.”....

 

Ramirez said that, when both she and Kavanaugh were freshmen at Yale, she was invited by a friend on the women’s soccer team to a dorm-room party. She recalled that the party took place in a suite at Lawrance Hall, in the part of Yale known as Old Campus, and that a small group of students decided to play a drinking game together. “We were sitting in a circle,” she said. “People would pick who drank.” Ramirez was chosen repeatedly, she said, and quickly became inebriated. At one point, she said, a male student pointed a gag plastic penis in her direction. Later, she said, she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words, as that male student and another stood nearby. (Ramirez identified the two male onlookers, but, at her request, The New Yorker is not naming them.)

 

A third male student then exposed himself to her. “I remember a penis being in front of my face,” she said. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.” She recalled remarking, “That’s not a real penis,” and the other students laughing at her confusion and taunting her, one encouraging her to “kiss it.” She said that she pushed the person away, touching it in the process. Ramirez, who was raised a devout Catholic, in Connecticut, said that she was shaken. “I wasn’t going to touch a penis until I was married,” she said. “I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated.” She remembers Kavanaugh standing to her right and laughing, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.” She recalled another male student shouting about the incident. “Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’ ” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”

 

Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party.

And yet, after several days of considering the matter carefully, she said, “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.”....

 

A classmate of Ramirez’s, who declined to be identified because of the partisan battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination, said that another student told him about the incident either on the night of the party or in the next day or two. The classmate said that he is “one-hundred-per-cent sure” that he was told at the time that Kavanaugh was the student who exposed himself to Ramirez. He independently recalled many of the same details offered by Ramirez, including that a male student had encouraged Kavanaugh as he exposed himself.

 

The classmate, like Ramirez, recalled that the party took place in a common room on the first floor in Entryway B of Lawrance Hall, during their freshman year. “I’ve known this all along,” he said. “It’s been on my mind all these years when his name came up. It was a big deal.” The story stayed with him, he said, because it was disturbing and seemed outside the bounds of typically acceptable behavior, even during heavy drinking at parties on campus. The classmate said that he had been shocked, but not necessarily surprised, because the social group to which Kavanaugh belonged often drank to excess. He recalled Kavanaugh as “relatively shy” until he drank, at which point he said that Kavanaugh could become “aggressive and even belligerent.”

 

Another classmate, Richard Oh, an emergency-room doctor in California, recalled overhearing, soon after the party, a female student tearfully recounting to another student an incident at a party involving a gag with a fake penis, followed by a male student exposing himself. Oh is not certain of the identity of the female student. Ramirez told her mother and sister about an upsetting incident at the time, but did not describe the details to either due to her embarrassment.

 

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a member of Kavanaugh and Ramirez’s class at Yale, said Kavanaugh’s college behavior had become a topic of discussion among former Yale students soon after Kavanaugh’s nomination. In one e-mail that Krasberg received in September, the classmate who recalled hearing about the incident with Ramirez alluded to the allegation and wrote that it “would qualify as a sexual assault,” he speculated, “if it’s true.”....

 

Several other classmates said that they believed Ramirez to be credible and honest, and vouched for her integrity. James Roche was roommates with Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged incident and is now the C.E.O. of a software company in San Francisco. “Debbie and I became close friends shortly after we both arrived at Yale,” he said. “She stood out as being exceptionally honest and gentle. I cannot imagine her making this up.” He said that he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in any sexual misconduct, but did recall him being “frequently, incoherently drunk.” He described Ramirez as a vulnerable outsider. “Is it believable that she was alone with a wolfy group of guys who thought it was funny to sexually torment a girl like Debbie? Yeah, definitely. Is it believable that Kavanaugh was one of them? Yes.” Another acquaintance from college, Jennifer Klaus, similarly said that she considered the allegation plausible, adding, “Debbie’s always been a very truthful, kind—almost to the point of being selfless—individual.” A third classmate, who Ramirez thought had attended the party, said that she was not present at the incident. The former student, who asked not to be named, said that she also found Ramirez credible....

 

While at Yale, Kavanaugh became a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, or “DKE,” which several students said was known for its wild and, in the view of some critics, misogynistic parties. Kavanaugh was also a member of an all-male secret society, Truth and Courage, which was popularly known by the nickname “Tit and Clit.”....

 

Her attorney, Garnett, said that he and Ramirez had not yet decided when and how she would convey the details of her allegation to the Senate Judiciary Committee and whether new counsel would represent her in Washington. “We’re carefully evaluating what the appropriate next steps would be,” he said. They both said that an F.B.I. investigation of the matter was merited. “I do believe an F.B.I. investigation of this kind of character-related information would be appropriate, and would be an effective way to relay the information to the committee,” Garnett said. Of Ramirez, he added, “She’s as careful and credible a witness as I’ve encountered in thirty-six years of practicing law.” Ramirez said that she hoped an investigation could be carried out before the committee voted on Kavanaugh’s nomination. “At least look at it,” she said of her claim. “At least check it out.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez

 

Kavanaugh Denies Fresh Harassment Allegations From College Classmate
September 23, 2018 Kelsey Snell, Brett Neely

Days before the Senate is set to hear from a woman who alleges Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her while in high school, Kavanaugh is denying fresh accusations from a college classmate who also alleges he acted inappropriately towards her.

 

In a story published Sunday evening by The New Yorker, Deborah Ramirez says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken party while both were first year students at Yale University.

"It was kind of a joke," Ramirez told the magazine. "And now it's clear to me it wasn't a joke."

Kavanaugh denied the allegation in a statement released by the White House.

"This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen," Kavanaugh said. "The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple."

 

The fresh allegation comes as the Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing to hear testimony from another woman, Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party more than 30 years ago. The two incidents are alleged to have occurred within just a few years of one another.

Kavanaugh also denies those allegations.

 

Ford is set to testify before the Judiciary Committee about her allegation on Thursday. The politically charged hearing has already been criticized by Democrats who are calling for an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh's conduct.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the committee, sent a letter to committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Sunday evening asking that all proceedings related to Kavanaugh's nomination be suspended....
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/23/650979665/kavanaugh-denies-fresh-harassment-allegations-from-college-classmate 

 

Child Abuse Research  https://ritualabuse.us 

 

Articles by Neil Brick  http://neilbrick.com