Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the makeup of Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. (CNN) — There is little in Christine Blasey Ford’s background that prepared her for this moment. In high school she was a bright, funny teen navigating the hard-partying private school circuit who went on to her pursuit of an insular career as a West Coast academic. She is now a central figure in America’s reckoning with sexual assault. Ford long tried to remain anonymous, not wishing her story about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to become public and forever alter her life. But as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared to move forward and the media closed in around her, Ford stepped forward. On Thursday, she will come before the committee – a reluctant witness in an unexpected drama with consequences that could reverberate for generations. She will testify that Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted her when they both attended private schools in a tony suburb outside Washington. Like Anita Hill in 1991, Ford will tell her story to an all-male panel of Republican senators. They are taking pains to avoid the clumsy, awkward questioning of 1991 — which became a galvanizing force for female voters the following year. This time the GOP has hired a female outside counsel to question Ford. Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, is facing a panel of Republican lawmakers who are deeply skeptical of her allegation that Kavanaugh steered her into an upstairs bedroom in the early 1980s and physically and sexually assaulted her while his friend watched at a party in the DC suburbs. The GOP panel has refused the request of Ford’s attorneys to allow two trauma experts and the person who administered her polygraph about the incident to testify. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took to the floor Monday, accusing Senate Democrats and their allies of “trying to destroy a man’s personal and professional life on the basis of decades-old allegations.” Ford faces doubters not only in the Senate but also at the White House. After initially insisting that he wanted to hear her story, President Donald Trump questioned Ford’s credibility: “if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says charges would have been immediately filed by either her or her loving parents.” As Kavanaugh prepared to testify this week, Trump called him to reassure him that he was sticking by him. The President suggested that another woman who accused Kavanaugh of inappropriate sexual behavior at Yale, Deborah Ramirez, was mistaken in her recollection. (CNN has not independently confirmed Ramirez’s story.) Trump also affirmed his belief in Kavanaugh’s account on Tuesday: “He’s one of the highest quality people,” Trump told reporters. “You know when he said that really he was focused on trying to be number one in his class at Yale, to me that was so believable. I understand college very well, I understand being number one in your class and I understand a lot of things. When he said that, I understood exactly what – he was so truthful, and I thought that came out.” Kavanaugh, for his part, says the incident with Ford never occurred and that he is eager to defend his integrity and clear his name. “I have never sexually assaulted anyone, not in high school, not ever,” he said in a Fox interview Monday night, adding that Ford was “not a friend, she was not someone I knew.” The private school party scene Ford grew up in the privileged circles of Washington’s ‘work hard-play hard’ private school scene. She attended the all-girls Holton Arms School in Maryland and spent leisure hours by the pool at Columbia Country Club. In that world of stately homes and expensive cars, alcohol was plentiful and easily obtained. There were parties every weekend where boys and girls from a half-dozen single-sex high schools mingled during drinking games like beer pong and rounds of truth or dare. Fake IDs were easy to get, often passed down by the older girls for trips to Georgetown bars like Champs and Third Edition. In the summer, to the dismay of their headmasters and headmistresses, kids from all of the local private schools rented houses in Rehoboth and Bethany Beach for “Beach Week.” Mark Judge, a Kavanaugh friend who Ford has said was present during the alleged attack in 1982, chronicled the drinking scene at Georgetown Preparatory School, the high school he attended with Kavanaugh, in a book that he wrote touching on his own struggle with alcoholism. (Judge wrote a letter to members of the judiciary committee stating that he does not recall an incident involving Kavanaugh and Ford. He has not been called to testify, despite the requests of Democratic senators). “Prep was a school positively swimming in alcohol, and my class partied with gusto,” Judge wrote in “God and Man at Georgetown Prep.” Judge described a 100-keg quest, a challenge that he and his friends created to drink one hundred kegs of beer by the end of their senior year. On his yearbook page, Kavanaugh said he was treasurer of the “Keg City Club –100 Kegs or Bust.,” and a member of the “Beach Week Ralph Club.” Judge also wrote about a bachelor party that he and friends threw for their teacher: a keg of beer and a stripper was the entertainment for the high school students. A “pictorial essay” of the incident was printed in a student-published paper called the Unknown Hoya. On Kavanaugh’s 1983 yearbook page, he chose a quote from Benjamin Franklin: “He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows, nor JUDGE all he sees.” ’I’d put money on her any time’ For her page in her Holton Arms high school yearbook, Christine “Chrissy” Blasey is photographed half-smiling in a white sundress, with a thin gold chain around her neck, and a feathered hair style with thick bangs reminiscent of Princess Diana (who had married Prince Charles just a few years earlier). In a note to her family as she prepared to leave for college, she chose lines from Elton John’s “Your Song.” There is also a quote from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young: “Gasping at glimpses of gentle, true spirit; He runs, wishing he could fly; Only to trip at the sound of goodbye.” It was two years after the 1982 incident when, as she recounted to the Washington Post, Kavanaugh assaulted her while he and Judge were “stumbling drunk.” While Kavanaugh allegedly groped her and tried to remove her clothing, Ford said Judge jumped on top of them allowing her to escape. Two quotes from American songwriter Stephen Stills on Ford’s 1984 yearbook page speak to her youthful search for resilience as she set out from home. One: “Don’t be angry. Don’t be sad. And don’t sit cryin’ over good times had.” The other: “Go your way, I’ll go mine and carry on.” Ford’s Holton Arms classmates remember her as bright, friendly and kind, a cheerleader and member of the school’s swim and dive team. Classmate Samantha Semerad Guerry, who met Ford when she began attending the school in the 7th grade, described Ford in high school as someone who was “constantly cheerful” and “got along with everyone.” “I would be surprised to hear if anybody had anything bad to say about Chrissy,” Semerad Guerry said. Another friend Lisa Shapiro said she had “every reason to believe what she recounts is true, and no reason to doubt her.” “Chrissy, as I knew her then, had a sharp wit, and was energetic, friendly, and fundamentally kind,” Shapiro said in an email to CNN. For much of Ford’s life, she kept the alleged attack as her own dark secret. She has told senators she did not tell anyone about the incident until 2012 when it came up in couples’ therapy with her husband, Russell Ford. But it clearly guided some of her research and her interests as a psychologist. In technical, scientific papers, she has written about the effects of trauma on young women. Jack Caussin, who taught Christine Blasey Ford at Holton-Arms her senior year of high school, said it has been painful to learn that a student he fondly remembered as being bright and funny – a “good kid” through and through, who was quiet at times – had allegedly experienced such devastating trauma. But he was also not surprised by her description of the incident. In his years a teacher, Caussin, now 84, said he kept a close eye on how notably the dynamics shifted for the female students whenever boys entered the room. He also chaperoned several Holton-Arms dances to which boys were invited. “They’ve got to strut their stuff and be macho. I just didn’t like the way a lot of them acted towards those girls. Maybe I was being over-protective,” he recalled. “You had to have them thrown out of there sometimes they were so gross and everything.” Caussin, who has been described as Ford’s favorite teacher, said she stayed in touch with him over the years. Looking back, he is struck by the fact that she shared with him work that she and her students were doing on veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. A veteran who served in Korea and Vietnam, Caussin said he himself did not suffer from PTSD. Now, he says he isn’t sure whether Ford may have wanted to discuss the topic of trauma with him because of her own experience in high school that haunted her into adulthood – and if her research was in any way related to her own desire to better understand trauma. Caussin said he had no trouble believing Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh. “I respect the heck out of her and I always did. I’d put money on her any time,” he said. “She’s a good person.” Several of Ford’s friends told CNN that trauma affected her in unexpected ways. Kate DeVarney said in an interview that over the course of their friendship of 13 years, she discovered that Ford “really has a hard time being in a place where there’s no escape route.” She was, for example, uncomfortable flying, DeVarney said, because an airplane is “the ultimate closed space where you cannot get away.” Late last month, Ford confided in DeVarney for the first time about being sexually assaulted in high school. But she did not share Kavanaugh’s name or other details about his identity, DeVarney said. Ford told her about a letter she had sent to her congresswoman about the alleged assault. In that conversation, DeVarney said Ford also told her about how when Ford and her husband were remodeling their home, “she insisted that every room had to have an exit door to the outside.” “She did say this has affected me my entire life,” DeVarney said. Another friend, Jim Gensheimer, said in a statement that the incident was “serious enough to have a lasting impact on her life.” Gensheimer said Ford told him she needs to have “more than one exit door in her bedroom to prevent her from being trapped.” Members of the Holton Arms class of 1984 also sent a letter to Congress “to attest to her honesty, integrity, and intelligence; and to contend that her decision to provide information pertaining to a sexual assault is not a partisan act.” Semerad Guerry said the idea to write a letter affirming their belief in Ford’s story developed over a class of 1984 alumnae chain. In recent days, Ford has emailed friends on a Holton Arms’ email chain thanking them for their support and apologizing for any collateral damage, according to a source familiar with the email. Classmates, alumnae and neighbors have held vigils for Ford outside the White House and spoken at press conferences on Capitol Hill. They are expected to show up in force to support her at the hearing on Thursday. Ellie Kaufman, Elizabeth Landers, Annie Grayer, Manu Raju, Sophie Tatum and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.<doc-sep>(CNN) — The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman accusing him of sexual assault are set to testify about her allegation will see both witnesses face five minutes of questioning from each senator on the panel, or a lawyer if senators choose to yield their time. The way the hearing will unfurl was revealed Tuesday after CNN obtained details of the format for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, in which both Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford will testify publicly. A source familiar with the matter provided the following details to CNN after notices were sent to Kavanaugh’s and Ford’s legal teams. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley will make an opening statement with no time limit, followed by an opening statement from the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who also will not have a time limit. Ford, who alleges when she and Kavanaugh were in high school he pinned her down at a party and covered her mouth while trying to remove her clothing, will then be sworn in and give an opening statement. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation. There will be one round of questions in which each senator will have five minutes each to ask Ford questions. Those five minutes can be yielded to counsel if a senator chooses. Grassley confirmed Tuesday in a statement that he has hired Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes, to question the witnesses. Mitchell will ask the questions for the GOP senators, while Democrats will do their own questioning. Ford will then leave the committee hearing room, and Kavanaugh will enter once Ford has departed. The Supreme Court nominee will be sworn in and will then give his opening statement. In the same format as the questioning for Ford, there will be one round of questions in which senators have five minutes to either ask questions themselves or yield that time to outside counsel. Grassley announced Tuesday that a committee vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination is tentatively scheduled for Friday. The hearing will occur days after a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, told The New Yorker that when she and Kavanaugh were in college together, he exposed himself to her at a dormitory party. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.<doc-sep>
Christine Blasey Ford says she will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in open session on Thursday. Not all details have been finalized, but several that have don't work in her favor. Her lawyers had sought several conditions: that her alleged attacker, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, would testify first; that she not be in the same room with him; that she be questioned by senators and not by outside counsel; and that Mark Judge, another student Ford alleges was in the room during the assault, be subpoenaed to testify. Not all of these conditions are being met, such as having Kavanaugh — who was accused by second woman of sexual misconduct, this time while both were in college, on Sunday — testify first and subpoenaing Judge. (It also remains unclear whether Ford will be able to request additional witnesses, such as the polygraph examiner who gave her a lie detector test, which her lawyer says she passed.) Ford's attorneys appear to have studied the lessons of the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings of 1991. The Hill-Thomas hearings were held in a pre-#MeToo era. Despite the Judiciary Committee's stated concerns back then for the well-being of Hill, the questions and answers sometimes ring as somewhat dated and insensitive just a few decades later. Still, they yield some important lessons for Ford's team. Her attorneys were right to seek to have Kavanaugh testify first, but he won't be. He will be speaking second, after Ford has testified. In 1991, Thomas was able to listen to Hill's testimony, and subsequently respond to it. As then-Judiciary Chairman Sen. Joseph Biden informed Thomas: "The choice of the order of these hearings was left to you. I asked whether or not you wished to go first or second, and you chose, as is your right, to speak first and then, if you so chose, to speak last." This gave Thomas a considerable edge, one enjoyed in criminal trials by prosecutors. In federal criminal cases, the prosecution first gives its closing argument, then the defense gives its closing argument, and the prosecution then is allowed a rebuttal. The prosecution is the first and last voice the jury hears, with the defense sandwiched in the middle. The defense has no opportunity to rebut what the prosecution says at the very end. This considerable advantage in criminal cases is justified because it supposedly balances out the prosecution's heavy burden of proving its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and the defendant's presumption of innocence. In Kavanaugh's case, Republican senators can maximize his procedural advantage by both fighting for him to have the final word (a prosecutor's advantage), and also insisting that notions of criminal due process require something like a presumption of innocence, and a burden for the accuser akin to "beyond a reasonable doubt" (a defendant's advantage). Ford also is right to oppose GOP senators' proposal to hire outside counsel to question her. Republicans have started searching for a female lawyer to question Kavanaugh and Ford, although whether that will happen at the hearing remains unresolved. (Democratic senators will ask questions themselves.) If outside counsel is allowed for the GOP, that lawyer's gender will not benefit Ford. Male or female, the attorney likely will be more practiced at cross-examination than senators — even senators who were once trial lawyers themselves. Cross-examination is designed to exploit inconsistencies in testimony. Kavanaugh has the additional advantage here as a judge and lawyer more familiar with the art of cross-examination than Ford. While Kavanaugh has admittedly not handled a large percentage of criminal cases on the D.C. Circuit, appellate judges spend a lot of time reading trial transcripts and considering the mistakes witnesses made in their trial testimony. In addition, a cross-examining senator has a different objective than a cross-examining outside counsel. Senators have to be concerned about things like optics and their own constituencies. Cross-examining attorneys have no such concerns; they can — indeed, they are duty-bound by the requirement of zealous representation — to shred the witness without fear of political consequences. Keeping Kavanaugh and Ford out of the same room is a wise request from her lawyers, and which Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has agreed to. In criminal cases, a victim often is unable to avoid facing her alleged assailant, even though it might cause her great anxiety and affect her testimony. In criminal cases, the "Confrontation Clause" has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to express "a preference for face-to-face confrontation."