As conservatives attack, hundreds sign letters supporting Kavanaugh accuser

As allegations of a high school sexual assault threaten Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's Senate confirmation, attacks against the judge's accuser have also ramped up.

Over the weekend, The Washington Post reported California research psychologist Christine Blasey Ford's account of a violent encounter with Kavanaugh in the early 1980s when both were students at elite Washington D.C.-area high schools. The revelation has thrown a significant obstacle in Kavanaugh's path to the high court. The confrontation is likely to peak when both the nominee and his accuser testify before the Senate next Monday.

In the meantime, conservative media outlets and Trump administration operatives have gone into overdrive questioning Ford's reliability and motives, while a chorus of Kavanaugh supporters has extolled the nominee's sterling character.

On Monday night, Ford’s own supporters, from her past and present, rallied to her side.

Hundreds of friends and acquaintances from Ford's professional and personal orbits added their names to a pair of letters of support for the 51-year-old. One of the letters came from some of Ford's schoolmates from the 1984 class at Holton-Arms School, the private high school in Bethesda, Maryland, she attended at the time of the alleged assault. The second was written by "colleagues, current and former students, and mentors" from Ford's work as a clinical psychologist.

"More than 200 of her colleagues, students and mentors signed this letter in less six hours," Sarah Adler and Debra Safer, organizers behind the second letter, told The Washington Post in an email early Tuesday morning. "To us, this speaks for itself. They rallied around Christine because she is a highly respected, moral, and well-loved part of our community."

Seventeen former students from Holton-Arms attached their names to a letter addressed to Congress and dated Sept. 17.

"[Ford's] decision to provide information pertaining to a sexual assault is not a partisan act," Ford's classmates said. "It is an act of civic duty and the experience she described in her letter needs to be seriously considered."

The signatories of the Holton-Arms letter say they "represent all political parties" yet still "support Christine bringing this matter forward."

"Christine has had to weigh the personal cost of sharing her experience against her own conscience," the letter states. "We recognize that this has been an extraordinarily difficult decision and admire her courage for being willing to speak her truth when it would have been easier to stay silent."

As The Post previously reported, a separate letter of support for Holton-Arms graduates from all years supporting Ford had garnered at least 200 signatures by Monday, including that of actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

The second letter from Monday, signed by professional colleagues and co-workers, had notched more than 200 names going into Tuesday. The text directly challenges the narratives being thrown at Ford - alleged political bias; the decades-long delay in making the allegations - to impugn her character.

"We are writing in the hopes that Dr. Blasey Ford's voice is not dismissed as someone who is 'politically motivated,' or because 'she did not report it earlier,' or because she initially decided to speak anonymously, or for any other of the multitude of reasons victims of sexual assault are often silenced or silence themselves," the letter stated. " We feel compelled to use our voice, the voice of those who know her, to communicate our full support, and to attest to her character and integrity."

The letter continued: “She spoke out because she felt morally compelled to provide additional data on the character and moral code of a man who may be determining our citizens' futures for his lifetime. This is Christine Blasey Ford the scientist, the biostatistician, the teacher. It is her dedication to the data and creating the fullest and most balanced picture that has led her to be a highly respected colleague and mentor.”