“I have good reason to believe there was a conversation,” Sen. Kamala Harris told reporters early Thursday. “Information that I’ve received is reliable and I asked him a clear question and he couldn’t give a clear answer.” Kavanaugh Confirmation Dems dig in on Kavanaugh’s ties to Trump-connected law firm

Brett Kavanaugh sought on Thursday to settle one of the biggest questions of his Supreme Court confirmation hearing, telling Democrats that he has not discussed special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe with anyone at a law firm that’s long represented President Donald Trump.

The clear disavowal from Kavanaugh may put to rest a daylong mystery that began when Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) appeared to rattle the nominee by asking late Wednesday whether he nominee has spoken about Mueller’s investigation with someone at Trump-connected firm Kasowitz Benson & Torres.


Kavanaugh was unable to answer Harris at first, generating one of the confirmation hearing’s most talked-about moments, but he gave more complete “no’s” to Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Harris on Thursday. Before that moment, Democrats have said they have reason to suspect Mueller’s investigation did come up in Kavanaugh’s dealings with someone from Kasowitz – pointing to Edward McNally, a partner at the firm who worked closely with Trump’s high court pick in George W. Bush’s White House.

McNally appears in nearly two thousand of the Bush-era documents released to the Senate from Kavanaugh’s past, according to one Senate Democratic aide.

However, when Harris first posed her question to the nominee Wednesday night, he appeared uncertain if he knew anyone affiliated with Kasowitz.



“I’m just trying to think, do I know anyone who works at that firm?” Kavanaugh said.

Hours later, on Thursday afternoon, Kavanaugh was able to freely name McNally as someone in his orbit. The nominee told Blumenthal that he has not discussed Mueller’s investigation with the Kasowitz lawyer and later told Harris that he hadn’t discussed the probe of Trump with anyone at the firm.

Harris responded by noting that a clearer answer by Kavanaugh would have “put to rest” the issue on Wednesday night.

Earlier in the day, she declined to back away from the seemingly head-scratching in Kavanaugh’s contacts with Kasowitz.

“I have good reason to believe there was a conversation,” Harris told reporters then. “Information that I’ve received is reliable and I asked him a clear question and he couldn’t give a clear answer.”

The longstanding ties between Kavanaugh and McNally, whom Trump personally interviewed for a U.S. attorney position last year, offer no solid proof that Kavanaugh discussed Mueller’s probe with his former colleague. Kavanaugh told senators on Thursday that he has had no “inappropriate conversations about that investigation with anyone.”

McNally served as a speechwriter to former President George H.W. Bush and later worked alongside Kavanaugh in the second Bush’s administration before joining the Kasowitz firm. He offered praise for Kavanaugh for a New York Times story that ran in July. Records released to the Judiciary Committee show that McNally and Kavanaugh were part of multiple internal White House discussions on shaping policy.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) asked Kavanaugh earlier Thursday if he could “rule out the possibility” that he discussed the investigation with anyone at a law firm that has more than 250 lawyers on staff.

“I don’t know who works at that firm, other than a few people I'm aware of just from the public,” Kavanaugh replied, again declining to name McNally at that point. He reiterated a denial of any untoward conversations regarding Mueller’s probe.

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Even if Democrats can summon evidence that Kavanaugh did discuss the Russia investigation with someone at Kasowitz, whether McNally or another lawyer connected to him, the news is unlikely to shake his confirmation prospects.

But as Trump’s legal team vows to fight any potential Mueller subpoena to the Supreme Court if necessary — a matter that Kavanaugh sidestepped questions on – the Democratic gambit is designed to further stoke questions about the nominee’s credibility, particularly when it comes to investigations into the president who chose him.

Another Republican on the Judiciary panel, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, urged Harris and fellow Democrats to share any “specific piece of information” they may have that underpins their belief Kavanaugh may have discussed the Mueller probe with anyone connected to Kasowitz.

“Why wouldn’t you? Unless you wanted to stoke a political narrative, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t,” Tillis said in an interview.

Marc Kasowitz, co-founder of the law firm that bears his name, briefly represented Trump in the Mueller probe last year — and cited a Kavanaugh opinion in a memo to Mueller at that time – and the firm has continued to represent the president in a defamation suit filed against him by a onetime “Apprentice” contestant.

A Kasowitz spokesman on Thursday said that “there have been no discussions regarding Robert Mueller's investigation between Judge Kavanaugh and anyone at our firm.”



