New Kavanaugh accuser Web developer holding many security clearances
Government employee dealt with tax woes
WASHINGTON – Julie Swetnick, who Wednesday became the third woman to accuse Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, is an experienced Web developer in the Washington area who has held multiple security clearances for her work on government-related networks.
The child of two government bureaucrats – her father worked on the lunar orbiter for NASA and her mother was a geologist at the Atomic Energy Commission – has spent most of her life around Washington. Now 55, she grew up in Maryland and graduated in 1980 from Gaithersburg High School, located in a far less affluent section of the same county where Kavanaugh lived and attended an exclusive prep school.
Swetnick’s father, 95, said Wednesday he was shocked to learn from a Washington Post reporter that his daughter had made the explosive allegations. She said in an affidavit that Kavanaugh was present at a house party in 1982 where she alleges she was the victim of a gang rape.
Kavanaugh immediately issued a statement in response: “This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened.”
Interviewed at his home in Silver Spring, Maryland, Martin Swetnick said he had no idea that his daughter was suddenly in the news as he hadn’t spoken to her in 10 years. He had long fallen out of regular contact with his children, the retired space scientist said, an estrangement he blames on his focus on career over family.
“The only time we communicate is on my birthday when she sends me an email,” Swetnick said.
Swetnick said he worked for the Department of Defense and NASA, as the “program scientist for unmanned lunar exploration,” and was often away from home.
“I was busy traveling around the country,” he said. “We didn’t have a good relationship.”
He said his daughter was born in Brooklyn but grew up in Silver Spring and then Montgomery Village, where she lived while attending high school. He described her as a “typical girl.”
“She was not shy,” he said. “She was a good-looking girl.”
According to her online résumé, Swetnick attended Montgomery County Community College, where she took pre-med courses. But by the mid-1990s, she had jumped into the exploding world of Web development, accumulating a string of IT and software certifications. A contract job at the State Department started her on government work.
Her experience has included work for U.S. embassies, Customs and Border Protection and the Internal Revenue Service. She has held security clearances at the Departments of State, Justice, Treasury and Homeland Security, according to her résumé.
“She never went to college, but she bootstrapped herself and became a computer expert,” her father said. “She’s a sharp woman.”
On her résumé, Swetnick described herself this way: “She is a hands-on team player; having no problem stepping into new or difficult roles, situations and projects,” it says. “She is highly professional, ethical, responsible and hard working.”
As she moved among government contracting jobs, Swetnick has repeatedly encountered trouble paying her taxes.
In 2015, the state of Maryland filed an interstate lien against her property in the District. The bill included over $32,000 in unpaid taxes from 2008, and another $27,000 in interest on the 7-year-old debt. Court records reflect the full amount due of nearly $63,000 was satisfied 15 months later, in December 2016. It is not clear from court records whether the bill was paid or if the lien was released because of a decision that the bill was unwarranted.
Similarly, the IRS in 2016 assessed Swetnick a bill of over $40,000 in unpaid taxes from 2014. The federal government filed a lien on her property for the amount in 2017. The debt was listed as satisfied and the lien was released in March of this year.