NEW YORK (AP) — It started as a series of phone calls among old high-school friends and ended up embroiling 65 women in the firestorm over a sexual assault allegation that could shape the Supreme Court.

In a matter of hours, they all signed onto a letter rallying behind high court nominee and their high school friend Brett Kavanaugh as someone who “has always treated women with decency and respect.” And they signed up, whether they anticipated it or not, for becoming a focus of scrutiny themselves.

The powerful strength-in-numbers statement, offered to bolster Kavanaugh’s denial of a claim that he attacked a girl at a party during their high school years, has drawn questions from journalists, social media skeptics, even Hollywood figures.
How well did the women know him? How could a statement and 65 signatures come together so fast after outlines of the allegation first surfaced publicly? And after subsequently hearing the details and learning that his accuser was a woman some of them knew, do they stand by their declaration?

Yes, say more than a dozen signers who have since spoken to The Associated Press or other media outlets.
“Brett wouldn’t do that in a million years. I’m totally confident. That would be completely out of character for him,” said Paula Duke Ebel. She said she interacted with Kavanaugh hundreds of times while they were students in a close-knit constellation of single-sex Catholic schools around Washington in the 1980s.
Christine Blasey Ford, 51, now a psychology professor in California, said a very intoxicated Kavanaugh cornered her in a bedroom during a party in the early 1980s. She said he pinned her on a bed, tried to undress her and clamped his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. She escaped only when a friend of his jumped on the bed and knocked them all over.

The letter was released the morning after the allegation first got wide public attention. The letter and its roster of supporters seemed to come at supersonic speed and out of the blue.
Women who organized and signed it say it was a rapid response by a social network that endures decades after they graduated. They say it was easy to mobilize: a chain of friends calling, texting and emailing friends from a Washington-area world where many still live and see each other.
...
the letter backing Kavanaugh is from women who vouch that they knew Kavanaugh, now a federal appeals court judge, personally as a high school student.

Several said they interacted with him extensively through sporting events, dances, parties and other socializing or the phone calls that occupied teenage weeknights in the pre-texting era.
One worked with him at a summer camp. A second sought his help with homework. Two dated him. Some still see him at social functions.

At least one, though, hadn’t spent time or talked one-on-one with him but still felt comfortable attaching her name based on the social situations they shared.
Others who signed declined to comment or didn’t respond to inquiries. The AP left messages for all 65.

Some have been taken aback by the attention. Many have stayed mum to avoid “the media frenzy,” signer Maura Kane told Fox News, the outlet of choice for several who have given interviews.

Julie DeVol told the AP she didn’t really anticipate the letter would provoke such intense interest, though she sensed Kavanaugh’s critics “would do anything” to delay his confirmation vote.
...
Women who signed the letter said they didn’t know about or recall the party Ford described, and they said her account of a “stumbling drunk” Kavanaugh didn’t jibe with their memories of a boy who drank some beer alongside them but never lost control or crossed a line with girls.

“There were kids who did act kind of crazy. ... He just wasn’t that guy,” said Williams, who recalls hanging out with Kavanaugh mainly in groups but sometimes one-on-one. “He was the kid who always did the right thing.”
That’s why six dozen women were willing to put their names on that letter, said signer Missy Bigelow Carr, who worked at a summer camp with Kavanaugh and coached girls basketball against him as an adult.

“If there was any indication that he didn’t treat even one of us with respect or acted in a manner that disrespected girls/women,” she wrote in an email, “that would not be the case.”