Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are in a tough spot.
They can decline to call Brett Kavanaugh’s high school friend to testify and demonstrate they’re not serious when they say they want a fair and thorough investigation of the sexual misconduct allegations leveled against President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee. Or they can live up to the ideals they espouse and call for testimony from Mark Judge, who is a key witness in two of the three allegations.
Judge clearly needs to testify, even if the resulting massacre will be terrible for him, Kavanaugh, and Republicans. He is a person of interest in this Supreme Court fight, and not calling him to testify would result in an incomplete investigation.
If the committee asks Judge to step forward, and he complies, Democratic lawmakers will almost certainly make the Kavanaugh confirmation fight about Judge’s reported shortcomings and moral failings. It’ll be like the Supreme Court version of Mark Fuhrman’s role in the O.J. Simpson trial. Democrats will look for ways to obliterate Judge in the hope that the fallout takes out his childhood friend. It’ll be ugly, obscene, and likely tragic.
But whether a key witness is called should not be decided by the possible political repercussions. It should be decided only by whether said witness can offer worthwhile and much-needed testimony,
Judge has stated already via his lawyer that he has no plans to testify. That doesn’t mean the Senate Judiciary Committee can’t ask anyway. And should they ask, and he invokes his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent, well, he has the right to do that. It won’t look good for either himself or Kavanaugh, but he has the right to do it. And the lawmakers who allege they want to take the accusations seriously will still be able to say with a straight face that they’ve tried to get him to speak.
What I don’t think Republican lawmakers can do is pretend Judge isn’t a relevant witness in all of this.
The first Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who claims Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a house party when they were both in high school, names Judge as a witness to the alleged incident.
“The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others,” she said in a July 30 letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stair well from the living room. [Kavanaugh and Mark Judge] locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help.”
It added, “Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with [Judge], who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. 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.”
The third Kavanaugh accuser, Julie Swetnick, claims she attended at least 10 parties in the 1980s where Kavanaugh and Judge “were present.” She claims she witnessed attempts by Judge and Kavanaugh to get girls “inebriated and disoriented so they could then be ‘gang raped’ in a side room or bedroom by a ‘train’ of numerous boys.”
Swetnick, who claims she was raped at one of these parties (although not by Kavanaugh), also said in an affidavit released Wednesday that, “I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.”
It’s difficult to see a good reason for why Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee shouldn’t request testimony from Judge. His name keeps popping up in these allegations. Kavanaugh admits to having spent a great deal of time with Judge when they were younger. Judge may be able to shed some much-needed light on the accusations.
