The former classmate of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was said to have been in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly sexually assaulted a woman decades ago, has told senators he will not testify at next week’s hearing.
Mark Judge wrote in a brief letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that he “did not ask to be involved in this matter nor did anyone ask me to be involved.”
{mosads}”In fact, I have no memory of this alleged incident,” he wrote.
Christine Blasey Ford has said that Judge was in the room at a high school party in the 1980s when Kavanaugh held her down on a bed and tried to remove her clothing.
Grassley on Monday announced that the Judiciary Committee would hold a public hearing with Kavanaugh and Ford to discuss the allegations.
Judge said in his letter to Grassley and Feinstein that he doesn’t recall the party that Ford has described.
“More to the point, I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes,” he wrote. “I have no more information to provide the Committee and I do not wish to speak publicly regarding the incidents described in Dr. Ford’s letter.”
After Judge’s letter became public, Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.) said the Judiciary Committee should subpoena Judge, which would force him to appear in front of the committee.
“You can count on the fact that that letter, his response, is going to be entered into the record by someone, and that needs to be tested as well,” Jones said on CNN’s “Situation Room.”
“If he doesn’t want to do it and they’re gonna go forward with this hearing, they need to subpoena him, let him say that and let some senators or someone cross examine him,” Jones added.
Senate Democrats earlier Tuesday called on Judge to testify at the hearing scheduled for Monday.
“Let’s not rush the hearings,” Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor. “Let’s not repeat the mistake made in the Anita Hill hearings. Let’s call the relevant witnesses, not just the two selected by Chairman Grassley who did not want to call the hearings to begin with.”
{mossecondads}“How could we want to get the truth and not have Mr. Judge come to the hearings and be asked questions?” Schumer added.
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee also wrote in a letter to Grassley on Tuesday that there are “other relevant witnesses who should be questioned under oath, in a public setting.”
“This includes Mark Judge, who Dr. Blasey Ford identified, and others that might be identified through the FBI’s investigation or subsequent due diligence by the Committee itself,” they wrote.