'The Word Feral Came to Mind': Woman Recalls 'Frightening Side' of Brett Kavanaugh 20 Years Later Slate has decided to pu...
Slate has decided to publish a personal account of woman who encountered Brett Kavanaugh 20 years ago, just about a month after he was confirmed and sworn in as a Supreme Court justice.
Kavanaugh was, of course, accused of sexual assault and/or sexual misconduct by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and Julie Swetnick. Judy Munro-Leighton, meanwhile, has been referred to the Department of Justice and the FBI for an alleged false rape claim against Kavanaugh. The Swetnick claim has also been referred for a criminal probe.
Judi Hershmanâs Kavanaugh story in Slate made no such accusations of sexual misconduct or wrongdoing. What she did say is that she watched Kavanaugh and Ford testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was reminded of something that happened in 1998. She said that when Kavanaugh worked on the Bill Clinton investigation as a lawyer on independent counsel Ken Starrâs team, she was âcharged with helping prep Starr to present his history-making report to Congress.â Hershman still works in marketing and communications.
She said that she showed up one day at the independent counselâs office and was greeted by an âangryâ Kavanaugh, who was âinvading my space, badgering me in a way that I didnât understand.â
Then she said this exchange occurred:
Him (very angry): You are going to tell me exactly who you are and why you are here.
Me: I am here at the invitation of Judge Starr, and he shared with the group who I am and why Iâm here.
Him (pointing a finger in my face, I can feel his breath): No. Iâm telling youâ"
Me (defiant stance): And Iâm telling you to go talk to Judge Starr.
Hershman claimed that Kavanaugh âcouldnât have possibly thought I was a spy, because he knew who I wasâ"we had met before and been in each otherâs company several times since.â
She also said that she told Starr decades back about it and that Starr said he would talk to Kavanaugh. Slate said that Starr confirmed Hershman helped the independent counsel investigation, but that he â[did] not recall any mention of any incident involving Brett Kavanaugh. To the contrary, throughout his service in the independent counselâs office, now-Justice Kavanaugh comported himself at all times with high professionalism and respect toward all our colleagues.â
Hershman said that even though it âsounds like a strange, ultimately meaningless conversation [â¦] itâs not the exchange that sticks with me, itâs how he made me feel.â
âI was thinking: Why is he so mad? He knows who I am and why Iâm here. I know he will not hurt me. Someone will come. Why isnât someone coming? I kept saying Starrâs name, and finally Kavanaugh appeared to come to his senses,â Hershman continued. âHe stopped haranguing, his face relaxed, and he left the room. It was like heâd momentarily been a different person.â
She said that she saw this version of Kavanaugh once again when he defended himself before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
â[Fordâs] testimony struck me as credible. When I saw the nomineeâs facial expressionâ"the same pinched eyes and lips of the person who tried to bully me that day in 1998â"I was taken aback. The word feral came to mind. And when he showed the entire world that rabid âtemperamentâ iâd seen, a switch flipped inside me,â Hershman said. âI flashed back 20 years to that conference room and relived that guttural fear. I realized that what I had experienced that day hadnât been some one-off outburst prompted by stress. And I decided that I had to go on record with the senators who were faced with choosing whether to give Kavanaugh lifetime tenure on the nationâs highest court.â
Hershman said that she actually sent a statement about the 1998 encounter to Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Arizona), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Chris Coons (D-Delaware). Kavanaugh didnât comment on the story and Slate added a note to say they âcontacted the authorâs ex-husband, who said that she had told him in 2010 about a jarring interaction sheâd had while working for Starr and that sheâd clarified in 2012 that the interaction had been with Kavanaugh.â
âFurther, her daughter provided text messages from Julyâ"when Kavanaugh was known to be on the short list for the Supreme Court but before Christine Blasey Fordâs accusation was publicly knownâ"in which the author said she had a story to share about Kavanaugh,â Slate continued. âShe told her daughter the story later that month, before Fordâs accusation became public.â
[Image via Melina Mara/AFP/Getty Images.]
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