Evidence Shows Kavanaugh Lies Under Oath. Will Tomorrow Be Different?

Republicans – from President Trump to Orrin Hatch – have unified around a strategy of attacking and smearing the sexual assault survivors coming forward to tell their stories. But heading into Thursday’s Judiciary Committee hearing, it’s Brett Kavanaugh who has the proven, continuous pattern of lying under oath to Senators.

Brett Kavanaugh lies under oath intentionally, strategically for his own benefit, and about both significant matters and minor details.

In fact, evidence shows that Brett Kavanaugh has lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee at every one of his three confirmations hearings since 2004. Revealed documents show Kavanaugh is a skilled, intentional liar who has perjured himself, lied to Congress, demonstrated his willingness to gut Roe, and now been accused of sexual assault. He cannot be trusted to tell the truth at Thursday’s hearing, nor should he be trusted to have power over millions of American women with a lifetime role on the highest court in our country.

Examples of Kavanaugh’s false and misleading statements, under oath, include:

• Kavanaugh lied under oath about when he knew about Deborah Ramirez’s sexual assault allegation: Kavanaugh told the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath that he first heard Deborah Ramirez’s sexual assault allegation when a story was published in the New Yorker on September 23. But text messages prove that Kavanaugh was pushing people to defend him and refute the Ramirez allegations before the story even broke.
• Kavanaugh lied under oath to Sen. Kennedy in 2004 about his work on the Pryor nomination: During Kavanaugh’s 2004 confirmation hearing, Sen. Ted Kennedy asked him about his work in the Bush White House on the judicial nomination of anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ judge William Pryor. Kavanaugh responded, “I am familiar generally with Mr. Pryor, but that was not one that I worked on personally.” Yet newly released emails show that statement to be unambiguously false—Kavanaugh was involved in selecting Pryor, interviewing him, and working to confirm him.
• Kavanaugh lied under oath to Sen. Leahy in 2006 about his work on warrantless wiretapping: During his 2006 confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh told Sen. Leahy that he was not involved in the President Bush’s “warrantless wiretapping program” and did not know of its existence until the program was publicly reported by the New York Times in 2005. Yet the Times reported that in anow-public 2001 email Kavanaugh wrote to John Yoo, who was then a Justice Department lawyer, Kavanaugh asked about the Fourth Amendment implications of “random/constant surveillance of phone and email conversations of non-citizens who are in the United States when the purpose of the surveillance is to prevent terrorist/criminal violence.”
• Kavanaugh lied under oath to Sen. Durbin in 2006 about his involvement in policies regarding the detention of combatants: During his 2006 confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh told Sen. Durbin, “I was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants.” There are now at least three recorded examples of Kavanaugh participating in discussions of Bush administration detainee policy.
• Kavanaugh lied under oath to multiple Senators in multiple hearings about receiving and using emails and memos stolen from Democratic senators: During his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings, Kavanaugh answered more than 100 questions about Democratic emails and communications stolen by Republican Judiciary Committee staffer Manuel Miranda. For example, Sen. Hatch asked, “Did Mr. Miranda ever share, reference, or provide you with information that you believed or were led to believe was obtained or derived from Democratic files?” Kavanaugh answered, “No.” Newly released emails show Kavanaugh did receive such information and should have known that it was improperly obtained.
• Kavanaugh lied under oath about his involvement in the nomination of controversial nominee Charles Pickering: During his 2006 confirmation hearing, Kavanaugh downplayed his role in the nomination of Charles Pickering, but newly released emails deeply undercut those assertions.
• Kavanaugh may have lied under oath about his connection to disgraced Judge Alex Kozinkski. Kavanaugh clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski, who faced several allegations of sexual misconduct by former law clerks. There was, allegedly, an email list called the “Easy Rider Gag List” where Kozinski sent sexual and explicit jokes. Kavanaugh was asked “Has Judge Kozinski ever made comments about sexual matters to you either in jest or otherwise? And Kavanaugh said “I do not remember any such comments.” However, a former clerk says “having clerked in his chambers I do not know how it would be possible to forget something as pervasive as Kozinski’s famously sexual sense of humor or his gag list.”
• Kavanaugh misled the committee under oath about his desire overturn Roe v. Wade, criminalize abortion and punish women. An email hidden by Republicans and revealed by the New York Times showed that Brett Kavanaugh has been hiding his true beliefs and would vote to end Roe v. Wade. The 2003 email includes rock solid evidence that everything Brett Kavanaugh said in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about “settled law” and precedent was nothing but a show to mislead the Senate and American people.
• Kavanaugh lied under oath about disclosing grand jury information in the Ken Starr investigation. In questions for the record, Kavanaugh denied sharing “information learned through grand jury proceedings” in the Kenneth Starr investigation. However, according to a memo from the National Archives, Kavanaugh told Hickman Ewing, a colleague and deputy independent counsel in the Starr investigation, to illegally call a journalist about matters before a grand jury.

Brett Kavanaugh is only concerned with his own advancement, and the GOP will stop at nothing to ram him through the process in order to gut Roe and criminalize abortion by any means necessary. These are the tactics employed out of desperation and a realization that Kavanaugh is unpopular and uncredible to the American people. Women are watching, listening, and are all too familiar with these shameful tactics. We’ve had enough.