Senate Democrats are pushing the White House to turn over records related to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, and are getting help from outside groups eager to uncover more about President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
Kavanaugh amassed a lengthy paper trail through his time working for independent counsel Kenneth Starr, in the White House as staff secretary and an associate counsel for President George W. Bush, and as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he authored nearly 300 opinions across 12 years.
Now, as Senate Democrats mount their opposition to Kavanaugh, they’re calling for access to all documents compiled during his tenure in government in an effort to uncover any landmine that could possibly derail his nomination.
And they’re not the only ones itching for Kavanaugh’s emails, memos, and other correspondence. American Bridge, a Democratic-aligned organization, deployed staff to the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas to begin sifting through records related to Kavanaugh.
The group said on Twitter its efforts in Dallas are “part of our plan to thoroughly vet his history.”
American Bridge also plans to mine a host of records unrelated to Kavanaugh’s government service that “focus on the personal vetting of Kavanaugh,” according to a two-page document from the group.
The document outlines a plan to comb property records “for evidence of improper or irresponsible behavior” and file dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests for records from all levels of government.
American Bridge has also sent staff to Yale University, where Kavanaugh attended undergraduate and law school, the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., given Kavanaugh’s work on Starr’s investigation, and the National Archives.
“The stakes are too high. We’re leaving no stone unturned and are searching for all publicly available information that can properly highlight the dangers of giving Kavanaugh a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,” Harrell Kirstein, communications director of American Bridge, said in a statement. “So far we have identified about 3,100 cubic feet of Starr report records as well as several days of video recordings from Kavanaugh’s speeches and remarks to review.”
In addition to American Bridge’s efforts, Fix the Court, a nonpartisan group advocating for transparency at the Supreme Court, has filed lawsuits in federal court in an effort to extract records related to Kavanaugh’s work on Starr’s investigation and in the White House.
The complaints were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the National Archives and Justice Department.
Fix the Court’s efforts began in September, when it requested from the Justice Department correspondence to and from Kavanaugh over his five years serving in the White House.
In April, the group asked the National Archives for Kavanaugh’s correspondence, notes, and memos during his time working for Starr, as well as his disciplinary record.
The National Archives told Fix the Court last month the relevant files involving Kavanaugh were “estimated at 20,000 pages.” Some could be released within roughly 22 months while others could take years to be processed, as the National Archives said it is still processing requests it received in February 2013.
Fix the Court also wants records held by the Bush Presidential Library. The library said there are 16,180 pages of documents already available to the public but identified more than 1 million pages and electronic files “of potentially responsive records that must be processed.”
Kavanaugh’s lengthy trail of documents could slow the pace of his nomination, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday the Senate needs both access and time to review Kavanaugh’s records before the nomination process proceeds.
“His history as a Republican partisan lawyer during the Clinton and Bush eras – documents, emails, and writings – need to be thoroughly examined, particularly his more recent writings about executive authority,” Schumer said during a Senate floor speech Wednesday.
Democrats say they’re doing what Republicans did when they wanted records involving Justice Elena Kagan, who worked in the White House for President Bill Clinton and was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in 2010.
“We want the same standard that we afforded the Republicans when they asked for a large amount of paper trail from Elena Kagan,” Schumer told reporters Tuesday. “There were 170,000 pages that were turned over by the archives. That’s a vital appointment that could affect America for a generation, and we want to see all the documentation before we vote.”
David Ferriero, the archivist of the U.S., called the processing of those records at the time a “herculean task” that involved nearly a dozen staff who worked 6,000 hours.
