Standing beside a collection of empty boxes labeled “Missing Records” on Tuesday, Minority leader Chuck Schumer redoubled Democrats’ calls for documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary in the Bush administration.
“I want to make clear, for just a sec, how aggressive the obstruction is,” Schumer said. “Breaking all historical precedent, Chairman Grassley has made a partisan request to the National Archives, requesting only a small portion of Judge Kavanaugh’s time in the White House.”
Judiciary chairman Chuck Grassley on Friday requested emails and other documents covering Kavanaugh’s time in the White House Counsel’s Office, a collection he expects to be the “largest ever in the Senate’s consideration of a Supreme Court nominee.” Grassley said the Senate will also receive the White House nominations file for Kavanaugh’s 2006 D.C. Circuit nomination and records from his time working for independent counsel Ken Starr. His Friday request did not include those files related to Kavanaugh’s staff secretary service.
Democrats say that papers covering Kavanaugh’s three years as staff secretary are important to sizing up the nominee. But Republicans say those documents, which would add to the thousands of pages Kavanaugh already submitted to the Judiciary Committee, as well as his judicial opinions, are being used as a stalling tactic.
“These documents are both the least relevant to Judge Kavanaugh’s legal thinking and the most sensitive to the Executive Branch,” Grassley said in a floor speech last week. “This is not about anything other than obstruction—to bury us in millions and millions of pages of paper, so we cannot have a confirmation vote on Judge Kavanaugh this year.”
Grassley made his Friday request to the National Archives staff at the Bush Library. Schumer said Tuesday that those files are being pre-screened by Bill Burck, a “Republican lawyer” who represents President Bush as well as Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus. “Hardly an impartial screener,” Schumer said, later adding, “What are they trying to hide?”
Judiciary Democrats sent their own letter Tuesday asking for records spanning Kavanaugh’s time in the White House Counsel’s office, his time as staff secretary, and all emails sent or received by Kavanaugh during his White House tenure. The letter also asks for “all records containing documents written by, edited by, prepared in whole or part by, under the supervision of, or at the direction of” Kavanaugh, as well as documents referencing Kavanaugh.
“Staff secretary is a top White House advisor,” Judiciary committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday. “There is real value in this information.” She said she is especially interested in Kavanaugh’s views on the CIA detention and interrogation program.
Democrats say that their demand mirrors that of Republicans for then-nominee Elena Kagan’s White House records. The amount of files for Kagan clocked in at around 170,000 pages.
But Grassley countered last week that unlike Kavanaugh, who has hundreds of opinions to sift through, Kagan did not serve as a judge before her nomination—and so the White House documents were necessary to “shed light on her legal thinking.” He added that lawmakers agreed at the time to leave some Kagan documents untouched because of sensitivity—a standard he said should apply to documents related to Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary.
“The staff secretary is the inbox and outbox to the Oval Office,” he said in remarks on the Senate floor. “Passing through the staff secretary’s office are a wide range of communications: from requests for flying the flag at half-mast to the daily lunch menu to draft speeches to sensitive national security papers.”
