Jennifer-Ruth Green, the Republican candidate for Indiana's first congressional district, is furious after Politico published details on the sexual assault she underwent while serving in the military. The US Air Force veteran claims that her Democratic opponent "illegally" obtained the sensitive information, which she pleaded with Politico not to publish.
In a profile published Friday on Green's "surprising flight plan to win in a democratic district," reporter Adam Wren used documents, which the outlet claimed were "obtained by a public records request and provided to Politico by a person outside the Mrvan campaign" to publish the explicit details of the assault she experienced while "she and a small group of officers visited the national training center."
"I'm a survivor of sexual trauma in the military, and I am being forced to discuss it publicly for the first time because Congressman Mrvan or his supporters obtained — either illegally or by egregious error — military records describing my sexual assault as well as performance reviews, and peddled those records to the media with the intent smear me and my military career," the former USAF commander wrote in a statement to Politico.
Green accused her opponent, incumbent Rep. Frank Mrvan, and Politico of acting like her assailant by going against her wishes not to disclose that she was sexually assaulted while in the Air Force, saying they all shared a desire for "gratification" at her expense, in a statement to Fox News.
"The reality of it is — like I said at one point in my life to my assailant, 'No. Please stop. Don't.' — and he did what he wanted to do… This is the exact same situation all over again, all because there was a man who wanted some sort of gratification," Green said.
"Congressman Frank Mrvan gets his gratification of trying to think he's smearing my name. Adam Wren gets his gratification of thinking he's going to get a good smear story out of it. And all it does is essentially reopen wounds for victims."
Green also said that Wren took her "experience and diminished it to a place where he can just say a clinical report," without carefully handling the details of the case. "I'm surprised because Adam Wren spent time in this article focusing on every single detail down to the skirt I was wearing, down to the color of the skirt I was wearing, down to every single knob I touched, all of those things, but yet he writes clinically about one of the worst days of my life," Green said. "He has no idea the concept of being forced to be in a four by four, round circular area, 30 feet in the ground in a tower where you only have windows and a 30-foot drop on the other side, 30-foot drop to escape somebody who was blocking your path [with] somebody who has a clear intent with a weapon in hand, who is focused on trying to take advantage of you, and you're able to escape that with minimal physical harm. And he wants to reduce that to 50 characters." Green wrote a letter last Monday, addressed to the relevant US attorney, the Air Force Inspector General and the Department of Defense to request an investigation to find out how the military documents were obtained by Politico. "I write to request an investigation into the unauthorized, unlawful release of my Air Force personnel file," Green wrote. "The fact that my file has been leaked in the course of my campaign for United States Congress leads me to believe that it was politically motivated." Green added that she "did not consent, in writing or otherwise, to the disclosure of my personnel file to Politico or anyone else" citing the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended, 5 U.S.C § 552a, as proof that her file was illegally released. In a statement to Fox News, Politico's Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Brad Dayspring, claimed the records on Green's sexual assault are "publicly available." He also defended the outlet's actions by saying that Green's campaign team had originally helped the outlet compose the story by providing them with details of her military career. "This story is an incredibly nuanced, deeply reported piece that looks at the totality of Ms. Green’s military career, which her team has placed at the forefront of her campaign," Dayspring said. "The military records in question are publicly available documents that can be obtained by a standard FOIA request… Further, her campaign team provided additional documentation of the incidents described in the story, which included new information that helped shape what was published." In a press release published Sunday, Green shared that she had previously applauded Rep. Mrvan for composing a bill aimed at helping victims of sexual assault in the armed forces. "I am saddened to have to share publicly one of the most private events of my life, and I’m even more saddened that Congressman Mrvan, who I applauded for authoring the Military Sexual Trauma bill, would engage in or tolerate this despicable behavior from his campaign and his allies. It’s unacceptable for every vet, it’s unacceptable for every woman, and it’s unacceptable for anyone who has ever been a victim of sexual assault," she wrote.
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