[ad_1]
- Mark Judge is Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s high school friend and was named in allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh.
- Christine Blasey Ford says Judge was in the room when the alleged assault took place.
- Judge claims the alleged assault never happened and said it wouldn’t fit Kavanaugh’s character.
- But Judge has come under scrutiny over past writings on rape, masculinity, and alcoholism.
- Judge issued a statement claiming he doesn’t remember the alleged incident and rejected calls from Democrats for him to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
- The allegations against Kavanaugh could derail his Supreme Court nomination.
The allegations that have upended the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have also opened scrutiny on another man: Mark Judge, who Christine Blasey Ford claims was also in the room when she says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her as a teenager.
Ford claims that Judge laughed as Kavanaugh assaulted her and assisted him, claiming both were “highly inebriated” at the time.
“Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stair well from the living room,” Ford said in a letter to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help,” Ford added. “They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me.”
Ford said she was only able to escape the situation when Judge jumped onto the bed and the “pile toppled.”
Julie Swetnick, who’s represented by Attorney Michael Avenatti, on Wednesday brought forward additional allegations against Kavanaugh and Judge.
Swetnick in a sworn declaration alleged that Kavanaugh and Judge were involved the gang rape of girls at parties when they were in high school. She also claims they were present at a party where she was gang raped and is calling on the FBI to investigate her allegations.
Judge denies Ford’s claims
Judge, like Kavanaugh, denies the alleged assault occurred and has claimed such an act would be contrary to Kavanaugh’s character.
“It is not who he is,” Judge told The New York Times, adding that school they both attended instilled within them values that would’ve urged against such behavior.
Kavanaugh and Judge both went to Georgetown Prep, an elite, all-boys high school in the Washington, DC, area.
Judge, an author, filmmaker, and journalist, has floated some controversial ideas and opinions in his writings.
In 1983, for example, one of Judge’s high school yearbook quotes read: “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.”
Judge has also come under fire for racially charged comments, and reports have suggested he used to routinely post images of young women on social media.
His social media accounts have apparently been deleted in recent days, however, but many of his writings are still available for access.
Judge issued a statement after Ford’s allegations were made public claiming he had no memory of the alleged assault and rejected calls from Democrats for him to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“I have no more information to offer the Committee and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents described in Dr. Ford’s letter,” Judge said in the statement.
Barbara Van Gelder, Judge’s attorney, on Wednesday told Mother Jones her client also denies Swetnick’s allegations and is not “publicly talking about these matters during the pendency of the confirmation process.”
Judge has reportedly fled the Washington, DC, area and is holed up in a beach house in Bethany Beach, Delaware.
Kavanaugh and Ford are both set to testify on her allegations before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Ford’s legal team said her client has been subjected to death threats and forced to relocate her family since coming forward.
Another Kavanaugh accuser, Deborah Ramirez, has also expressed a willingness to testify.
Judge wrote a memoir on his alcoholism in high school, referencing a friend named ‘Bart O’Kavanaugh’
Years after high school, Judge wrote a memoir, “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk.” It chronicled his struggles with alcoholism while a teenager, painting his days at Georgetown Prep as filled with parties and black-out drunk nights.
Judge changed names in the book to protect people’s privacy, but he at one point referenced a friend named “Bart O’Kavanaugh.” The character was described as someone who got so drunk he “puked in someone’s car the other night.”
Ford’s lawyer, Debra Katz, earlier this month referenced Judge’s writings on his alcoholism when discussing the alleged sexual assault.
“My client had a beer. … The men were stumbling drunk, one only needs to look at the writings of Mark Judge — who was the other person present — to know that he wrote … that they were all drinking so heavily that they would black out repeatedly,” she said during an appearance on CBS “This Morning.”
Judge once wrote an op-ed criticizing women who ‘dress like prostitutes’
Judge, who has written opinion pieces for an array of publications, including The Daily Caller, in November 2013 wrote an article about rape for the online magazine Acculturated that has come under scrutiny in light of Ford’s allegations.
“Feminists argue that no means no, and that men need to understand that,” Judge wrote at the time. “There’s never any excuse to rape, a crime that I think is almost akin to murder because the rapist kills a part of the human soul. And yet what women wear and their body language also send signals about their sexuality.”
Judge went on to say that women who “dress like prostitutes” send out certain signals and use their bodies for “cheap theatrics.”
In a separate article written by Judge for SpliceToday in September 2015, he argued it’s good for young men to understand that ” target=”_blank”no means no” but also said there’s an “ambiguous middle ground” in which a woman seems interested and a man must “prove himself to her.”
“If that man is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself to feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion,” Judge added.
Judge once said Barack Obama is ‘the first female president’
In an August 2013 op-ed for the Daily Caller, Judge also offered some of his views on masculinity and suggested former first lady Michelle Obama was the real “man” in her relationship with then-President Barack Obama. In this context, Judge expressed a longing for the days former President George W. Bush was in the White House.
“Barack Obama is the first female president,” Judge wrote.
“With her love of violent movies, her fixation on fitness, and death glare that appears when she doesn’t like what she’s hearing, Michelle is actually more man than her husband,” Judge added. “Oh for the days when President George W. Bush gave his wife Laura a loving but firm pat on the backside in public. The man knew who was boss.”
Judge didn’t respond to repeated requests from Business Insider for an interview.
[ad_2]
