In the hours after Christine Blasey Ford came forward as the woman who had accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while they were teenagers, a small group of Republican women in Washington began talking and emailing about how to help their compatriot out.

The women, many of whom worked alongside Kavanaugh in George W. Bush’s White House and are now lobbyists or consultants, thought the news coverage of the accusations was unfair.

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Many of them had already signed a letter in August to the Senate Judiciary Committee vouching for Kavanaugh’s support of women in the workplace. Now, they decided to keep up the defense of their ex-colleague with a Twitter and Facebook campaign using the hashtag #istandwithbrett.

The hashtag wasn’t trending in Washington on Wednesday afternoon, but among a certain set of Republican insiders, the messages were hard to miss.

“The Brett I know embodies goodness, kindness, & honesty,” Ginger Loper, a lobbyist who runs her own firm, wrote in a tweet on Monday afternoon that’s been retweeted more than 500 times. “His integrity and decency are beyond reproach. As a mom of 3 young daughters, I pray each has the fortune to marry someone like Brett.”

“I’ve known Brett for almost 18 years,” Colleen Litkenhaus, a lobbyist for Dow Chemical, wrote on Facebook less than an hour before Loper’s tweet. “He is extra extra smart, kind, warm, thoughtful and caring.”

She was speaking out, she added, “because, if you don’t know Brett personally, you may want to hear from those that do.”

The women rushing to Kavanaugh’s defense include Candi Wolff, the top lobbyist for Citigroup; Sara Fagen, a consultant at DDC Public Affairs; and Laura Cox Kaplan, a former lobbyist for PricewaterhouseCoopers who now hosts the “She Said/She Said” podcast.

Many of them belong to a class of connected Washingtonians who typically try to avoid upsetting their corporate clients by weighing in on Beltway scandals. But they decided to speak because of their friendships with Kavanaugh, who’s deeply integrated in the Republican social scene in Washington. Kaplan said in an interview that it was “physically painful” to watch the scandal unfold.

While the White House has reached out to surrogates asking them to defend Kavanaugh, several of the women who’ve posted messages said in interviews that they organized on their own, reaching out to the same group that signed the August letter to the Senate committee.

In leaping to Kavanaugh’s defense even after Ford unmasked herself as its source of the previously anonymous allegation, the women must walk a delicate line, trying to support Kavanaugh without denigrating Ford.

“What we’re saying is Dr. Ford deserves to heard — but so does Brett,” Megan Hauck, a lobbyist who helped organize the effort, said in an interview. “Brett is being tried and convicted in the press with no evidence.”

Kavanaugh has not suffered for lack of defenders. A group of 65 women who said they had known him since high school released a letter defending his character. And a group of women from Ford’s school, Holton-Arms in Bethesda, Md., also circulated a letter online saying they believed her.

Hauck said she met Kavanaugh when he was working as Bush’s staff secretary and she was working on Bush’s reelection campaign. During a flight on Air Force One a couple of months before the election, she recalled, Bush grew irritated with a line in a speech that had been prepared for him and asked Kavanaugh to get the speechwriter responsible on the phone. Kavanaugh said no, insisting that it was his responsibility and protecting the speechwriter.

“That just always stuck with me,” she said.

Hauck referenced the moment in a tweet on Monday, writing that she’d watched Kavanaugh “take the blame to shield someone more junior” in the White House.

The women decided to use a shared hashtag but otherwise didn’t coordinate what they wanted to say. If they had hired a public relations specialist to craft a more polished message, “it wouldn’t have been as powerful,” Loper said in an interview.

Men have weighed in, too — or at least helped promote what women have written. Marc Lampkin, a prominent Republican lobbyist, reposted a Facebook post authored by his wife, Emily, a consultant, who wrote that she had “never heard a whisper that [Kavanaugh’s] behavior is or has been anything but the kind we should expect from any male colleague at work or a husband of a dear friend.”

But the core of those speaking out are women. While many of the women speaking out are influential lobbyists and consultants, they’re hearing reactions from high school and college friends, too. Kaplan, for instance, said she’s heard from friends back in Texas who appreciated the chance to hear from someone who knows Kavanaugh personally.

“It means a lot to them, even if they have different political views,” she said.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s seemingly all-but-guaranteed confirmation was thrown off course after an allegation became public that he had sexually assaulted a woman when they were both in high school.

Christine Blasey Ford brought her claim anonymously over the summer, but it took months to break out into public view.

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Here is a timeline of how Ford’s accusation came to light and how Kavanaugh and President Donald Trump have responded:

July 30: Feinstein receives a confidential complaint

Ford wrote Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, a confidential letter alleging that Kavanaugh climbed on top of her at a party in the 1980s, held her down and groped her.

Ford initially described the incident to Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), who later forwarded the letter to Feinstein. Feinstein said she kept the letter’s existence private at the time to respect Ford’s request for confidentiality. Ford had already contacted the Washington Post but declined to speak on the record.

Late August: Ford decides to stay quiet

Ford decided coming forward would probably not affect Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and she decided to stay quiet.

“Why suffer through the annihilation if it’s not going to matter?” she told the Washington Post of her thinking at the time.

Sept. 12: Feinstein shares the story with Democrats

Feinstein described the contents of the letter to other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, according to the New York Times. Several of them urged her to go to the FBI or to make the letter public, the paper reported.

That same day, the Intercept reported that Senate Judiciary Committee members wanted to see the document, but Feinstein would not let them.

Sept. 13: Feinstein says she sent information about Kavanaugh to FBI

Feinstein released a brief and cryptic statement saying that she had “received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court” and that she sent the letter to the Justice Department.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell chastised Feinstein for keeping the letter secret until the last minute, and the White House called it an orchestrated political move to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

White House counsel Don McGahn got a copy of the letter shortly after Feinstein released her statement and quickly forwarded it to Capitol Hill, a White House aide told POLITICO.

Sept. 14: Kavanaugh denies the still-anonymous allegation

Kavanaugh said in a statement: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) released a letter signed by 65 women who said that they knew Kavanaugh in high school and that “he has always treated women with decency and respect.”

Sept. 16: Ford reveals herself in the Washington Post

In a bombshell Washington Post interview, Ford identified herself as Kavanaugh’s accuser. She said she had already been contacted by news outlets asking about Kavanaugh, making it was clear that her identity had leaked.

Sept. 17: Ford and Kavanaugh agree to testify

Debra Katz, an attorney for Ford, said her client hoped to tell “her story in a manner that is a fair proceeding.”

Kavanaugh issued a new statement saying that he had not previously known who the accuser was but that “I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone.”

“I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity,” he said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told reporters that Kavanaugh told him he was not at the party where the assault allegedly took place; a spokesman from Hatch’s office later clarified that Kavanaugh had said he did not attend any parties like the one described.

Trump said he was open to a “full process” to air the allegation, though he called Kavanaugh “as high a quality individual as you’ll ever see.” Lawmakers scheduled a hearing for the following Monday.

Sept. 18: Ford calls for an FBI investigation

Ford’s attorneys told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she wanted the FBI to investigate her allegation, throwing into question whether she would appear at the Sept. 24 hearing.

Sept. 19: Trump says he wants Ford to testify

“I really want to see her. I really would want to see what she has to say,” Trump said. “If she doesn’t show up, that would be unfortunate.”