New Brett Kavanaugh Sexual Assault Allegations Revealed in Secret Sundance Doc

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Brett Kavanaughs 2018 Supreme Court confirmation was embroiled in controversy when multiple women accused him of sexual assault. One of them, Christine Blasey Ford, testified before Congress about the alleged attempted rape she suffered at his hands in high school. Justice is a gruesome and maddening investigation into these allegations, told in large part by Ford’s friends, lawyers and medical experts, and another of Kavanaugh’s alleged victims: Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of his at Yale.

Most damning of all, it contains a never-before-seen audio recording made by one of Kavanaughs Yale colleagues, President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, Max Stier, which not only corroborates Ramirez’s accusations, but suggests that Kavanaugh also raped another unnamed woman.

A last-minute addition to this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Justice is the first feature-length documentary directed by Doug Liman, a director best known for Hollywood hits like Swingers, Go, The Bourne Identity and Edge of Tomorrow. His latest is a far cry from those traditional fictional endeavors, caustically censuring Kavanaugh and the political process that elevated him to the nation’s highest judicial rank, and casting a sympathetic eye on Ford, Ramirez, and their fellow accusers.

Liman’s film may not deliver many new bombshells, but he and writer/producer Amy Herdy make up for a relative dearth of bombshell reveals by lucidly recounting this ugly chapter in recent American history, as well as giving speak to women whose allegations have been set aside. , mocked and ultimately ignored.

Justice’s biggest reveal comes more than halfway through its compact and effective 85-minute runtime, when Liman receives a tip that leads him to an anonymous individual who provides a tape made by Stier shortly afterwards. the courageous and heartbreaking testimony of the FBI. before the Senate Judiciary Committee briefly reopened its investigation into then-beleaguered candidate Kavanaugh.

The story continues

In it, Stier recounts that he lived in the same Yale dorm as Kavanaugh, and one evening found himself in a room where he saw a severely drunk Kavanaugh with his pants down, how a group of gamblers rowdy football forced a drunk female freshman to hold Kavanaughs penis. Stier states that he knows this story firsthand, and that the young woman in question did not recall the incident afterwards, nor did she want to come forward after seeing the despicable treatment that Ford and Ramirez received from the public, the media and the government. The Daily Beast has reached out to Judge Kavanaugh for comment on the new allegations.

Stier goes on to explain that while he doesn’t know Ramirez, he had heard from classmates about her distinct and eerily similar encounter with Kavanaugh, which she personally describes in Justice. According to Ramirez, an inebriated Kavanaugh exposed himself right in front of her face in college, and that she suppressed memories of aspects of that trauma until she was contacted by the New Yorkers. Ronan Farrow.

Christine Blasey Fords Grace exposes the cruelty of her interrogators

As Ramirez recounts in a shaky tone that seems on the verge of perpetually breaking down, she suffered this indignity quietly, convinced that she was responsible for it (because she too was under the influence) and humiliated by the peals of laughter from the other men. of the room. His story is convincing in its specificity, and moving in its anguish.

Ramirez confesses that some of Farrows’ questions had her worrying about not remembering everything about that fateful night and her recording of Stiers which seems to fill a crucial void. Stier says he was told that after Kavanaugh stuck his bare member in Ramirez’s face, he went to the bathroom and was pressured by his classmates to get erect; once he succeeded in this task, he returned to harass Ramirez again.

It’s a bit of extra nastiness in a story that drowns in the grotesque, and Liman lays it all out with the kind of unadorned clarity that only amplifies the shock, revulsion, and dismay of the emotions that go along with it. with outrage, which is fueled by the many clips of Kavanaugh refuting those accusations with fury and flimsy lies.

Through juxtapositions of official statements by Kavanaugh and various pieces of evidence, Justice reveals the numerous lies advanced by the judge in order to both sway public opinion and give Republicans sufficient cover of reasonable doubt to vote in favor. favor of its confirmation.

Additionally, in a lengthy segment about text conversations between Kavanaughs college pals and Kerry Berchem, Ramirezs’ Yale classmate, the film convincingly suggests that Kavanaugh and his team were aware of Ford’s accusations. and Ramirezs before they went public and sought to preemptively counter them by planting alternative narrative seeds with friends and acquaintances.

While Liman relies a bit too heavily on graphic text to convey some of this, the idea that Kavanaugh (or those close to him) conspired to keep his apparent crimes a secret with his general reputation as a tough threat to boozy parties stands out. nevertheless loud and clear. .

Surprisingly, although Ford is seen talking to Liman just off-camera at the start of Justice, she doesn’t appear otherwise except in archival footage. Yet his presence is ubiquitous throughout the documentary, which generates further anger noting that the FBI ignored Stiers’ advice, as well as the majority of the other 4,500 they received regarding Kavanaugh. The Bureau instead opted to send all relevant reports to the White House from the Trump administration which had pledged to have their nominee endorsed.

The Brett Kavanaugh probe should focus on one thing only: sexual assault

The effect is to paint the whole affair as a charade and a rigged game in which accusing women have been unfairly and maliciously put on the defensive, and powerful men have been allowed to skate over suspicious evasions and flimsy denials.

Justice is more of a scathing, straightforward recap than a formally audacious work of nonfiction, but its direct approach allows its speakers to make their case with precision and passion. Of this group, Ramirez proves the memorable standout, his commentary as thorough and cohesive as it is upsetting.

In her remarks about Kavanaugh laughing as he perpetuated his chuckle misconduct that Ford also mentions to Congress, she provides an unforgettable detail that encapsulates the arrogance, titled cruelty of her attacker, as well as the unjust system that saw fit to place it on the nation’s highest legal pedestal. .

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