Chuck Grassley reply:

October 8, 2018 Dear Ms. Grutz: Thank you for taking the time to contact me. As your senator, it is important that I hear from you. I appreciate hearing your thoughts regarding President Trump’s nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee first held hearings regarding the nomination of Justice Kavanaugh from September 4 to September 7 of this year which gave Senators the ability to question Justice Kavanaugh for hours regarding his extensive legal record. Throughout this confirmation process, unprecedented amounts of information was made available to the public and to Members regarding Justice Kavanaugh’s background – which included more than 458,000 pages of White House Counsel’s Office documents submitted by President George W. Bush, as well as more than 22,000 pages of documents from the Office of the Independent Counsel which were provided by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NARA also provided more than 3,500 pages from Justice Kavanaugh’s D.C. Circuit nomination file to this Committee upon request. Additionally, there is already extensive public information regarding Justice Kavanaugh. This includes more than 10,000 pages of the judicial opinions he wrote or joined in his 13 years of service on the D.C. Circuit. Justice Kavanaugh also submitted more than 17,000 pages of academic writings, speeches, and other material to the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to its most expansive ever bipartisan questionnaire. During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s initial hearings, Justice Kavanaugh was questioned on his views regarding a variety of topics which ranged from his views on Roe v. Wade which he stated is “settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court” to his views on the Judicial Branch, where he stated that an independent judiciary is a vital aspect of our government. He also reaffirmed that United States v. Nixon was one of the “greatest moments in American judicial history” and that Congress should codify the results of the Court’s ruling in Nixon that rejected the executive’s attempt to conceal relevant information. These are all widely accepted and held views within the legal community. This Committee then held another hearing on September 27, 2018, in the wake of 36 year-old sexual assault allegations. The full Committee only became aware of these claims when Ranking Member Feinstein disclosed the allegations on September 13, 2018 – six weeks after she received the letter from the accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. The full Committee then became aware of the substance of the allegations in media reports the next day. The Committee only became aware of Dr. Ford’s identity and the contents of her original letter to Senator Feinstein through media reports in the days that followed. Once the full Committee had the information needed to pursue an investigation into the allegations by Dr. Ford – we did. Three of the individuals identified by Dr. Ford as at the party all submitted testimony to the Committee – Mr. Mark Judge, Mr. Patrick J. Smyth, and Ms. Leland Ingham Keyser. All three made statements to this Committee under penalty of felony that they either did not recall the party described by Dr. Ford or they did not have any knowledge of the alleged incident. In light of the serious allegations, this Committee scheduled a public hearing with Dr. Ford and Justice Kavanaugh in order to give them both a fair process to explain their stories. This Committee was accommodating to Dr. Ford’s request and delayed the scheduled hearing multiple times, held it in a smaller hearing room, limited press access, gave Dr. Ford extended breaks during her testimony, ensured Justice Kavanaugh was not in the room during her testimony, and even offered to send staff out to interview Dr. Ford where she lives in California in lieu of a public hearing. Nonetheless, I appreciated Dr. Ford and Justice Kavanaugh’s cooperation and patience in order to effectively address the issue at hand. In preparation for the hearing, I hired Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes to question the witnesses. I understand that some are critical of that decision. However, I felt it was best to follow bipartisan recommendations to hire as staff counsel an individual experienced in sex-crime prosecution to question the witnesses. I believe this helped to de-politicize the process and gave the witnesses ample time to describe their stories. Throughout this process, my goal was to allow the Committee to evaluate these allegations quickly and effectively. I know that the attention generated by this hearing has caused a great deal of stress for both Dr. Ford and for Justice Kavanaugh. This goal was hindered when some of my colleagues actively withheld more allegations against Justice Kavanaugh until nearly the last minute. However, when the full Committee became aware of the new allegations, my staff again took the immediate and necessary steps to investigate the claims against Justice Kavanaugh. I had up to 20 members of my staff from both my Oversight & Investigations Office and my Nominations Office investigating these claims. Staff from both offices have both the training and experience to conduct these types of investigations. They also have a long record of uncovering misconduct, including sexual assault or harassment, and advising the Senate on how to hold the individuals’ responsible for misconduct accountable for their actions. I was satisfied with their thorough investigation. However, some of my colleagues requested a supplemental background investigation. As a result, the Committee requested that the Trump administration – with whom the authority to request a supplemental background investigation rests – ask the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to further investigate Justice Kavanaugh with regard to the current credible allegations made against him. President Trump accepted my request and subsequently authorized the FBI to conduct such a background check which was completed on October 3, 2018. In the following days, Senators received a staff briefing on the FBI’s supplement to Justice Kavanaugh’s background investigation file. Additionally, Senators from both parties had the opportunity to read the entire supplement. The FBI’s investigation into Justice Kavanaugh took six days whereas the Bureau’s investigation regarding Justice Clarence Thomas only took three days. My colleagues across the aisle stated on numerous occasions that a supplemental background investigation for Justice Kavanaugh could be completed in the same amount of time. The supplemental report did not reveal anything that we didn’t already know. The uncorroborated accusations have been unequivocally and repeatedly rejected by Justice Kavanaugh, and neither the Judiciary Committee nor the FBI could locate any third parties who can attest to any of the allegations. There’s also no contemporaneous evidence. This investigation, which Senate Minority Leader Schumer said would “only take a few days” and was “necessary if you truly want the facts to be known”, found no hint of misconduct. The same is true for the six prior FBI background investigations conducted during Justice Kavanaugh’s 25 years of public service. The Senate does not dictate how the FBI does their job, which is why I never contacted the White House nor the FBI to commandeer the supplemental investigation into Justice Kavanaugh. I trust that the career agents of the FBI did their work independent of political or partisan considerations.  As with all background investigation files, the file and the information therein is held confidential under a 2009 memorandum of understanding between the Obama administration, then-Chairman Leahy and then-Ranking Member Sessions. This memorandum strictly maintains the confidentiality of FBI files on nominees. All 100 U.S. Senators and a very limited numbers of cleared Judiciary Committee staff had access to the information in the prepared background investigation file. This is how such files have been handled for several administrations, and even Ranking Member Feinstein “indicate[d] that the FBI report on Kavanaugh should NOT be made public.” On October 7, 2018, Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Let’s keep in touch. Sincerely, Chuck Grassley United States Senate