While Fox News handed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh a friendly megaphone Monday night to claim his high school and college years were almost entirely wholesome and devoid of the notoriously hard-drinking, misogynistic behavior that dominated elite private schools like Georgetown Prep and Yale in the 80s, Kavanaugh's high school yearbook and his ex-college roommate told a radically different story of the judge's teenage years that casts doubt on his fervent denials of any sexual misconduct.
"Although Brett was normally reserved, he was a notably heavy drinker, even by the standards of the time, and that he became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk," James Roche, Kavanaugh's freshman-year roommate at Yale, toldABC 7 in an interview on Monday.
While noting that he did not witness the alleged sexual assault Deborah Ramirez detailed in interviews with The New Yorker, Roche said he believes Ramirez is telling the truth and thinks Kavanaugh and "his social circle were capable of the actions that Debbie described."
As the New York Timesreported late Monday, Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep yearbook provides more evidence that his high school years contradict the judge's claim on Fox News that he has a "lifelong record of promoting dignity and equality" for women.
According to the Times:
Brett Kavanaugh's page in his high school yearbook offers a glimpse of the teenage years of the man who is now President Trump's Supreme Court nominee: lots of football, plenty of drinking, parties at the beach. Among the reminiscences about sports and booze is a mysterious entry: "Renate Alumnius."
The word "Renate" appears at least 14 times in Georgetown Preparatory School's 1983 yearbook, on individuals' pages and in a group photo of nine football players, including Judge Kavanaugh, who were described as the "Renate Alumni." It is a reference to Renate Schroeder, then a student at a nearby Catholic girls' school.
Two of Judge Kavanaugh's classmates say the mentions of Renate were part of the football players' unsubstantiated boasting about their conquests.
In a statement to the Times, Schroeder said: "I don't know what 'Renate Alumnus' actually means. I can't begin to comprehend what goes through the minds of 17-year-old boys who write such things, but the insinuation is horrible, hurtful, and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way. I will have no further comment."
Responding to Kavanaugh's insistence that "Renate Alumni" simply referred to boys who kissed Schroeder--even though she denies ever kissing Kavanaugh--Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, wrote on Twitter that the yearbook page "is nauseating, and Kavanaugh's pathetic attempt at an innocent explanation just shows how blatantly he'll lie to try and advance his career."
But during his Fox News interview Monday night, Kavanaugh--who once bragged, "What happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep"--insisted despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary that the "vast majority of the time [he] spent in high school was studying or focused on sports and being a good friend to the boys and the girls that [he] was friends with" and that he never committed or witnessed any sexual misconduct.
"I've never sexually assaulted anyone," Kavanaugh said. "I did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years there after."
As The Daily Beast's Matt Wilstein was quick to note, "Brett Kavanaugh being a virgin through college and trying to rape Christine Blasey Ford and also putting his penis in Deborah Ramirez's face are not mutually exclusive."
Kavanaugh's Fox interview comes as Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti said he is representing a third woman who is expected to come forward and publicly accuse Kavanaugh of sexual assault within the next two days. In Maryland, the possibility of a fourth accuser coming forward is also swirling ahead of a public hearing with both Ford and Kavanaugh before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.
"Brett Kavanaugh is a liar," Avenatti wrote in a series of tweets on Tuesday. "His 'I was just an innocent boy' claims on Fox are laughable and an insult to any American with common sense."
