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Jeffrey Epstein sympathized with Brett Kavanaugh during the then-supreme court nominee’s contentious 2018 confirmation and even suggested Republicans should have been harder on Christine Blasey Ford, who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Emails and text messages released by the Department of Justice show Epstein was closely monitoring the confirmation and seemed to believe that Ford’s allegation of sexual assault could derail the process.
Epstein told one person, whose name was redacted, on 22 September 2018 “Ive sat in Kavanaugh chair. Im thinking of November.” The meaning of the November reference is not clear.
Epstein called the pending judiciary hearing “a trap!”, adding “Iye [sic] been through many of these. MANY!! She will cry, make sordid allegations. Say she feels bullied, fearful, traumatized. Every thing bad in her life was s result of the rape attempt. Suffered anxiety! Her relationships with men etc. this is a very special skill set needed.”
Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University who grew up in the Washington DC suburbs, delivered gripping and harrowing Senate testimony on 26 September 2018, in which she alleged under oath how a “visibly drunk” Kavanaugh had pinned her on a bed, groped and grinded against her, and tried to take off her clothes during a gathering in the summer of 1982. Both were teenagers.
Ford said she believed Kavanaugh was going to rape her, and covered her mouth to muzzle her screams before both toppled over and she was able to escape the bedroom. Kavanaugh denied Ford’s allegations. The all-male Republican senators judiciary committee had appointed a female prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, to essentially cross-examine Ford, a decision that Epstein called a huge mistake.
He wrote to an unidentified person on 27 September 2018: “horrible choice of prosecutor woman. critical and maybe lethal mistake. . prosecutors don’t cross examine. they prosecute.. power on their side . she should have been a criminal defense attorney.”
He then rattled off a series of questions he seemingly believed Ford should have been asked instead, including whether there was a “history of anxiety” in Ford’s family, whether lights were on in the bedroom, if Ford had seen Kavanaugh again, and probing how Ford got away from the party.
Ford had introduced her testimony by explaining that she could not recall certain details of that day, but that the alleged assault was clear in her memory. In another message, Epstein said Ford should have been asked about how “therapist notes” allegedly differed from her account.
Asked about her view of the messages, Lisa Graves, a Democrat who formerly served as chief counsel for nominations at the Senate judiciary committee, said it was “appalling to see a sexual predator weighing in this way against a woman who courageously testified about a man at the precipice of one of the most powerful posts in the country”.
“It is shocking in part because you have this person who was at the center of efforts to abuse young women and girls and you have an adult woman testifying how she was allegedly treated by Kavanaugh and his friend, at an age when she was still a girl,” Graves said.
There is no evidence in the files that Kavanaugh knew or met Epstein. But Epstein was in frequent contact with Kenneth Starr, the late former US solicitor general and independent counsel who led an investigation into Bill Clinton’s relationship with then-intern Monica Lewinsky and other scandals. Kavanaugh served as an associate to Starr during the investigation into Clinton.
Starr, who died in 2022, was a close personal friend and professional contact of Epstein, and was the key lawyer who helped Epstein clinch a plea agreement in 2008, which is how Epstein avoided federal sex-trafficking charges and served a reduced sentence.
On 23 August 2018, Epstein appeared to ask Starr about a report that was to be released about Kavanaugh and the Starr investigation. Starr responded: “No writing for now. The release should be a non-event for Brett. I get criticized in one portion of the report, but no finding of illegality.”
On 26 August 2018, Epstein wrote to Starr and said he had just read the Kavanaugh “disclosure”, which Epstein said reminded him of “what a genius” Starr was at his job. It is not exactly clear what Epstein was referring to, but about a week earlier, on 20 August 2018, a memo released by the National Archives and Records Administration provided new details about Kavanaugh’s role on Starr’s team during the Clinton investigation. Kavanaugh’s memo said Starr’s team had a responsibility to “make [Clinton’s] pattern of revolting behavior clear”, and included a list of graphic sexual questions he thought Clinton should be asked.
A few weeks later, on 17 September 2018, Kathy Ruemmler, who said this week she would step down as general counsel of Goldman Sachs in June, sent Epstein a note asking whether he saw that “Beth W” was representing Kavanaugh, a reference to Beth Wilkinson.
Earlier emails seem to also indicate that Kavanaugh was Epstein’s favorite to be nominated by Donald Trump. Epstein and Starr traded messages about it on 4 July 2018, days before the news was official, and Epstein called Kavanaugh his “first choice”.
