1998 Memo Shows Kavanaugh “Strongly Opposed” To Going Easy On Clinton, Proposed Graphic Questions

The Washington Post reports:

Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a strikingly explicit 1998 memo that he was “strongly opposed” to giving then-President Bill Clinton any “break” in the independent counsel’s questioning about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, according to a document released Monday.

In the memo, Kavanaugh, who worked as an associate counsel for independent counsel Ken Starr and is now President Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, laid out several proposed questions, including, “If Monica Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her vagina while you were in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?”

Excerpts of the memo have been previously reported, including by The Washington Post last month, quoting from a book about the Lewinsky investigation. However, the full memo had not been made public until Monday, when it was released by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by The Post.

NPR reports:

According to the book The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr, Kavanaugh proposed 10 sample questions about the president’s relationship with Lewinsky, with descriptions of sexual acts, that we should warn are, both detailed and explicit:

“If Monica Lewinsky says that you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions you had her give [you] oral sex, made her stop, and then ejaculated into the sink in the bathroom off the Oval office, would she be lying? If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan in your secretary’s office, would she be lying?”

In the end, the questions asked were not nearly as graphic as what Kavanaugh proposed, but his sentiment about the direction of the questioning was shared by at least some of his colleagues.