Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge. Credit: Huffington Post
Dale Tavris -- World News Trust
Sept. 28, 2018
There are three passages from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s courageous testimony that suggest, in my opinion, that Mark Judge prevented her from getting raped, or possibly even being killed:
- Most important is this: “During the assault, Mark came over and jumped on the bed twice while Brett was on top of me. The last time he did this, we toppled over and Brett was no longer on top of me. I was able to get up and run out of the room….” Some or most would argue that it was not Judge’s intention to stop the assault in this manner. But it seems to me that this was intentional on his part, because of the following:
- Dr. Blasey also testified that, as Judge was watching the assault from a short distance, “Mark was urging Brett on, although at times he told Brett to stop.” That statement might suggest extreme ambivalence on Judge’s part. To me, it makes very little sense on the surface. It sounds like a Jekyll-Hyde scenario with extremely short transformation times. My interpretation is that Judge probably felt very uncomfortable with what he was watching, which is why he “at times told Brett to stop.” But at the same time, Kavanaugh was his good friend, and Judge was probably very reluctant to do anything that would interfere with that friendship, which is why he was “urging Brett on.”
- Dr. Blasey also testified that “A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not." She knew Judge, at least to some extent. Her attempts to make eye contact with him during Kavanaugh’s attack suggests to me that she must have felt that there was some reasonable possibility that he might try to help her. I find it very interesting and ironic that immediately after saying that Judge did not help her, the very next sentence of her testimony describes how Judge jumped on the bed twice, thus allowing her to escape.
I am aware that Mark Judge could be considered a party to a serious crime, that his laughing with his friend Kavanaugh about Kavanaugh’s violent assault on a 15-year-old girl was obscene, and that he is notorious for crude obscene comments against women. But I also believe that on balance he deserves credit for his role in preventing Christine Blasey from being raped or worse.
Now Judge emerges as the only eye-witness, other than the victim and the perpetrator, to the crime described in Dr. Blasey’s testimony. As such, his testimony is likely to be essential to convincing the U.S. Senate to vote “No” on the confirmation to the Supreme Court of a rapist who is likely to do severe damage to our country for decades to come.
At this time, Judge appears to be a very reluctant witness, and nobody knows if he will be willing to talk honestly, under oath, about what he witnessed. I would very much like to see him offered full immunity for his testimony and treated in a way that boosts his courage to do the right thing.
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Dale Tavris, M.D.Dale Tavris has worked as a public health physician/epidemiologist for 40 years, with state departments of public health, the U.S. Air Force, the Medical College of Wisconsin, and the Food and Drug Administration. In that capacity, he has authored 39 publications in peer-reviewed medical or public health journals.
Since 2004 he has been actively involved in the national election reform movement, serving in a volunteer capacity with the Election Defense Alliance for a few years as their data coordinator.
He has written dozens of online articles about election fraud. In 2007 he co-authored a journal article on election fraud: “Fingerprints of Election Theft: Were Competitive Contests Targeted.”
Tavris has written and published three books, including two of a political nature: “The Unfulfilled Promise of the American Dream: The Widening Gap between the Reality of the United States and its Highest Ideals,” 2011; and “Democracy Undone: Unequal Representation, the Threat to our Election System, and the Impending Demise of American Democracy,” 2012.