Rebecca White told the San Jose Mercury News that Christine Blasey Ford had told her about the alleged sexual assault by Brett Kavanaugh — without naming him — in late 2017 during the height of the #MeToo movement and long before Kavanaugh was a Supreme Court nominee.

Last year, White had added her own #MeToo story about being raped as a teenager to a Facebook post.

Said White: “She reached out to me afterward, supporting me and my story and that she had something happen to her when she was really young and that the guy was a federal judge. She said she had been assaulted. She said hers had been violent as well, physically scary, fighting for her life.”

“Mitch McConnell, preeminent cut-throat political tactician, is going with a softer touch to salvage Brett Kavanaugh’s suddenly endangered Supreme Court confirmation,” Politico reports.

“With Kavanaugh’s seemingly slam-dunk elevation to the Supreme Court facing resistance from a handful of key GOP senators, McConnell convened a marathon meeting with Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans and his leadership team on Monday.”

“Holed up for nearly two hours in McConnell’s Senate office, they devised a process to satisfy Kavanaugh’s defenders and appease Republicans uncomfortable with forging ahead until the nominee’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, gets a full public hearing.”

“The sexual-misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may remove pressure that some Democratic senators faced to back his confirmation as a way of reassuring conservative voters in congressional elections just seven weeks away,” Reuters reports.

“Since Kavanaugh was nominated to the high court by President Donald Trump, Democratic senators from states that Trump won in 2016 were locked in a dilemma. If they didn’t vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, they would have appeared to be out of step with voters at home and risked losing re-election.”

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who accused him of assaulting her in high school, will both testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday.

New York Times: “The hearings will set up a potentially explosive public showdown, one that carries unmistakable echoes of the 1991 testimony of Anita Hill, who accused the future Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment in an episode that riveted the nation and ushered a slew of women into public office. They will play out against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, which has energized Democratic women across the nation.”