--- title: Deborah Ramirez Says Senate Chose to 'Look the Other Way' description: Deborah Ramirez, the second woman to allege sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh, gave a statement criticizing the FBI and the Senate. canonical: https://time.com/5417727/deborah-ramirez-senate-kavanaugh-statement/ author: Gina Martinez article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-06T15:41:18.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:40:05.020Z article:section: Politics og:title: Kavanaugh Accuser Deborah Ramirez Says Senate Chose to 'Look the Other Way' on Supreme Court Nominee og:description: "This is how victims are isolated and silenced" og:url: https://time.com/5417727/deborah-ramirez-senate-kavanaugh-statement/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f64c542eefc8f4a/69893b7e97cdff148a6b65b5/deborah-ramirez-contacted.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5568 og:image:height: 3132 og:image:alt: deborah-ramirez-contacted og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Kavanaugh Accuser Deborah Ramirez Says Senate Chose to 'Look the Other Way' on Supreme Court Nominee twitter:description: "This is how victims are isolated and silenced" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f64c542eefc8f4a/69893b7e97cdff148a6b65b5/deborah-ramirez-contacted.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Kavanaugh Accuser Deborah Ramirez Says Senate Chose to 'Look the Other Way' on Supreme Court Nominee > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=eb974ca4-7e7c-4efb-9eb4-d3e9e6fec9fd&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Gina Martinez](https://time.com/author/gina-martinez/) ## Gina Martinez Oct 6, 2018 3:41 PM UTC  Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, focusing on allegations of sexual assault by Kavanaugh against Christine Blasey Ford in the early 1980s in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 27, 2018. Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, focusing on allegations of sexual assault by Kavanaugh against Christine Blasey Ford in the early 1980s in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 27, 2018. Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images by [Gina Martinez](https://time.com/author/gina-martinez/) ## Gina Martinez Oct 6, 2018 3:41 PM UTC Deborah Ramirez, the second woman to come forward with [allegations of sexual misconduct](http://time.com/5406497/deborah-ramirez-fbi-investigation-brett-kavanaugh/) against Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, has released a statement criticizing the FBI and the Senate’s response to the allegations. “Thirty-five years ago, the other students in the room chose to laugh and look the other way as sexual violence was perpetrated on me by Brett Kavanaugh,” Ramirez said in[ a statement](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ci8lOqyZvSvluD3t0fKZnu7mrMJ3WsE%5F/view) on Saturday. “As I watch many of the senators speak and vote on the floor of the Senate I feel like I’m right back at Yale where half the room is laughing and looking the other way. Only this time, instead of drunk college kids, it is U.S. senators who are deliberately ignoring his behavior.” Ramirez claims that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the 1980s when they were both students at Yale University. Her allegation came a week after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford claimed that Kavanaugh pinned her down and covered her mouth to conceal her screams as he grinded on her and attempted to remove her one-piece bathing suit. [Dr. Ford testified](http://time.com/longform/christine-blasey-ford-brett-kavanaugh-testimony-pictures/) in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week detailing the alleged sexual assault, which Kavanaugh forcefully denied. The Senate is set to vote to confirm Kavanaugh Saturday afternoon after a [week-long FBI investigation](http://time.com/5411223/fbi-deborah-ramirez-brett-kavanaugh/) into allegations made against him, which Ramirez implies was not thorough enough. “This is how victims are isolated and silenced,” she continued. “But I do have corroborating witnesses speaking for me, although they were not allowed to speak to the FBI, and I feel extremely grateful for them and for the overwhelming amount of support that I have received and continue to receive during this extremely difficult and painful time. There may be people with power who are looking the other way, but there are millions more who are standing together, speaking up about personal experiences of sexual violence and taking action to support survivors. This is truly a collective moment of survivors and allies standing together.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5417727/deborah-ramirez-senate-kavanaugh-statement/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5417727/deborah-ramirez-senate-kavanaugh-statement/"},"headline":"Kavanaugh Accuser Deborah Ramirez Says Senate Chose to 'Look the Other Way' on Supreme Court Nominee","datePublished":"2018-10-06T15:41:18.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:40:05.020Z","description":"The Senate is set to vote to confirm Kavanaugh Saturday afternoon","url":"https://time.com/5417727/deborah-ramirez-senate-kavanaugh-statement/","keywords":["Supreme Court","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f64c542eefc8f4a/69893b7e97cdff148a6b65b5/deborah-ramirez-contacted.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Gina Martinez","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/gina-martinez/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3f64c542eefc8f4a/69893b7e97cdff148a6b65b5/deborah-ramirez-contacted.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"deborah-ramirez-contacted","caption":"Brett Kavanaugh testifying","creditText":"Tom Williams-Pool/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/supreme-court/","name":"Supreme Court"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5417727/deborah-ramirez-senate-kavanaugh-statement/","name":"Kavanaugh Accuser Deborah Ramirez Says Senate Chose to 'Look the Other Way' on Supreme Court Nominee"}}]}] ```