New Hampshire state lawmaker reveals sexual assault after Trump tweets about Kavanaugh accuser

A New Hampshire state lawmaker on Friday shared her experience of sexual assault in response to President Trump’s tweet questioning why Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, didn’t come forward with her allegations decades ago when she said the incident took place.

State Sen. Martha Hennessey (D) wrote on Facebook Friday that she was sexually assaulted in front of “a dozen” classmates more than 40 years ago as a student at Dartmouth College.

{mosads}Hennessey, who was part of Dartmouth’s first-ever coeducational class, wrote that false rumors spreading around campus and negative reactions from her classmates and friends forced her to remain silent about her assault for years.

“This occurred in the early days of coeducation at Dartmouth,” she told local news affiliate WMUR, “I was in the first class of coeducation, and there were only 180 of us. And the message was loud and clear that you do not rock the boat.”

Hennessey said in the Facebook post that Trump’s tweet, which questioned why Ford or her “loving parents” did not report Ford’s alleged assault, prompted her to come forward with her own story.

I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 21, 2018

“It is NOT POSSIBLE for anyone to know what they would have done in my shoes or in the shoes of Christine Blasey Ford. YOU HAVE NO IDEA. BOYS and MEN get away with it every day, everywhere,” she wrote.

In the interview with WMUR, the state senator, who is running for reelection, said that for decades she felt as if coming forward with her experience would be more “self-serving” than helpful to victims, a sentiment that was changed by the president’s tweet.

“I’ve spent 40 years feeling like coming forward was self-serving rather than serving the population of victims,” Hennessey told WMUR. “And I’m very cautious about not wanting this to appear to be in any way related to an election.”

Fellow New Hampshire lawmaker U.S. Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D), thanked Hennessey in a post, telling WMUR that the “Me Too” movement was encouraging women like her and Hennessey to come forward. Kuster, according to the outlet, came forward in 2016 about being sexually assaulted at Dartmouth when she was a student in 1979.

“I feel as though we all need to come out of the shadows,” Kuster told the news outlet. “That’s what the ‘Me Too’ movement is about, which is to empower each other to tell our stories so that we can educate the whole community so that people will understand why someone like Dr. Ford took a long time to tell this story.”