GOP Candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green Says Dem Opponent Leaked Her Military File, Sexual Assault to Smear Her

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Kristina Wong

Republican Jennifer-Ruth Green, a graduate of the Air Force Academy and an Air National Guard lieutenant colonel, who is running for Indiana’s 1st congressional district, said her Democrat opponent, incumbent freshman congressman Rep. Frank Mrvan, is responsible for the illegal leaking of her military file and sexual assault to the media in a desperate attempt to smear her and slow her momentum.

“I’m a survivor of sexual trauma in the military. I am being forced to share this information outside of my own timeline and for the first time publicly because my Congressman, Frank Mrvan, and his cronies illegally obtained my military records describing my sexual assault. His team fished the details of my assault to different news outlets, asking them to share misinformation to portray me as a failed military officer who lacks integrity. This is false,” Green said in a statement.

Politico Magazine on Friday published a profile on Green that revealed that when she was deployed to Iraq in 2009, she was sexually assaulted by an Iraqi service member in a guard tower. Politico Magazine‘s Adam Wren wrote:

She left the group to climb into a cramped guard tower where Green says an Iraqi serviceman sexually assaulted her by grabbing her breast and exposing himself.

She said she was advised not to report the assault by a staff sergeant, who was also a military equal opportunity representative. He told her that ‘if American leadership complained to Iraqi leadership, they would continue to see women as liabilities and limit their ability to serve….’

Wren wrote that she received a bad performance review the next year and that she was separated from the active duty Air Force during a downsizing of personnel known as a “reduction in force.” Green said she believes it was retaliation for reporting her sexual assault when she was asked not to.

Green said her military file was leaked to Politico Magazine by Mrvan in an attempt to smear her and her military career and that she had begged Wren not to reveal her assault but that he did so despite her request.

Green told 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 [Wren] 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.”

“Congressman Frank Mrvan gets his gratification of trying to think he’s smearing my name. [Politico’s] 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,” she said.

Green has written the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, the Air Force, and the Pentagon, requesting a criminal investigation into the “unauthorized, unlawful” release of her Air Force personnel file.

“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,” she said.

 “I believe after sharing my assault against the advice of some in my command, my career was intentionally derailed. The paperwork Congressman Mrvan illegally obtained contains information that reflects me in a negative light. I have since appealed the incident with the military, and the entire issue is settled. Clearly, I have progressed as a military member, promoting to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, and successfully completing a command tour,” she said, adding:

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.

Aside from her military record and sexual assault, Wren’s article focused heavily on Green’s pro-life stance, writing: “In the wake of Dobbs, her position on abortion is going to make it harder for her to close the gap on Mrvan. Hoosier and national Democrats have hammered her anti-abortion rights stance, and her campaign privately fears the court’s decision could keep the district out of reach for Republicans.”

Fellow Air Force veteran and Congressman Don Bacon (R-NE) defended Green, calling the leak “despicable.”

“I fully support my fellow AF veteran @JenRuthGreen. What the opposition and media did here is victim-shaming and it is despicable,” he tweeted Sunday.

Mike Berg, deputy communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called it “absolute gutter politics.”

“Absolute gutter politics from @RepMrvan’s allies to leak @JenRuthGreen’s military records and out her as a survivor of sexual assault. Even worse that Politico ran with it,” he tweeted Sunday.

Republican strategist Matt Whitlock called it “incredibly ugly.”

“Incredibly ugly that @mrvan4Congress and friends are out shopping opposition research on their political opponent @JenRuthGreen’s traumatic sexual assault. And very surprising an outlet like Politico would print it against the victim’s wishes,” he tweeted Sunday.

Politico‘s Vice President of Marketing and Communications Brad Dayspring told Fox News that the records were fair to report since they could be obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, without saying how the outlet obtained the records. He also argued that she provided more information that “helped shape” the final story.

“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 told the outlet. “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,” Dayspring said.

Follow Breitbart News’s Kristina Wong on Twitter, Truth Social, or on Facebook. 

 

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