President Joe Biden’s accuser Tara Reade told the DCNF in April 2020 that she reached out to Katz and her fellow attorney Lisa Banks, who also represented Blasey Ford, for help with her allegations against Biden. The attorneys did not answer her or offer her help, Reade said.
He was abusing his power over her for sex. This is textbook sexual harassment.”. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in by chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images)
Katz, Marshall, and Banks LLP issued a press release Wednesday announcing that attorney Debra Katz will represent Charlotte Bennett in her allegations against the governor. Katz represented Christine Blasey Ford in September 2018 when Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in high school. The Senate Judiciary Committee ultimately found ...
The lawyer who represented Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser is representing one of the women who has accused Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment.
The lawyer who represented Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser is representing one of the women who has accused Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment. “He was abusing his power over her for sex,” Debra Katz said of Cuomo. “This is textbook sexual harassment.”. Katz represented Christine Blasey Ford in September 2018.
The therapist's notes also say four boys were involved, which Ford attributed to an error by the therapist; Ford said in 2018 that four boys were at the party but only two were involved in the incident. Ford's husband recalled that she had used Kavanaugh's last name in her 2012 description of the incident.
Feinstein said that owing to her confidentiality commitment to Ford, she did not raise the issue in the initial Kavanaugh confirmation proceedings. On September 12, The Intercept reported (without naming Ford) that Feinstein was withholding a Kavanaugh-related document from fellow Judiciary Committee Democrats. On September 13, Feinstein referred Ford's letter to the FBI, which redacted Ford's name and forwarded the letter to the White House as an update to Kavanaugh's background check. The White House in turn sent the letter to the full Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Wing, a co-working network and club for women, named the conference room in its San Francisco headquarters after Ford. In November 2018, a GoFundMe started by Georgetown Law professor Heidi Li Feldman raised $30,000 towards endowing a professorship or scholarship in Ford's name. That same year, Time magazine included Ford on its shortlist for Person of the Year. On December 11, 2018, Ford presented the Sports Illustrated "Inspiration of the Year" award to Rachael Denhollander. In 2019, she was named one of that year's 100 most influential people in Time 100, having been nominated by Senator Kamala Harris.
In early July 2018, after Judge Brett Kavanaugh was reported to be on Donald Trump 's shortlist to become an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Ford contacted both The Washington Post and her congresswoman, Anna Eshoo. On July 20, eleven days after Trump nominated Kavanaugh, Eshoo met with Ford, becoming convinced of her credibility and noting that Ford seemed "terrified" that her identity as an accuser might become public. Eshoo and Ford decided to take the matter to Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of Ford's senators in California and the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would deliberate Kavanaugh's nomination. In a July 30, 2018 letter to Feinstein, Ford alleged that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when both were in high school in Bethesda, Maryland, and stated that she expected her story to be kept confidential. In August that year, Ford took a polygraph test with a former FBI agent who concluded Ford was being truthful when attesting to the accuracy of her allegations.
On September 28, following requests from U.S. Senator Jeff Flake and from the Senate Judiciary Committee, President Trump ordered a supplemental FBI background investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh. On October 3, NBC News reported that Ford, Kavanaugh, and dozens of other witnesses were not interviewed by the FBI. The confidential FBI report was shown privately to members of Congress on October 4; Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said there was nothing new in the report and no corroboration of the allegations. On October 5, Ford's attorneys said she had no regrets about coming forward, and did not want Kavanaugh impeached if Democrats took control of Congress. The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh's nomination by a vote of 50–48 on October 6, 2018.
Following the hearing, Mitchell produced a report stating that she did not believe a reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against Kavanaugh based on the evidence presented to the Committee and adding that there were multiple inconsistencies in Ford's testimony. Mitchell asserted that Ford's case was "even weaker than" the standard "he said, she said" case, because other witnesses identified by Ford "either refuted her allegations, or failed to corroborate them".
From 1978 through 1984, she attended the Holton-Arms School, a private, all-girls university-preparatory school in Bethesda, Maryland. While on her regional sports team for diving, she accompanied diver Greg Louganis on a trip to the White House to discuss the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott.