Inspired By Christine Blasey Ford’s Testimony, Seattle Woman Calls Out State Lawmaker For Alleged 2007 Rape

The testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington D.C. on Thursday — in which she accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault — inspired a Seattle woman to step forward and announce that she, too, had been the victim of a sexual attack.

Candace Faber sent out a series of tweets on Twitter declaring that she was raped in 2007 by Washington State Sen. Joe Fain, a Republican.

Fain has denied the allegations, according to reporting from the Seattle Times.

“I absolutely deny what Ms. Faber is accusing me of,” Fain said, adding that he encourages an investigation to be opened up about the matter.

After watching Ford’s testimony, Faber posed a question to her followers “Is anyone else just fed up and ready to name names? Because I am!” she wrote.

She explained her reason for deciding to come forward with her claims against Fain, responding to criticisms some have leveled at Ford for waiting decades to tell her own story of assault.

“If it’s bad that Blasey Ford waited to raise this until Kavanaugh got to the highest levels of government, then maybe the rest of us shouldn’t sit on our secrets just crossing our fingers that they won’t come into more power,” Faber wrote.

“So okay, let’s do it,” she said in her third tweet. “@senatorfain, you raped me the night I graduated from Georgetown in 2007,” Faber wrote, adding that she has been “terrified” of crossing paths with him ever since the alleged incident occurred.

So okay, let’s do it.

@senatorfain, you raped me the night I graduated from Georgetown in 2007. Then you had the audacity to ask me to support your campaign. I’ve been terrified of running into you since moving home and seeing your name everywhere.

I’m done being silent.

— candace (@candacefaber) September 27, 2018

In a related blog post she published on the site Medium, Faber explained that, while she had openly discussed her rape in the past without naming her accuser’s name, it was important for victims across the nation to step forward. “We cannot heal without accountability,” Faber said.

“Like Dr. Ford, I can no longer remain silent knowing that the man who raped me is in a position to influence the laws that govern my state and impact every woman who lives here,” she added.

While she decided for herself that it was important to identify her accuser by his name, Faber also recognized that it was not something that every victim had to do, writing that “survivors [do not] have a civic duty to speak out.” She did, however, express the importance of believing those that come forward.

“I believe that we have a civic duty to believe survivors,” she added.