OnPolitics Today: Don't Judge me

FROM WASHINGTON AND BEYOND

Tuesday, September 18

The conservative writer was allegedly a witness to the incident between Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford

Happy Tuesday, OP fam. We've decided that it's just going to be that kind of week. (Yes, we can hear some of you already: When is it not? To which we say: Touché.)

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Who is Mark Judge?

There's one key player we still haven't really heard from in the drama unfolding over the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh: Mark Judge. According to Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Kavanaugh of holding her down and trying to rape her when they were teenagers, Judge was present for the incident.

Judge, like Ford and Kavanaugh, has been invited to testify before senators at what is likely to be an explosive hearing next week. But he's not doing it.

Why? Because he has no recollection of the incident, he said.

"I did not ask to be involved in this matter nor did anyone asked me to be involved," Judge said in a written statement forwarded to the committee by his attorney, Barbara Van Gelder. "The only reason I am involved is that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford remembers me as the other person in the room during the alleged assault."

He also said while he was friends with Kavanaugh in high school, he doesn't recall Kavanaugh ever acting that way.

It's worth noting that, according to his memoirs, he did see plenty while at Georgetown Prep, where his drinking and "immorality" began.

Meanwhile: President Donald Trump says he feels 'terribly' for Kavanaugh, Republicans say Monday is more or less it for Ford to share her story, and Anita Hill - who came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Clarence Thomas in 1991 - says she hopes senators do better this time around.

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