Barbara Rush

I actually understand why Democrat leaders didn't take our stories seriously when the Times reported them in June but are taking them seriously now. It was by design. The line most shared from the piece was the claim that the Times “could not corroborate” my story despite talking to two of my friends. I gave them the contact information for five friends. They called the two who I clarified would not know about the abuse but would be able to affirm our relationship timeline, events, etc. They simply did not call the other three. I also gave them the names of all my former roommates who remembered him stalking our row house (which was about 5 houses down from his) and waiting for me to return. I gave them screenshots of messages between these roommates and I discussing it. I gave them the names of other men I dated who might have remembered him following us around the hill and showing up on my stoop after we walked home from dates to confront us. I gave them emails to my landlord urgently ending my lease and moving to an apartment across town and diary entries talking about it - all time marked. I told them that during pre-marital counseling I had spoken to my ex-fiance about the abuse because I had to explain to him why I reacted with such terror any time he lost his temper. They said oh NO we don't need to bother HIM (or my priest). Besides, I had written about it in my diary in detail, they reassured. As the weeks dragged on I stopped trying to give them evidence because the amount I had already given them seemed to overwhelm them and I thought it meant they clearly had more than enough to verify my every claim. My friends might not have known the details of the abuse, but they affirmed that yes, I had told them that he was abusive—long before he ran for Senate. Besides, they assured, my part in their reporting would be small. I thought my details would only serve to affirm Jenny and the other anonymous woman. Jenny and I - having never met or spoken - both shared with these reporters terrifyingly similar details of intimate partner violence, coercive control, and cycles of abuse/love bombing. The third unnamed woman in the story did as well. But tell me again how they “could not corroborate.”