In Kavanaugh Drama, Friend of Blasey Ford Claims She Was “Pressured” to Change Statement

So, here we are.

The FBI has completed their investigation into the claims of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and the word coming from those who have viewed the report is that there is nothing there that corroborates Ford’s claims against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

It’s like I’ve been saying – You don’t condemn an innocent man, simply because you don’t like who nominated him, or you feel you have a partisan score to settle.

Can we call that the Garland Offensive?

It’s been a depressing debacle, as we watch the pro-infanticide harridans march and screech, while the MAGAdooks almost look reasonable, in all this.

Seriously. The NeverTrump stalwarts (not all of them) that I’ve aligned myself with are actually siding with the left on this, with absolutely nothing to go on but their burning opposition to all things tainted by the touch of Trump.

It’s not enough.

As I’ve said, I didn’t want Kavanaugh, but truth matters more, and the more that is revealed about this ugly situation, the more we see how partisanship kills.

I would urge both sides to take politics out of it and view this as a case of Kavanaugh as just an average, every day man, with an average, every day family, then weigh what factual evidence we have against the risk of ruining their lives.

So with that said (as if I haven’t said it, over and over again), let us not forget that what is done in the dark eventually comes to light, and the Wall Street Journal has a doozy for us.

The FBI, in doing their investigation, contacted those individuals Dr. Ford named who could corroborate her tale.

In particular was Ford’s dear friend, Leland Keyser.

Keyser had issued an initial statement through her lawyer, saying, basically, she had no idea what Ford was talking about. She didn’t remember the party or anything Ford mentioned.

She would later issue a statement saying she didn’t remember the party, didn’t know Brett Kavanaugh, but that she supported and believed her friend.

Something about that didn’t smell right.

It didn’t smell right because it was coerced.

A friend of Christine Blasey Ford told FBI investigators that she felt pressured by Dr. Ford’s allies to revisit her initial statement that she knew nothing about an alleged sexual assault by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh, which she later updated to say that she believed but couldn’t corroborate Dr. Ford’s account, according to people familiar with the matter.

Leland Keyser, who Dr. Ford has said was present at the gathering where she was allegedly assaulted in the 1980s, told investigators that Monica McLean, a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation agent and a friend of Dr. Ford’s, had urged her to clarify her statement, the people said.

She was pressured to make a statement that was more supportive of Ford’s claims.

So everybody attacking Kavanaugh, insisting that the woman must be believed, keep in mind that Ford (a woman) drew her friend (a woman) into a situation where she was hoping her friend would perjure herself, and then an FBI agent friend of Ford’s (a woman) “pressured” Keyser into adjusting her statement.

At the risk of sounding as if I’m betraying my gender – Not all women can be believed.

On Thursday, a day after sending to the White House the report on its investigation into the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, the FBI sent the White House and Senate an additional package of information that included text messages from Ms. McLean to Ms. Keyser, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Ms. McLean’s lawyer, David Laufman, said in a statement: “Any notion or claim that Ms. McLean pressured Leland Keyser to alter Ms. Keyser’s account of what she recalled concerning the alleged incident between Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh is absolutely false.”

Ms. Keyser’s lawyer on Sept. 23 said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had no recollection of attending a party with Judge Kavanaugh, whom she said she didn’t know. That same day, however, she told the Washington Post that she believed Dr. Ford. On Sept. 29, two days after Dr. Ford and the judge testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms. Keyser’s attorney sent a letter to the panel saying his client wasn’t refuting Dr. Ford’s account and that she believed it but couldn’t corroborate it.

So was it pressure? Was it something else?

A person close to the former classmates said it was her understanding that mutual friends of Dr. Ford and Ms. Keyser, including Ms. McLean, had contacted Ms. Keyser after her initial statement to warn her that her statement was being used by Republicans to rebut the allegation against Judge Kavanaugh. The friends told Ms. Keyser that if she had intended to say she didn’t remember the party—not that it had never happened—that she should clarify her statement, the person said, adding that the friends hadn’t “pressured” Ms. Keyser.

So let’s call it something else, if “pressure” isn’t a word you’re comfortable with.

Kavanaugh apparently made the rounds with his old friends, as well, asking them to defend him. Karen Yarasavage is a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s who was contacted by another friend.

Yarasavage was asked to comment on what was then and upcoming article in the New Yorker, about another accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who claims Kavanaugh exposed himself in front of her.

Ramirez’s claims have been discredited, as well, at this point.

There’s a reason Keyser wanted to be left out of it. I get it. Ford is her friend, and women really do feel a kinship with their friends. They feel they MUST protect them. This, however, was serious business.

This wasn’t comforting a friend whose husband cheated.

This was the Senate. The FBI was involved. The stakes are high.

Ms. Keyser’s interview with the FBI—which is subject to perjury laws—may influence the Senate debate on the judge’s confirmation. Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), who has said he would vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh, told reporters earlier Thursday that he found the most significant interviews in the FBI report to be those from people close to Dr. Ford who wanted to corroborate her account and were “sympathetic in wishing they could, but they could not.”

We’d like to lie for you, but we can’t afford the cost of a perjury charge.

There is no indication Dr. Ford and her legal team were involved in any effort to discuss Ms. Keyser’s statement with her, according to people familiar with the matter. The FBI didn’t interview Dr. Ford for its investigation, which her lawyers late Wednesday said wasn’t appropriately comprehensive and “cannot be called an investigation.”

They didn’t interview Dr. Ford because she gave an open testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week. Why would they need to talk to her again, unless she had a new twist?

Kavanaugh recently wrote an op-ed, apologizing for his emotional outbursts during his testimony last week. I don’t know if that helped or hurt his cause.

If confirmed, he wrote, he would “keep an open mind in every case, and always strive to preserve the Constitution.”

There are rumors today that there may not be enough votes to get him through. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

Either way, the only disqualifiers for the man should be what is on record, as far as his work as a judge, thus far – if the Senate finds a problem, there.

False allegations because of weaponized feminism should not be a disqualifier, and for all the evidence that has been presented, there seems to be nothing.

If someone has a problem with him because of President Trump nominating him, I get it, but again, it’s not a disqualifier, and it’s not a good reason to abandon the principle of truth, just to sink him.

During her testimony, Ford claimed she did not expect Keyser to remember the party and claimed she’d never told Keyser about the alleged assault.

Having been a teen girl, I know how ludicrous that sounds. The fact that it went this far and there are people willing to suspend disbelief for the sake of a political grudge is mind boggling.

It’s time to move forward, have a fair vote on Kavanaugh, and if he doesn’t make it, Trump should have another candidate in the wings, ready to go.

This time, make it a conservative judge. We don’t need another moderate on the bench.

We want to know what you think about the upcoming midterm elections. Vote in our poll below!