Republicans Withholding All Records from Kavanaugh’s Time As Staff Secretary

The American people deserve full access to all of Judge Kavanaugh’s records. Instead, Republicans are withholding much of his records, including withholding all records from his time as White House staff secretary.

 

Republicans still refuse to release any records from Kavanaugh’s time as White House staff secretary, which has been described as “a black hole.”

 

USA Today: “Brett Kavanaugh held one of the most important jobs in the White House. But as the Senate considers Kavanaugh's qualifications for the Supreme Court, his work as staff secretary – described by others who have held the job as the president's inbox and outbox – remains a black hole.”

 

Yesterday, the National Archives declared that a Republican lawyer’s work to circumvent their process of releasing Kavanaugh’s records is  unprecedented and is not endorsed by the National Archives.

 

The Hill: “The National Archives is distancing itself from President George W. Bush's legal team as both groups work to hand over hundreds of thousands of documents tied to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The Archives said Wednesday that the decision for Bush's representatives to provide documents directly to the Judiciary Committee, bypassing the agency, ‘is something that has never happened before.’”

 

Editorial boards across the country agree that the American people deserve full access to all of the documents from Kavanaugh’s tenure in the White House.

 

Los Angeles Times Editorial: “But it’s also in the nominee’s interest for the confirmation process to be thorough, transparent and credible. The committee should insist on seeing any documents with a bearing on Kavanaugh’s credentials. If obtaining them requires that the hearings be delayed, so be it.”

 

Baltimore Sun Editorial: “Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination deserves to be fully scrutinized and the American people better educated on the consequences of his lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest court.”

 

Billings Gazette Editorial: “On another matter touching on executive privilege, Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, has said he is willing to forego review of documents related to Kanaugh's work as staff secretary for George W. Bush. Those documents should be examined before the Senate votes on the nomination.”

 

MassLive Editorial: “Some Supreme Court nominees have a paper trail; Kavanaugh has a paper mountain. And that's not a metaphor. It's been estimated that there are more than a million pages of documents from Kavanaugh's government tenure. Senators need to see them. All of them. If it takes some time, so be it.”

 

Washington Post Editorial: “Mr. Kavanaugh himself has said his time as staff secretary prepared him for judging. Moreover, he may have participated in weighing some extremely hot-button issues the Bush White House considered — torture, enemy combatants, signing statements and so forth. The Senate should consider any substantive contributions he made on these and other issues, both to gauge his temperament and to determine whether he would have to recuse himself in big cases.”