Devil’s Triangle

Devil’s Triangle is a phrase in Brett Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep yearbook whose meaning became a point of contention during his testimony on Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation. The exchange placed an obscure yearbook entry inside a larger dispute over what the evidence meant and whose account should be believed.

The Yearbook Phrase

The phrase had already drawn media attention before the hearing. During his testimony, Kavanaugh described Devil’s Triangle as a drinking game. The book contrasts that explanation with the understanding it says was familiar to most people: high-school slang for a three-person liaison involving two men and a woman. The discrepancy made the phrase more than a puzzling entry; it became a test of how Kavanaugh’s explanations would be received.

The Dispute Around Its Meaning

The yearbook reference arose amid competing claims about the party Ford recalled and the people she said were there. Kavanaugh asserted that Ford’s account had been refuted by those she identified, including her longtime friend Leland Keyser. The book corrects that characterization: Keyser said in a letter to the Judiciary Committee that she did not remember the gathering and did not know Kavanaugh, while telling The Washington Post that she believed Ford was telling the truth. The distinction between not remembering an event and disproving an account matters to the way the testimony represented corroboration.

Role in the Hearing

Jodi Kantor’s account presents the phrase as one of several improbable statements that complicated Kavanaugh’s testimony. In the hearing, its interpretation stood beside disputes about Ford’s recollection and the statements of potential witnesses. Devil’s Triangle therefore functions not as proof on its own, but as a concentrated example of the hearing’s struggle over language, credibility, and the gap between a witness’s explanation and the meanings attributed to it.