Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, formally requested documents related to Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s time serving in the White House Counsel’s Office for President George W. Bush, a request that comes amid a building dispute between Republicans and Democrats over the Supreme Court nominee’s White House records.
In a letter Friday to National Archives staff at the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Grassley requested all emails sent to or from Kavanaugh and textual records in Kavanaugh’s office files during the time he served as associate counsel and senior associate counsel in the White House.
He also asked for all documents pertaining to Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The request notably stops short of fulfilling Democrats’ demands for records related to Kavanaugh’s time serving as White House staff secretary, a role he held from 2003 to 2006.
Grassley told Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., this week the documents stemming from Kavanaugh’s tenure as staff secretary would provide little insight into his fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. He characterized Democrats’ efforts as a “fishing expedition” designed to draw out Kavanaugh’s confirmation process.
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In a statement Friday, Grassley said he attempted to “seek a good-faith agreement” with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the committee’s top Democrat, on a bipartisan request for records pertaining to Kavanaugh’s legal work for Bush.
“For nearly two weeks, I’ve found myself either waiting for a response to my proposals or faced with unprecedented and unreasonable counter-proposals,” he said.
Grassley said Senate Democrats demanded Republicans expand its documents request to “require a search of every email from every one of the White House staffers” who worked with Kavanaugh for almost six years “to find records that merely mention his name.”
The unsuccessful negotiations ultimately led Grassley to make his request to the Bush Presidential Library on behalf of the Judiciary Committee.
“As I have said repeatedly, I am not going to put the American taxpayers on the hook for the Senate Democrats’ fishing expedition,” Grassley said.
The Iowa Republican said he expects the production of Kavanaugh’s records “to be the largest ever in the Senate’s consideration of a Supreme Court nominee.”
Grassley’s formal request comes after Schumer sent a letter to Bush on Friday asking the former president to authorize the release of Kavanaugh’s full White House record, which includes documents stemming from his time as staff secretary.
Feinstein, too, made a request of her own, asking the National Archives for documents related to Kavanaugh’s tenure as staff secretary. Her request, however, was declined.
