Senators spar over access to files of Bush staff secretary

More than a decade after he served as what’s been called the president’s “inbox and outbox,” Brett Kavanaugh’s role as White House staff secretary to President George W. Bush has become a flashpoint as Republicans push his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

Democrats want to see records from the time, portraying the potentially millions of documents as vital to understanding his approach to the law. Republicans disagree and have accused Democrats of using the issue to try to delay Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The debate could interfere with Republicans’ goal of swiftly confirming President Donald Trump’s pick for the court in time for the start of the new term Oct. 1. With the Senate control slimly held by Republicans 51-49, Democrats can’t block Kavanaugh’s nomination outright if Republicans hold together. Instead, Democrats are trying to delay the proceedings in hopes that time spent reviewing the judge’s record could unearth fresh concerns to sway senators’ opinions and upend voting.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee tasked with holding hearings on Kavanaugh’s nomination, said this week that Democrats’ “bloated demands are an obvious attempt to obstruct the confirmation process.”

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Thursday that Kavanaugh himself has portrayed his three years as Bush’s staff secretary as “the most interesting and, in many ways, among the most instructive” to his work as a federal appeals court judge. Schumer said if Kavanaugh sees it that way, “why shouldn’t the American people see what instructed him?” On Friday, Schumer released a letter to Bush calling on him to authorize the release of “the complete record of Judge Kavanaugh’s service in the White House.”

While Kavanaugh was staff secretary, Bush made a range of controversial decisions, including signing into law a partial-birth abortion ban and backing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. Democrats say that time is relevant to Kavanaugh’s views and philosophy as a judge.

But Republicans argue the staff secretary documents aren’t useful because Kavanaugh’s job wasn’t to provide his own advice but to ensure others’ views were presented to the president. They say the papers contain the most sensitive White House documents, advice sent directly to the president. Republicans say they support, as Democrats do, making public documents related to Kavanaugh’s time in the White House counsel’s office, which immediately preceded his staff secretary job. And they say the up to 1 million pages of records they expect to release will be the largest number of documents produced in connection with a Supreme Court nomination.

Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech and the co-author of a paper on the staff secretary position for which Kavanaugh was interviewed in 2008, took a middle-ground view of the staff secretary documents’ value to lawmakers. Hult said the documents could include Kavanaugh’s notes and memos he wrote or commented on that went directly to the president or chief of staff, but she said it could be difficult to distill Kavanaugh’s own views from them. Kavanaugh’s judicial opinions would be more helpful in that respect, she said.

Kavanaugh, for his part, has described his role as staff secretary as being an “honest broker for the president, someone who tries to ensure that the range of policy views on various subjects are presented to the president in a fair and even-handed way.” In an interview with Hult’s co-author, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, Kavanaugh said it was important that he maintain “strict neutrality and impartiality” in bringing disagreements about the wording of proposals or decisions to the president.