During his interview on Fox News that aired Monday evening, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh cited his college reputation as evidence he’s been falsely accused by former Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez, who told the New Yorker Kavanaugh once thrust his genitals into her face at a party.
“The women I knew in college and the men I knew in college say it’s inconceivable that I could have done such a thing,” he said.
Kavanaugh on Ramirez allegation: "I never did any such thing. Never did any such thing…if I did such a thing, it would have been the talk of the campus. The women I knew in college and the men I knew in college say it is inconceivable that I could have done such a thing." pic.twitter.com/DSMaZUA8x3
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2018
But around the same time Kavanaugh was making that claim on Fox News, his former Yale roommate, James Roche, told the Bay Area ABC affiliate that he believes Ramirez.
“I concluded that although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk,” Roche told ABC 7. “I did not observe the specific incident in question, but I do remember Brett frequently drinking excessively and becoming incoherently drunk.”
Roche said it was “believable” to him that Kavanaugh was part of a group of men who thought it was fun to torment women.
“I do not consider myself to be a political person and I have no political agenda,” he added. “I have shared this information with a small number of reporters who reached out to me directly because Debbie has a right to be heard and I believe her.”
Just spoke with #JamesRoche who was Yale roommate of Brett #Kavanaugh . He confirms that the #SCOTUS nominee was frequently drunk, and incoherently. Says he supports integrity of Debbie Ramirez, the 2nd accuser. #abc7now #KavanaughConfirmation Respects her courage. pic.twitter.com/rrBboHAyj2
— Wayne Freedman (@WayneFreedman) September 24, 2018
Kavanaugh’s claim about his college reputation wasn’t the only dubious one he made during the Fox News interview. He flatly denied that he ever drank so much in school that he couldn’t remember what happened the night before. That characterization is at odds with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while drunk at a party while the two of them were high school students in Maryland.
But aside from Roche’s claim that Kavanaugh was a heavy drinker, one of his high school friends, Mark Judge, wrote a memoir — “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk” — in which he “referenced a passed-out ‘Bart O’Kavanaugh,’ who drank too much and once threw up in a car,” as the Washington Post puts it. Kavanaugh was also listed as the “treasurer” of the “Keg City Club” in his senior yearbook.
Ford says Judge was the only eyewitness to Kavanaugh’s assault against her. An ex-girlfriend of Judge’s told the New Yorker that Judge “had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman.” Attorney Michael Avenatti, who says he represents a third woman who will soon step forward with an allegation of sexual misconduct involving Kavanaugh, claims he has “significant evidence” that Kavanaugh and Judge “would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs.” And on Tuesday evening, the New York Times reported that Kavanaugh bragged about his conquest of a girl in his high school yearbook.
During the Fox News interview, Kavanaugh was asked about Avenatti’s allegation that he and Judge “would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs to allow a ‘train’ of men to subsequently gang rape them.” Kavanaugh flatly denied everything, claiming that he in fact “did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter.”
KAVANAUGH on allegations he was involved in gang rape: "That's totally false and outrageous. I have never done any such thing."
Goes on to admit he may have drank too much at times when he was young, but claims he was a virgin for "many years after" he finished high school. pic.twitter.com/QS2LUn54Yc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2018
Kavanaugh also claimed that if he had assaulted Ramirez in college, “it would have been the talk of the campus” — his implication being that it wasn’t. But that’s not true either. As the New Yorker details, news of Kavanaugh’s alleged assault of Ramirez indeed spread around Yale, and more than three decades after it happened, the publication talked to a number of classmates who heard about it at the time and recalled the incident in a manner similar to Ramirez.