In 1998, Judge Brett Kavanaugh told the independent counsel’s office that he “strongly opposed” going easy in its investigation of then-President Bill Clinton’s abuse of White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
“After reflecting this evening, I am strongly opposed to giving the president any ‘break’ in the questioning regarding the details of the Lewinsky relationship — unless … he either (i) resigns or (ii) confesses perjury and issues a public apology to you,” Kavanaugh wrote on Aug. 15, 1998, in a memo titled “All Attorneys,” with the subject line: “Slack for the President?”
“The president has disgraced his office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles — callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle,” he added. “He has committed perjury (at least) in the Jones case. He has turned the Secret Service upside down. He has required the urgent attention of the courts and the Supreme Court for frivolous privilege claims—all to cover up his oral sex from an intern. He has lied to his aides. He has lied to the American people. He has tried to disgrace you and this Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.”
[Related: Brett Kavanaugh proposed list of sexually explicit questions for Bill Clinton, memo shows]
The memo was written with the purpose of offering advice to Starr’s associates, who were deliberating whether the president committed perjury in a civil suit.
Kavanaugh, who worked at the time as an associate counsel for independent counsel Ken Starr, wrote the memo to advise associates as they deliberated whether the president committed perjury in a civil suit.
“[I]f we willingly ‘conspire’ with the president in an effort to conceal the true nature of his acts,” Kavanaugh wrote, the counsel would fail to “fulfill [its] duty to the American people.”
“It may not be our job to impose sanctions on him, but it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear—piece by painful piece—on Monday,” Kavanaugh wrote.
The Kavanaugh memo then lists a number of explicit questions he believed counsel should consider asking the president. Kavanaugh was careful to note the “best phrasing” would be left to others.
The questions included graphic descriptions of sexual acts Lewinsky had recounted.
The 1998 memo was released Monday by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Washington Post.
Some in media and political circles will no doubt try to play up this memo as proof of Kavanaugh’s supposed callousness or political ruthlessness. Maybe this memo will strike a bad note with some. Then again, this will more likely be a blessing to the GOP. After all, the November midterm elections just around the corner. Conservative voters are already motivated to see Kavanaugh confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice. Now they have a historical record showing he was tough on Clinton. Nothing like a little something to seal the deal with right-leaning voters.
