Brett Kavanaugh urged independent counsel Kenneth Starr and other lawyers on his staff to take a tough line regarding President Bill Clinton’s behavior. | Cliff Owen/AP Photo Kavanaugh proposed graphic questions for Bill Clinton during Starr probe

A memo Brett Kavanaugh wrote two decades ago containing graphic detail about President Bill Clinton’s conduct with Monica Lewinsky became public Monday, showing the Supreme Court nominee was adamant that independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s team had a responsibility to “make his pattern of revolting behavior clear.”

Two days before Clinton testified to a grand jury via a video feed from the White House, Kavanaugh urged Starr and other lawyers on his staff to take a tough line regarding the president’s behavior, according to the memo released by the National Archives and Records Administration.


The 33-year-old lawyer said the investigators had a truth-seeking function distinct from determining whether Clinton broke the law. The memo also is full of his moral judgment of the president’s conduct.

The release comes as special counsel Robert Mueller is negotiating with the White House over a possible interview with Donald Trump in his investigation into whether the president’s 2016 campaign aided Russia in its efforts to intervene in the election.

“The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is ... abhorrent to me," Kavanaugh wrote in the two-page memo, which was sent to Starr and all other attorneys on his staff on Aug. 15, 1998. “The President has disgraced his Office, the legal system, and the American people by having sex with a 22-year-old intern and turning her life into a shambles — callous and disgusting behavior that has somehow gotten lost in the shuffle. ... He has tried to disgrace you and this Office with a sustained propaganda campaign that would make Nixon blush.”

Kavanaugh’s tone in the memo could fuel questions at his confirmation hearings about whether Starr’s prosecution went beyond an investigation of criminal conduct, evolving into a moral crusade against Clinton.

“He should be forced to account for all of that and to defend his actions,” Kavanaugh added in a bold font. “It may not be our job to impose sanctions on him, but it is our job to make his pattern of revolting behavior clear — piece by painful piece — on Monday.”

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The memo goes on to list 10 questions he proposed for Clinton, six of which are explicit and several of which are extraordinarily graphic.

Among the questions:

“If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions in the Oval Office area, you used your fingers to stimulate her vagina and bring her to orgasm, would she be lying?”

“If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions you had her give oral sex, made her stop, and then ejaculated into the sink in the bathroom of the Oval Office, would she be lying?”

“If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan in your secretary’s office, would she be lying?”

Kavanaugh’s views on whether Starr should discuss Clinton’s conduct in graphic detail appear to have varied, even around the time he wrote the memo. Later that same month, Kavanaugh wrote to colleagues that he was concerned with the volume of explicit content in a report to Congress that Starr was preparing.

“IS IT TOO GRAPHIC?” Kavanaugh asked in an Aug. 31, 1998 memo to Starr aides. “SHOULD IT BE MORE GRAPHIC (kidding)?”

Later that year, Kavanaugh expressed regret that Congress published the whole report, including the sexually explicit portions. He defended the content of the report but seemed to view its disclosure as a public relations debacle for Starr’s team.

“We did not intend or have reason to know that Congress would simply dump the referral onto the Internet without even reviewing it,” Kavanaugh wrote in a Feb. 5, 1999, missive to current and former Starr aides. “I believe we have done a very poor job of communicating to the public on this issue. ... I personally believe it unfortunate (for Ken, the Office, all of us individually, the case, the Presidency, and the public) that the entire body of the referral was publicly released before it had been reviewed and redacted by the House of Representatives.”

Kavanaugh later would argue that Congress should make the president immune from both civil lawsuits and criminal investigations while still in office.

Brian Fallon of Demand Justice, a Democratic activist fighting Kavanaugh’s nomination, said Monday that the explicit August 1998 memo highlights how the nominee’s views have evolved in favor of greater deference to the presidency.

“It sure is odd how Brett Kavanaugh had such detailed questions in mind for Bill Clinton, but now apparently thinks it is improper for a president to even be asked about foreign meddling in our elections,” he said.

Portions of the graphic memo written before the grand jury appearance were first revealed by author Ken Gormley in a 2010 book, “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr.” However, the document was not published in its entirety until Monday, when it was released by the National Archives along with other Kavanaugh-related files from Starr's office.

The records are part of a broader set of documents Democrats and Republicans are tussling over in advance of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, set to begin Sept. 4.

A statement from the Archives said the memo was made public in papers at the Library of Congress belonging to Sam Dash, an ethics adviser to Starr who died in 2004.