House Dems Seek Kavanaugh White House Docs Withheld In Confirmation Fight

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 08: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks at his ceremonial swearing in in the East Room of the White House October 08, 2018 in Washington, DC. Kavanaugh was confirmed i... WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 08: U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks at his ceremonial swearing in in the East Room of the White House October 08, 2018 in Washington, DC. Kavanaugh was confirmed in the Senate 50-48 after a contentious process that included several women accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday requested the production of documents from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanugh’s tenure as a White House lawyer. They pointed specifically to materials that were either withheld or not requested by the Senate during Kavanaugh’s confirmation fight.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA), who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee overseeing the courts, sent the request to National Archives and Records Administration.

The Democrats’ letter said the documents were relevant to ethics and transparency legislation Congress is considering for the federal judiciary. The request pointed to the materials from Kavanaugh’s time as a staff secretary to President George W. Bush, which were not among the records requested by then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) when Kavanaugh’s nomination was before his committee.

Grassley requested the records from Kavanaugh’s time in Bush’s White House Counsel’s Office, which preceded the staff secretary role. But only some of those records were made available to the committee, after a personal attorney for Kavanaugh conducted a review of them himself.

“As a result of this process, the Senate Judiciary Committee received only a small fraction of Justice Kavanaugh’s White House records before voting on his nomination,” the Democrats said.

The House members requested production on a rolling basis — starting with the White House Counsel Office materials covered under Grassley’s original request — and said that they would work with the archive agency to streamline the process for the staff secretary document production.

Read the letter below:

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Notable Replies

  1. What?

    Did Kavanaugh have binders full of women in his White House bathroom?

    Or just a few Sears catalogs and old National Geographics?

    Wanker!

  2. Didn’t he do government business with private emails? Go after those too. Who payed his debts? Why were they paid? Who funds the federalist society?

  3. This seems…like the horse is already out of the barn, but also way down the road.

  4. Woo Hoo! I’m assuming there will be privilege fights to come.

    If any document is withheld on the basis of any claim of privilege, please describe each document by date, author(s), addressee(s), recipient(s), title, and subject matter, and set forth the nature of the claimed privilege with respect to each.

  5. When Trump did his bogus FBI “Investigation” during the Kavanaugh Hearings, this was always swirling…

    Even Mitchie Moscow knew that Barf was damaged goods. Which makes Collins’ actions all the more reprehensible.

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