In an explosive interview with The Washington Post, California professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of attempted rape while the two were in high school. She told the Post Kavanaugh and his friend pushed her into a bedroom during a party and that Kavanaugh then forcibly pinned her down on a bed and tried to pull off her clothes. She says she tried to scream, but that Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth to silence her. She told the Post, “I thought he might inadvertently kill me.”

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is a professor at Palo Alto University in California and teaches in consortium with Stanford University. She began speaking anonymously about the alleged assault in July, after Kavanaugh was shortlisted to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. She contacted her congressmember and The Washington Post through a tip line. She took, and passed, a polygraph. After her story began to leak, she changed her mind and decided to go public. Her lawyer says Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is willing to publicly testify before Congress. The attempted rape accusation comes only days before the Senate Judiciary Committee was slated to vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. In the wake of the explosive accusation, three Senate Republicans—senators Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and Lisa Murkowski —and a slew of Democrats have said the Senate Judiciary Committee should delay the vote. It was Senator Dianne Feinstein of California who had the letter that Dr. Blasey wrote but asked her to keep confidential.