Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier said she has no reason to doubt Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax’s accuser Vanessa Tyson, on CNN’s “New Day” Thursday.
“There’s very little that I have seen. But from what she has said, I have no reason to doubt her,” Speier said. “She tried to go to The Washington Post. They did not go with the story, because they had a problem being able to corroborate it. But like Christine Blasey Ford, I mean she had documentation. … She had friends who corroborated her story.”
“At some point we’ve got to learn that women do not come forward unless they have truly been assaulted, because coming forward is yet another assault emotionally on an individual,” the California lawmaker said.
Tyson, who is a fellow at Stanford University, accused Fairfax, a Democrat, of forcefully assaulting her during an encounter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. She claims the two of them went back to Fairfax’s hotel room where he forced her to perform oral sex.
Co-host John Berman asked if Tyson deserves the same recognition as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser Ford and Speier said she absolutely does. She also claimed the majority of female accusers who come forward are telling the truth.
“I do. I think that we have got to get to the point in this country where we appreciate that only a very small percentage of persons who are sexually assaulted come forward. And the reason they don’t come forward is because they are trashed in the media and it is incumbent on us to believe the women,” she replied.
“Ninety-two to 97 percent of those who come forward are telling the truth,” she said.
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