Republicans reject effort to subpoena Mark Judge

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee rejected an effort by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) to subpoena Mark Judge in a party line vote.

Christine Blasey Ford alleges that Judge witnessed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assault her at a high school party in the early 1980s.

Kavanaugh has denied wrongdoing and Judge says he does not recall such an incident.

{mosads}Blumenthal said Ford’s testimony showed there were “details in that story that can be corroborated and other facts that can be uncovered if we hear from other witnesses.”

“[Judge] has never been interviewed by the FBI. He has never been questioned by any member of our committee. He has never submitted a detailed account of what he knows and so I move … that we subpoena Mark Judge,” Blumenthal added.

But Grassley read a letter that Judge sent the committee on Thursday. Judge says in the letter that he “never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”

“Brett Kavanaugh and I were friends in high school, but we have not spoken directly in several years. I do not recall the events described by Dr. Ford in her testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee today. I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes,” Judge said in the statement to the committee. 

Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) both refused to vote on the matter in a symbolic rebuke of the process.