A friend of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford who said he is a corroborating witness issued a statement late Friday criticizing the FBI for not interviewing him. Keith Koegler said in a sworn statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee obtained by CBS News that Ford told him in 2016 that a federal court judge in Washington, D.C. had sexually assaulted her in high school, and Ford identified the alleged assailant in an email as Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
A “corroborating witness” is a witness whose testimony supports or confirms the testimony already given, not an eyewitness. Ahead of her testimony, Ford released statements from four people that Ford had previously said she had been sexually assaulted.
Koegler wrote that there a minimum of seven people who knew about the Ford’s allegation of assault and were not interviewed by the FBI.
“The process by which the Senate Judiciary Committee has ‘investigated’ the facts related to the assault has been a shameless effort to protect Judge Kavanaugh,” Koegler wrote in a sworn statement. “The fact that the FBI did not interview either Christine or Judge Kavanaugh, by itself, renders absurd any assertion that the investigation was ‘thorough.'”
Koegler said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had the copy of an email thread with Ford from June 29, 2018, where she identified Kavanaugh as the man she had previously said had sexually assaulted her.
Ford testified last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she is “100 percent certain” Kavanaugh tried to sexually assault her in 1982. Kavanaugh has denied the accusation.
After Ford and Kavanaugh’s testimonies, President Trump called for an FBI investigation into the allegations. The investigation concluded earlier this week, and senators reviewed the 46-page report on Thursday. Ford’s lawyers have slammed the investigation as “not a meaningful investigation in any sense of the word.”
Several Democrats have criticized the investigation, and Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, said on the Senate floor on Friday night that he did not believe it was thorough.
The Senate is expected to confirm Kavanaugh Saturday.
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