all right. joining us now a reporter for the washington post emma brown. emma wrote the washington post report revealing christine blasey ford as the author of a confidential letter that access supreme court no, ma am me brett kavanaugh of sexual assault more than three decades ago when they were both high school students in maryland. welcome to the show. emma, i guess, first of all, just give us the background. how did the interview come about? why did she decide to come forward? i understand she called the washington post tip line a few months ago? yes, she sent a text to our tip line in early july and she and i talked then and she she even then really didn t want to come forward, she just really wanted somebody to know what had happened to her, she said. around that same time she contacted a congress person,
it just flies in the face of reality to expect a 17-year-old girl to come forward publicly back in the era when this happened. i think we can all easily understand that. and moving fast forward into the july time frame where senator feinstein became aware of the letter detailing this issue, again, everyone i think would agree that we have to respect a victim who doesn t want to come forward. and dr. ford made what looks like a very smart calculation that she would be subjected to an enormous amount of personal attacks if she moved forward. she wasn t willing to be identified. senator feinstein did the right thing, sitting on that victim s wishes not putting her name forward referring it to the fbi for inclusion in the vetting file that they maintain for the candidate. this leaked out in the press. and dr. ford found that events had gottan ahead offer had. but she has given every guarantee i think as a prosecutor i would expect to
he is co-host and executive producer of the circus. co-founder and ceo of axios jim vandehei, editor and chief of law fair benjamin wittis and nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kc d.c. kasie hunt is with us. thank you for coming in. we will start with this complicated story this morning, the author of a confidential letter accusing supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh of sexual assault more than three decades ago identified herself on sunday. christine blasey ford a 51-year-old research psychologist in northern california spoke publicly for the first time about the allegations in a report by the washington post. ford alleges one summer during high school in the early 1980s kavanaugh and a friend drunkenly corralled her into a bedroom
jonathan turly was on earlier this morning. he as well as the wall street journal editorial page have questioned the timing of this information coming out. democrats had the information for two months and held on to it until after the hearings were all but over. what would you say to jonathan turly? what would you say to conservative critics who suggest that democrats hold this information for as long as they could and then released it at the end of last week to delay the vote? i know a little bit more about that than mr. turly. let me tell you, what happened was senator feinstein received this letter. she received it from congress woman issue who passed it along who is a friend and certainly credible person. but the congresswoman did not attest to its correlate its credibility or accuracy. the next day after senator
too, and told that person and wasn t ready to come forward. so over the summer she struggled and ride to figure out basically what she was going to do with this information. she said she had a civic duty to tell it, but she also understood that it was going to mean, you know, if she came forward it was going to change her life. and so why did she come forward now? she said, you know, as things started to leak last week people the intercept reported that there was a secret document and then there were further reports about what was in the letter that she had written to feinstein. reporters were starting to show up at her door, at her workplace, she felt her privacy was already being chipped away at. she said, you know, she said to me these are the ills i was trying to avoid anyway so now her calculation shifted she said and she was ready to come forward. kasie hunt has a question for you. kasie? emma, i m not sure if you