Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh suggested asking Bill Clinton sexually graphic questions about Monica Lewinsky in a 1998 memo

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August 20, 2018 5:22 PM

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh drafted a memo suggesting highly sexually explicit questions he thought prosecutors should have asked President Bill Clinton during his July 1998 grand jury testimony over his affair with Monica Lewinsky, documents the National Archive released Monday show.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh suggested a list of sexually graphic questions to ask President Bill Clinton in his grand jury testimony about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, a newly released memo shows.
At the time, Kavanaugh was an associate counsel to independent counsel Ken Starr on the investigation into alleged perjury and obstruction of justice Clinton committed surrounding the affair.
Kavanaugh wrote that he was strongly opposed to giving the president "any break" in the questioning due to his past attempts to cover up the affair.

In August 1998, Brett Kavanaugh drafted a memo suggesting highly sexually explicit questions he thought prosecutors should ask President Bill Clinton about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The National Archives released the document Monday as part of Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court by President Donald Trump.

At the time, Kavanaugh was an associate working with independent counsel Kenneth Starr on the Justice Department's investigation into Clinton's extramarital affair with Lewinsky, a former White House intern.

The memo is dated two days before Clinton's four-hour, televised testimony on August 17, 1998.

Kavanaugh wrote in the memo, titled "Slack for the President?" that he had "tried hard to bend over backwards and be fair to him and think of any reasonable defenses for his behavior," concluding, "in the end, there really are none."

Here is a sampling of some of the questions Kavanaugh suggested asking Clinton during his grand jury testimony:

Kavanaugh noted he would "leave the best phrasing to others" for the final questions.

"The President has disgraced the Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year old intern and turning her life into shambles--callous and disgusting behavior that somehow gotten lost in the shuffle," he wrote as part of his argument that his fellow prosecutors shouldn't go easy on him.

This latest batch of released files covers the period from 1994 to 1998 when Kavanaugh served as an associate counsel to Starr, and includes over 12,000 documents. Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings in the Senate are scheduled begin on September 4.