During her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Christine Ford claimed she had two doors installed in her home because she feared she may be a victim of assault again after Judge Brett Kavanaugh supposedly sexually assaulted her as a teenager.
“The reason (the assault) came up in counseling is that my husband and I had completed a very extensive, very long remodel of our home and I insisted on a second front door, an idea that he and others disagreed with and could not understand,” Ford testified, admitting that the house now “does not look aesthetically pleasing from the curb.”
Ford later told pro-abortion Sen. Dianne Feinstein during her questioning that she wanted the second front door because of her anxiety, PTSD and claustrophobia resulting from the 1982 assault.
“Is that the reason for the second door — front door — is claustrophobia?” asked Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
“Correct,” Ford replied.
Now it turns out the claim is false.
Ford never specified when the renovation took place, leaving a possible impression that it and the therapy session happened around the same time.
But documents reveal the door was installed years before as part of an addition, and has been used by renters and even a marriage counseling business.
“The door was not an escape route but an entrance route,” said an attorney familiar with the ongoing congressional investigation. “It appears the real plan for the second front door was to rent out a separate room.”
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Palo Alto city records show that a building permit for an additional room and exterior door was issued to Ford and her husband on Feb. 4, 2008 — more than four years before the May 2012 therapy session where, she says, she first identified Kavanaugh as her attacker.
All the remodeling, including a new bathroom, was completed by February 2010. The only additional permits issued to Ford at her Palo Alto address are for “solar panels” on the roof, a “solar hot water system” in the garage, and an “electric vehicle charge station” for the driveway — all of which were issued after 2012.
Since the second front door was installed, moreover, students from local colleges have lived in the additional room with the private door. In fact, under congressional questioning Thursday, Ford testified she has “hosted” various other residents there, including “Google interns.”
The attorney said the tenants call into question Ford’s claims about why she installed the additional exterior door in her home.
“Renters and a business operating out of Dr. Ford’s home would explain the added door,” he said. “Clearly, there were business purposes [for it], not just ones related to her anxieties.”
The respected political web site Real Clear Politics also looked into Ford’s claims and found they do not hold up. It looks like the second door as an attempt to escape a local zoning ordinance to allow the home to be used by tenants with a second entrance as opposed to an attempt to escape sexual assault:
Now that she mentions it, the additional remodeling in effect added a self-contained unit to the house, with its own entrance, perfect for “hosting” or even possibly renting, in violation of the local zoning. Perhaps a professional office might be a perfect use, if an illegal one. And in the tight Palo Alto real estate market, there are a lot of games played for some serious income.
And that may answer another strange anomaly. Because since 1993, and through some listings even today, there was another tenant at what is now the Ford property. It is listed as this person’s residence from 1993 to July 2007, a week or so after she sold the house to the Fords.
Her name is Dr. Sylvia Randall, and she listed this address for her California licensed practice of psychotherapy, including couples psychotherapy, until her move to Oregon in 2007.
Currently she only practices in that state, where she also pursues her new career as a talented artist as well.
But many existing directories still have Dr. Randall’s address listed at what is now the Ford residence.
Which raises other questions. Why has Christine Ford never said a word about Dr. Randall? And why has she been evasive about the transcripts of her crucial 2012 therapy session, which she can’t seem to recall much about either? Did she provide them to the Washington Post, or did she just provide the therapist’s summary? Who was the psychologist?
In a phone call, I asked Dr. Randall if she had sold her house to the Fords. She asked back how I had found out. I asked if she was the couples therapist who treated the Fords. She would not answer yes or no, replying, “I am a couples therapist.”
So was the second door an escape for Christine Blasey Ford’s terrors or was documenting her terrors a ruse for sneaking a rental unit through tough local zoning ordinances? And if the second door allowed access and egress for the tenant of a second housing unit, rather than for the primary resident, how did the door’s existence ameliorate Ford’s professed claustrophobia?
This is one of many inconsistencies sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell noted when she said Ford’s testimony was totally inconsistent.
