A New York Times reporter told a friend of Kavanaugh that he would now cover the story ‘differently’
AND The New York Times reporter offered a mea culpa of sorts to an author whose reporting implicated him in sexual assault allegations against current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about my role in reporting on Kavanaugh, and I’d be happy to talk to you about it at some point. For now, I’ll just say that I’ve learned some lessons and I’d probably do some things differently next time,” wrote New York Times investigative reporter David Enrich to author and journalist Mark Judge. The judge revealed the exchange in an article for Chronicles magazine.
“I got the most unexpected response I could ever imagine, which was the New York Times reporter who tried to ruin my life, he sounded contrite.” The judge said Fox News Digital.
Judge claims that the New York Times was fed “completely bogus” opposition research by disgraced attorney Michael Avenatti and others that he and Justice Kavanaugh, his high school friend, were involved in drugging and gang-raping high school girls that Enrich and his “partner in crime” Kate Kelly set out to corroborate by digging up any embarrassing information they could dig up about him as an adolescent. The judge says that in the years since the Kavanaugh hearings, several journalists involved in the smear campaign against him have “agonized” over their role in ruining his life.
Judge Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump,
Christine Blasey Ford accused Judge of being present in the room when she claimed Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, when the two were teenagers. He was interviewed by the FBI about his alleged role in the attack, which Ford said took place at a party. Judge and Kavanaugh attended Georgetown Preparatory School together, while Ford attended the all-girls Holton-Arms School.
The judge dismissed Ford’s allegations and said he never witnessed Kavanaugh engage in the actions she described. No other witness could corroborate Ford’s account or even recall seeing Ford and Kavanaugh together.
Enrich wrote that Judge was a “permanent part of the school party” and described him as “a ball with a big mouth.”
He reported on a group photo in the high school yearbook showing Judge with future Judge Kavanaugh, which was labeled “Renate alumni” on the student’s personal page. Renate Schroeder Dolphin was a student at a nearby Catholic school.
Enrich also reported on an underground high school newspaper Judge wrote with two other classmates called “Unknown Hoya,” which allegedly contained sexist humor.
“The paper claimed that a public library card was ‘all you need to have a good time with any HH (Holton Hosebag)’ using slang for a promiscuous woman,” the article said.
The judge, who wrote about his experiences in his book “Devil’s triangle,” he told Fox News Digital that Enrich and Kelly’s coverage took a toll on his mental health and even caused him to consider taking his own life.
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Christine Blasey Ford, accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. (Left: (Photo by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Right: (Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images))
When the judge informed Enrich that his and Kelly’s reporting had caused “an appalling amount of damage and distress to my family” and “destroyed decades of friendship,” he was shocked to see a reporter seemingly devoted to his personal destruction offer him sympathy.
“I can’t imagine what it was like for you to go through that,” Enrich said, according to Judge.
“For years, my friends at Georgetown and I have said, ‘if only there was somebody with a conscience at the New York Times or the Washington Post, if only one of them would come forward and admit what they’ve done here, and I think we just got him, maybe we found a person with a conscience in David Enrich. I don’t want people to insult him, I want to encourage him.
“Mr. Judge’s allegations about the practices of our reporters are not true. The Times’ coverage of Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination and confirmation process was thorough, independent and fair, and we stand by it,” a New York Times spokesman said in a statement.
Enrich and Kelly declined to comment for this article.
The author previously sat down with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum where he claimed he was the victim of an extortion attempt after refuting Ford’s claims.
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Judge told how he received a mysterious call from a California number, which he claimed threatened him.
“[The caller was] brilliant enough to leave a message: ‘You like messing with people, Mark? I also like to hang out with people. Better change your story,’ he recalled.
“So they were directly trying to extort me,” Judge claimed. He added that he forwarded the message to his attorney, who said they gave it to the FBI, but there was never a resolution.
Chales Creitz contributed to this report.
