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When launching his campaign earlier this month to become Maine’s next governor, Jonathan Bush mentioned his famous family and how he has “experienced cancel culture at its worst.”
The 56-year-old cousin of former President George W. Bush and nephew of former President George H.W. Bush was alluding to an activist investor’s moves in 2018 to push him out of athenahealth, the health tech firm he co-founded in the 1990s. That battle also coincided with a British tabloid obtaining court documents from Bush’s mid-2000s divorce case that showed how he had admitted to “numerous physical altercations” with his first wife.
When the Bush campaign sought this month to get ahead of renewed scrutiny of those incidents by summarizing the matter in a memo before his campaign launch, it omitted details of the incidents while quoting the Republican’s first wife as saying the couple had repaired their relationship and that she supports his bid for governor.
The issue may not go away on the campaign trail, particularly given Bush is a member of one of America’s most famed political dynasties and wants to win a crowded primary for the chance to succeed Gov. Janet Mills next year.
Bush, who grew up in New York City and moved permanently to Cape Elizabeth in 2021, and his first wife, Sarah Selden Bush, issued statements in 2018 noting they had gone on to successfully co-parent five kids after their divorce. Bush, who later remarried and has seven kids, also said he took “complete responsibility” for the past incidents.
The candidate was never charged with a crime. The Bangor Daily News does not typically name alleged victims of domestic violence but is doing so because Selden Bush has been named in past coverage and in the statement from Bush’s campaign, which said she will not discuss the issue further. A reporter reached her by phone and she deferred to the statement.
The most graphic descriptions of what happened at the ex-couple’s home in the Boston suburb of Belmont revolve around a Wednesday in November 2005, according to records from Bush’s divorce case that a BDN reporter viewed at a Massachusetts courthouse. The Daily Mail first covered the details in 2018.
After their older children left for school, Bush assaulted his first wife in a hallway while she held their 1-year-old son in her arms, according to court documents that also say she filed for divorce a few months before the November incident. Bush “screamed” into her face, calling her a “whore” and “disgusting person” while pushing her into a wall and “repeatedly slamming his closed fist into her sternum,” with his hand landing “just inches” from their baby.
In filing an emergency motion to make Bush leave their home, Selden Bush said the conditions in the home had “deteriorated dramatically” between June and November 2005, adding that the health and safety of her and the children were at risk. She also alleged Bush struck her on “numerous occasions” and once gave her a black eye, per court records.
Bush admitted to the November 2005 incident during a deposition the following year. He testified he was “unsure of where his hands had come in contact with” his first wife but said he “intended to touch her.” He also admitted on two other occasions to throwing a “small telephone” and “salt shaker” at her, putting holes in the wall.
Bush and his first wife, who married in 1994, had each been involved in intimate relationships with other people during the divorce proceedings, court records showed. They reached a divorce agreement in 2006 that included co-parenting duties and Bush owing $12,500 per month, among other stipulations.
The Bush campaign sent the Bangor Daily News statements Friday from Jonathan Bush and his current wife, Fay Rotenberg, that reiterated how Bush and his first wife went through “a painful divorce” but have since “enjoyed a fruitful co-parenting relationship and a friendship.” Rotenberg said she “would never be with, let alone marry, a man who mistreats women.”
“The primary is eight months away, and I will not be distracted,” Jonathan Bush said. “I warned when I started this campaign that cancel culture would come after me. This is their entire playbook: rehash old stories to try and cancel my bold ideas for reform. It’s pathetic, and it won’t work.”
Bush stepped down as Athenahealth’s CEO in June 2018 amid pressure from billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer’s Elliott Management to sell or take private the cloud-based healthcare company Bush started in 1997. Singer’s firm and a private equity group later took Athenahealth private for $5.7 billion, and Bain Capital and another firm bought it in 2021 for $17 billion. Bush held his campaign launch at the company’s Belfast office.
Bush also went on to launch Boston-based health data platform Zus Health. When an Axios reporter called him in 2021 to ask about athenahealth’s sale, Bush displayed his loose speaking style while joking about his current wife.
“I knew you’d be calling,” Bush said, “so I picked an unnecessary argument with my wife to get it all out first.”