Former Classmate Of Kavanaugh’s Reaching Out To FBI About Text Messages Is An Elected Democrat In Connecticut

Hanna Bogorowski on October 2, 2018

NBC News didn’t disclose that an elected Democrat was the woman attempting to provide text messages to the FBI that reportedly showed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh asking friends to refute Deborah Ramirez’s allegations that he sexually harassed her before they were made public.

Kerry Berchem was at Yale University with both Kavanaugh and Ramirez, who alleged that the nominee exposed himself to her at a party. NBC reported that the text messages Berchem possessed showed Kavanaugh contradicting his claim under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he only learned of Ramirez’s allegations when they were first reported in The New Yorker.

But NBC did not include that Berchem, who has tried sending her texts to the FBI, is an elected Democratic official in Fairfield County, Connecticut.

local Connecticut news outlet pointed this out Tuesday, reporting that “a new face on the town’s political scene has found herself thrust onto the national stage, claiming to have incriminating texts regarding Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh.”

Berchem was elected tof the Fairfield Representative Town Meeting (RTM) in 2017 and represents the Fairfield area.

“We have a group of outspoken, smart women in our caucus who are supportive of the #MeToo movement,” another town representative, Heather Dean, told The Hour. “I’m very glad Rep. Berchem is reaching out to the FBI and I hope they respond and hear her version of events, as well as her impression of Kavanaugh’s character.”

First Selectman for the town of Fairfield, Mike Tetreau, told The Hour that Berchem was part of Fairfield County’s “blue wave” that resulted in Democrats taking over a majority on the RTM.

Berchem told NBC News that she has reached out to the FBI, but has yet to hear back.

NBC has since updated its article to reflect that Kavavanaugh claimed Ramirez was “calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered” the event before The New Yorker article was published. Kavanaugh acknowledged in his statement that he heard about the calls ahead of the article’s publication, but he did not know details until the story was published.

The texts are reportedly between Berchem and Karen Yarasavage, another friend of Kavanaugh’s, according to NBC, and they suggest that Kavanaugh was talking with former classmates and friends about Ramirez’s allegations before The New Yorker article came out that made her allegation public.

Berchem tried reached out to Sen. Richard Blumenthal with her messages. A spokeswoman for the Connecticut Democrat told NBC that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee “had no intention of turning [her summary] over to the FBI,” so Berchem submitted it to the FBI herself.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley’s spokesman, George Hartmann, told NBC that they did not feel Berchem’s texts were “relevant or contradictory to Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony.”

Berchem did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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DCwire features investigative reporting syndicated with permission from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

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