Bush Presidential Records Team Provides Full Accounting of Judge Kavanaugh’s White House Records Requested by Judiciary Committee

WASHINGTON – Representatives for President George W. Bush provided the Senate Judiciary Committee with a full accounting of its documents related to Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s service as a White House lawyer.  In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, President Bush’s Presidential Records Act representative William Burck outlined the processes for evaluating those records, the applicable laws governing their handling and a breakdown of his team’s findings and actions for all of the records provided by the National Archives and Records Administration – the very same records requested by the committee on July 27.

 

The review of documents by President Bush’s team and the Department of Justice is nearly complete. Though the document review is ongoing, President Bush’s team has already produced a record number of pages to the Judiciary Committee and a record volume of that material is publicly available.  Bush’s team expects to complete its review before the hearing on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court begins next week.

 

In the interest of transparency, Grassley has expanded access to confidential material beyond that for any other Supreme Court nominee.  Unlike the process for prior nominees, all committee staff members and all non-committee senators can access confidential material at any time in a searchable digital format.  During the evaluation of previous nominees, confidential records were provided in non-searchable paper format and access was limited to committee members and certain committee staff.

 

Grassley also offered to help facilitate the public release of specific confidential records that members wish to discuss during the open session of the confirmation hearing. Only one senator has taken him up on this offer, and the requested documents have since been publicly released at Grassley’s request.

 

For context, here’s a breakdown of the estimated pages of Executive Branch material provided to the committee for the evaluation of past Supreme Court nominees:

 

*Productions for Judge Brett Kavanaugh records are nearly complete.

 

Burck’s letter to Grassley is available HERE:

 

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