Text Messages prove Brett Kavanaugh and his second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, were more socially connected than previously understood.
In the days leading up to a public allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself to a college classmate, the judge and his team were communicating behind the scenes with friends to refute the claim, according to text messages obtained by NBC News.
Kerry Berchem, who was at Yale with both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has tried to get those messages to the FBI for its newly reopened investigation into the matter, but says she has yet to be contacted by the bureau.
The texts between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, both friends of Kavanaugh, suggest that the nominee was personally talking with former classmates about Ramirez’s story in advance of the New Yorker article that made her allegation public.
In one message, Yarasavage said Kavanaugh asked her to go on the record in his defense. Two other messages show communication between Kavanaugh’s team and former classmates in advance of the story.
Ramirez, who attended Yale University with Kavanaugh, told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and exposed himself to her while they were classmates there.
“I remember a penis being in front of my face,” said Ramirez, who says she had been drinking. “I knew that’s not what I wanted, even in that state of mind.”
She told the magazine that she pushed him away.
“I was embarrassed and ashamed and humiliated,” she said. She added that she recalled Kavanaugh next to her, pulling up his pants. “Brett was laughing,” she said. “I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants…. Somebody yelled down the hall, ‘Brett Kavanaugh just put his penis in Debbie’s face,’” she said. “It was his full name. I don’t think it was just ‘Brett.’ And I remember hearing and being mortified that this was out there.”
The texts show that Ramirez was uncomfortable around Kavanaugh when they saw each other at a wedding 10 years after they graduated.
On Monday, a senior U.S. official confirmed that the White House has authorized the FBI to expand its initially limited investigation by interviewing anyone it deems necessary as long as the review is finished by the end of the week. The New York Times first reported the change in scope.
Kavanaugh has strongly denied the allegation by Ramirez as well as accusations by Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her when the two were in high school and by Julie Swetnick that Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct at parties while he was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s.