White House: Starr grand jury leak report ‘fully exonerates’ Kavanaugh
The White House said Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is “fully” exonerated by a special master report authored in 1999 detailing leaks made during the investigation of former President Clinton that makes no mention of Kavanaugh.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said that the report’s release proves that President Trump’s nominee was not involved in leaks of grand jury secrets to the press during his time working for prosecutor Ken Starr’s investigation of Clinton.
{mosads}“This report refutes the latest false accusation by Senate Democrats and fully exonerates Judge Kavanaugh,” Shah said.
“Between crowdsourcing baseball fans to attacking his college sports commentary, the left has lost all credibility and is looking more desperate by the day. Judge Kavanaugh is fair-minded, eminently qualified and will receive a fair hearing beginning September 4th,” he added.
Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats had raised the possibility of Kavanaugh’s involvement in leaks during the Starr investigation on Tuesday, according to CNN.
“It has been reported that Judge Kavanaugh was in regular contact with the media during the Starr investigation, which has led some to suggest that his conduct may have violated” the law, senators wrote in a letter obtained by the news network.
A federal judge had previously ordered Wednesday that the report be released by the National Archives by Friday at 3 p.m. The Department of Justice did not object to the release, the White House noted.
Democrats have called for Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing to be delayed until after a review of the judge’s extensive past work records. The National Archives have already released more than 1,000 pages of documents from his time working as an associate independent counsel for Starr.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others have also called for a delay of the hearing after Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, admitted in court that he was allegedly directed by then-candidate Trump to make nondisclosure payment deals during the 2016 campaign to women accusing Trump of having affairs with them.
-Updated 5:45 p.m.
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