Why Chris Garrett’s 302, which will be in the hands of the Senate tomorrow, is so important.
This afternoon we learned that the Senate is not expected to receive an FBI written report. The Senate is likely to get only the 302s (FBI interview documents).
Obviously, Mark Judge’s 302 will be the most important. If I were a Senator, I would ask to be given his 302 from the safe first. But easily the second most important 302 would be that of Chris Garrett (Squi). After reading Mark Judge’s 302, I would go directly to Garrett’s.
Although Chris Garrett is one of the individuals listed in Kavanaugh’s July 1 (1982) calendar, Blasey Ford has never mentioned him as being present at the party. In fact, she has said nothing about him at all, except to defend him in her hearing against the absurd mistaken identity theory promulgated by Ed Whelan, which assumed that she was sexually assaulted, but that it was perpetrated by Garrett, not Kavanaugh.
If the July 1 event in Kavanaugh’s calendar is when and where the assault occurred, then it is necessary to explain why Kavanaugh has him at the party but (so far) Blasey Ford has not.
Dr Blasey Ford has been unequivocal and absolutely consistent from beginning to end in stating under oath that she has vivid (even highly disturbing) memories of being attacked by Kavanaugh. However, there have been significant vagaries in her accounts of the party or get-together on other points. Among those vagaries are the alleged number of individuals at the party. Most importantly, in my opinion, she allowed at the hearing, under questioning by Rachel Mitchell, that she could not be sure if more people weren’t there as well (i.e., beyond the ones she has mentioned — and her answer would include the one boy whose name she could not recall).
Kavanaugh’s calendar says there were SEVEN boys at the party — or prospectively, that there WOULD be seven (including himself). If Blasey Ford and Leyland Keyser were there (two girls), that would make AT LEAST NINE individuals, and one of those individuals could well have been Chris Garrett (Squi).
It might be thought that the theory of the case I have been developing, according to which Garrett WAS at the event with Christine Blasey but that she has simply forgotten it, is strongly counterintuitive, because she was socializing and “going out with” Garrett at the time, and knew him better than any other boy there. But as I’ve argued in a previous thread on Garrett, we must realize that because Blasey Ford was a victim of a traumatic sexual and physical assault, her memories were subject to much more than normal forgetting: they were almost certainly under immense pressure from forces of which she was not even fully conscious.
She would have wanted to try to forget the incident completely, and in her testimony she said that she did in fact try to do so. But while the assault itself could not be forgotten, the other memories of the event were more malleable. That, in fact, is what the research shows typically happens to the memories of individuals who have been traumatized.
Here’s a crucial exchange between Sen. Feinstein and Blasey Ford on just this point.
FEINSTEIN: You were very clear about the attack. Being pushed into the room, you say you don’t know quite by whom, but that it was Brett Kavanaugh that covered your mouth to prevent you from screaming, and then you escaped. How are you so sure that it was he?
FORD: The same way that I’m sure that I’m talking to you right now. It’s — just basic memory functions. And also just the level of norepinephrine and epinephrine in the brain that, sort of, as you know, encodes — that neurotransmitter encodes memories into the hippocampus. And so, the trauma-related experience, then, is kind of locked there, whereas other details kind of drift.
FEINSTEIN: So what you are telling us is this could not be a case of mistaken identity?
FORD: Absolutely not.
While memories of Chris Garrett’s involvement in the event (assuming, arguendo, that he was there) might not have been as threatening to Blasey Ford as the memory of the assault in the bedroom upstairs, they would have been charged enough to have been subject, not just to normal forgetting, but to psychodynamic REPRESSION. That would be especially true, if as I have suggested, it was Garrett who invited her to the get-together, drove her there, and then drove her home after she had exited Tim Gaudette’s house. If she could not expunge Garrett from her memories of the event, how could she henceforth trust any male at all?
Garrett’s presence at the party and his absence in Blasey Ford’s memories of the event would explain almost all of the puzzling gaps in her memories. It would explain how she got to the party and got home afterward. It would likely throw some light as well on Ed Whelan’s bizarre mistaken identity theory (which Whelan has had to repudiate and for which he has apologized). And note that the Ed Whelan matter is important, because it is a strong indication that Whelan, and probably others in the Federal Society, knew that, if the July 1 party were investigated, Garrett would be found to play an important role that would have to be explained away — even at the cost of suggesting that he was Blasey Ford’s attacker!
Given all the above, here are some of the questions I would expect the FBI to have asked Garrett, and to show up in his 302 tomorrow:
Do you have any reason to think that Blasey Ford was ever sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh? Did Blasey Ford ever tell you that she was, or say anything that might have suggested that she had been?
Assume that Garrett’s answer to the FBI was concordant with a statement issued by his lawyer (not under oath), and that the answer to both questions is NO. Then there are other questions he would have had to answer.
How frequently were you at the Columbia Country Club in the summer of 1982? How often during that summer were you there with Christine Blasey? Did you drive at the time? If so, how often, if at all, were you the driver when you and Christine Blasey went to parties and other events in the area? Do you remember driving her to a party in the early summer of 1982 and driving her home? If so, do you remember when that event (or events) happened, and where those parties or get-togethers occurred? When and why did your special relationship (socializing and going out with her) come to an end? Did this relationship end with the two of you being friends?
The FBI will surely have asked Garrett about Ed Whelan’s bizarre mistaken identity theory as well:
How well do you know Ed Whelan? Were you in touch with Ed Whelan or others in the Federalist Society and/or Brett Kavanaugh and/or the WH while Ed Whelan developed and published the mistaken identity theory? Have you ever spoken with Whelan, or anyone associated with him, about his mistaken identity theory, or given him any reason to think that you might have been the assailant described by Christine Blasey Ford? Do you have any idea why Ed Whelan (perhaps with others) thought Dr Blasey Ford might have been mistaken about the identity of her attacker? Do you have any grounds for thinking that Ed Whelan must have KNOWN that you were NOT the assaulter? (The FBI should have asked this question because it should have wanted to know whether Whelan developed and published the story in order to mislead any possible investigation or inquiry by the government, which would constitute obstruction of justice.)
It looks at this point that the FBI will not question either Judge Kavanaugh or Dr Blasey Ford. This is outrageous. Democrats need to find out ASAP, from the notes that FBI Director Christopher Wray is keeping of all the events at the FBI behind the scenes, how and why and by whom the decision not to interview them was made.
FBI questioning of Dr Blasey Ford would be important for many reasons, but here are some of the points the FBI should have the opportunity to cover by interviewing her:
According to the Georgetown Prep yearbook for 1983 (The Cupola), Tim Gaudette lived at 2031 Adams Hill Rd., Vienna, VA 22180. [h/t @SethAbramson thread] Online realtors’ records show that the house was built in 1980. It has pretty clearly been remodeled since then, but the floor plan is likely very much the same. The realty company Redfin.com has slide photos of the interior and exterior. Here’s an exterior photo:
The most interesting photo is one of what looks like a downstairs rec room with a very short and narrow stairwell:
The FBI will have photos of that house (and perhaps floor plans) to show her. They might even have photos of the house (both interior and exterior) as it was in the summer of 1982. They would show Dr Blasey Ford those photos and floor plan to see if they jog her memory.
The FBI could and should be able to ask her: You said in your testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that you could not be sure that there weren’t more than the number of individuals you have previously mentioned at the party. On what basis did you say that? Do you have any reason to think there might have been more?
In the summer of 1982, how frequently were you at the Columbia Country Club? How often do you remember Chris Garrett being there? How often (if at all) did you go to parties and events with Chris Garrett when Garrett drove you to those events and/or drove you home? If there were such occasions, can you identify those parties and describe them?
You have identified four boys as having been at the party: Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and another boy whose name you can’t recall. Judge Kavanaugh’s calendar entry for July 1 of 1982 has other boys at this party (perhaps prospectively): Tim Gaudette (at whose home the party or get-together was held), Tom Kane, Bernie McCarthy, and Chris Garrett.
Since you were socializing and going with Garrett at the time, have you ever considered that Chris Garrett might have driven you to the party where you were assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh and then later driven you home from it? If you have considered this possibility and rejected it, on what grounds did you do so?
Her answer when queried on these points would be of the greatest possible interest, because if Chris Garrett were involved in the event in the way I’ve been suggesting, it would enable us to make almost perfect sense of Dr Blasey Ford’s explosive allegations about Brett Kavanaugh.
