A woman that Christine Blasey Ford claimed was at the party where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her circa 1982 told FBI investigators that Dr. Ford’s “allies” tried to pressure her to change her story about what happened.
Leland Keyser told investigators that Ford’s friend, former FBI agent Monica McLean, had urged her to alter the original statement that she gave about not remembering any such party and not knowing Kavanaugh, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Journal noted that Keyser’s statement to the FBI offered “a glimpse into how Dr. Ford’s allies were working behind the scenes to lobby old classmates to bolster their versions of the alleged incident.”
A source close to the situation told the Journal that Dr. Ford’s friends “including Ms. McLean, had contacted Ms. Keyser after her initial statement to warn her that her statement was being used by Republicans to rebut the allegation against Judge Kavanaugh.”
In a statement, David Laufman, McLean’s attorney, denied the allegations, writing: “Any notion or claim that Ms. McLean pressured Leland Keyser to alter Ms. Keyser’s account of what she recalled concerning the alleged incident between Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh is absolutely false.”
The Journal notes that allies of Kavanaugh also reached out to people, including former classmate Karen Yarasavage, who said that she was asked to go on record about the allegation made by Deborah Ramirez.
Ford’s ex-boyfriend claimed this week in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Ford had coached McLean on how to pass a polygraph test so she could get into the FBI. This accusation was serious because, if true, Ford perjured herself under oath when she said that she had “never” given anyone any tips on how to take a polygraph test.
This latest revelation comes after Ford’s story was thoroughly discredited by Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor that questioned her during her testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who said that her story was “even weaker” than a “he said, she said” case.