Over the weekend I looked at one of the more damning details of Christine Blasey Ford’s original accusations against Brett Kavanaugh in light of the revelation of the identity of the final person at the party where she was allegedly assaulted. That person wound up being Leland Ingham Keyser, a self-described “lifelong friend” of Ford. But as I noted at the time, there are two major snags arising from this news. First, how did Ford fail to mention that one of the people there who could at least speak to Kavanaugh’s presence at the party was her good friend? (The friend in question went on to state she has no idea what Ford is talking about.) But even more to the point, all of Ford’s previous statements indicated that there were four people besides her at the party. Four boys, to be precise. So how did news of a girl being there, particularly a lifelong friend, escape her memory?

The Washington Post seems to have a lot riding on this story and their own Aaron Blake went on Twitter this weekend trying to claim that Ford’s people have “repeatedly said” that there were six people.

https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1043823326509105152

The email you quote describing 3 boys and 1 girl never claims that was an exhaustive list of people at the party. These were simply the people Blasey Ford identified by name.

They have said multiple times there were 4 boys and 2 girls at the party.

So the new line is that nobody ever claimed it was “an exhaustive list,” implying that there were more people there. And “they have said multiple times” that there were more? When asked where “they” had said there were two girls there, Blake pointed to an interview with NPR from last week, long after the details of the story had begun to look shady. But the only way to know for sure is to go to the horse’s mouth. Fortunately, this weekend also brought the release of Ford’s original, unredacted letter, provided by Dianne Feinstein.

Let’s see what Ms. Ford herself had to say. (Emphasis added)

Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during High School in the early 1980. He conducted these acts with the assistance of his close friend Mark G. Judge. Both were 1-2 years older than me and students at a local private school. The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and 4 others

This is a college professor we’re talking about, and someone who had plenty of time to compose the letter. One would assume she is a more than competent writer. She uses the phrase, “a gathering that included me and 4 others.” If there were more people than that, why specify the number four? If you’re a quarterback in the NFL describing your last touchdown drive, would you say that your offensive unit consisted of me and four linemen without mentioning the other six running backs and receivers?

Even if we offer the benefit of the doubt for that bizarre interpretation of her own words and assume that there were more than four other people there, how do we square that with the therapist’s notes, corrected by Ford herself, which specified two boys who followed her upstairs and two boys who stayed downstairs? And even if you were going to leave somebody out, is your “lifelong friend” the person you would omit from every version of the story until it was under national scrutiny?

Pull the other one, sir. It’s got bells on it. Ford’s story, confirmed by nobody else she claims was present, including her lifelong friend, has been shifting and getting dodgier by the day.