Kavanaugh's Ken Starr investigation lie

Sen. Dianne Feinstein told POLITICO that she has now identified another area in which she believes Kavanaugh was not truthful in communications with senators. She said that by directing officials to speak to reporters during the investigation of President Bill Clinton, Kavanaugh may have violated grand jury secrecy laws -- even though he told her and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) he never broke those rules.

"According to a memo from the National Archives, Brett Kavanaugh instructed Hickman Ewing, a colleague and deputy counsel in the Starr investigation, to ‘call [Chris] Ruddy’ about matters before a grand jury, which would be illegal to disclose," Feinstein said in a statement to POLITICO. "I asked Judge Kavanaugh in questions for the record whether he had shared ‘information learned through grand jury proceedings.’ His answer, which says that he acted ‘consistent with the law,’ conflicts with the official memo from Mr. Ewing. Disclosing grand jury information is against the law and would be troubling for any lawyer, especially one applying for a promotion to the highest court in the country.”

[...]

It stems from his questioning of grand jury witness Patrick Knowlton, as part of the Starr investigation, about a man Knowlton claimed to have seen in Fort Marcy Parknot long before the body of Clinton White House lawyer Vince Foster was found there in an apparent suicide in 1993.

After being questioned by Kavanaugh in 1995 in front of a Washington grand jury re-investigating Foster's death, Knowlton complained that the young prosecutor asked him inappropriate questions suggesting Knowlton might have been in the park looking to have sex with another man.

"Did the man in the park pass you a note?" Knowlton recalled Kavanaugh asking, later followed by an even more jarring question: "Did the man in the park touch your genitals?"

  Politico

WTF???

Knowlton recounted his version of the questioning to Christopher Ruddy, then a reporter for the conservative Pittsburgh Tribune-Review investigating and often feeding conspiracy theories that Foster was murdered. Ruddy is now the CEO of Newsmax and a close confidant of President Donald Trump. According to records at the National Archives, a couple weeks after the grand jury appearance, Ruddy reached out to Kavanaugh and left a voicemail message saying he was "worried" about what Ruddy was about to report.

"I didn't ask him that," Kavanaugh insisted in a message to Deputy Independent Counel Hickman Ewing, per a memo Ewingwrote. "I did ask him about sexual advances by the other man in the park. [Fellow prosecutor] John Bates and I want you to call Ruddy - at least get him off the genitalia part. I am worried about that."

[...]

Ewing's memo says he contacted Ruddy and told him: "We cannot comment on any questions asked or answers given in the grand jury. It is against the law for us to do so."

However, the Starr deputy acknowledges he went on to indicate to Ruddy that the "genitals" question was never asked.

"I told him that I have been told that Knowlton was not asked the question about 'genitals,'" Ewing wrote, saying that he shared the information "off the record — deep background" with Ruddy's agreement.

[...]

One prominent legal ethics expert, Stephen Gillers, said he considers the disclosure to Ruddy to be a breach of grand jury secrecy.

"There is no 'off the record' exception to grand jury secrecy," Gillers said. "What strikes me about Ewing's memo, including what he said Kavanaugh said, is how casually, even cavalierly they were willing to ignore Rule 6(e). Of course, this assumes Ewing is quoting Kavanaugh correctly."

Gillers, a New York University law professor, said he's baffled why Kavanaugh was so concerned about the precise language used, but that the response he set in motion violated court rules.

"The information disclosed — that 'genitalia' was not used at the grand jury — is trivial and if that were done through a slip of the tongue, it would not be a story. But Ewing made the disclosure after getting an off the record promise and knowing that what he then told Ruddy violated the rule," the professor said. "Kavanaugh asked Ewing to get Ruddy 'off' the use of the word and that required Ewing to violate the rule as he realized."

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Rosenzweig noted that legal complaints over alleged leaks from Starr's operation led to a federal appeals court ruling in 1999 that said grand jury secrecy covers only matters occurring in front of the grand jury or likely to occur there — and not issues like the general direction of the investigation or most activities undertaken by law enforcement agencies.

"What matters is what actually happens in front of the grand jury," [Paul Rosenzweig, a fellow lawyer on the Starr probe] said. "If I tell you the grand jury is not investigating something, that, by definition, is not something happening in front of the grand jury."