The House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday requested the National Archives produce millions of documents from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s time in President George W. Bush’s administration. Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), chairman of a subcommittee with oversight of federal courts, made the request. Activist groups have long been demanding an investigation into Kavanaugh’s background, claiming the Senate Judiciary Committee failed to carry one out before approving his nomination last year. The committee is seeking Kavanaugh’s records from his time in the White House counsel’s office from 2001 to 2003 and in his role as staff secretary from 2003 to 2006. It is pursuing these records as part of its review of ethics and transparency legislation for the Supreme Court, according to the request letter. The letter further states that the committee’s request also relates to its oversight of judicial misconduct and the organization of the Supreme Court. “This is a critical first step in conducting the real investigation of Brett Kavanaugh that Senate Republicans prevented from happening last year,” Brian Fallon, executive director at Demand Justice, the liberal judicial activist group leading calls for an investigation into Kavanaugh, said in a statement. “We applaud House Democrats for demanding such documents and urge that they be turned over immediately and released to the public in full.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate in October 2018 to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.