“Republican efforts to make this the least transparent, most secretive Supreme Court nomination in history continue,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Friday in a statement. “They seem to be more frightened of this nominee’s record and history than any we’ve ever considered.”

Before he joined the Bush White House, Judge Kavanaugh spent more than four years working as one of Mr. Starr’s deputies investigating Mr. Clinton’s White House. The documents released Friday by the National Archives show that he was aggressive in pursuit of the president, and also deeply aware of the vitriolic criticism that was being leveled at Mr. Starr and the other lawyers on the investigation.

In a separate memo by Judge Kavanaugh written in early February 1999, he laments that the independent counsel’s office is being excoriated for the explicit details about Mr. Clinton’s sex acts with Ms. Lewinsky that were included in the report to Congress five months before.

Judge Kavanaugh writes to the other lawyers in the office that it was House leaders who decided to publicly release the entire Starr report — including the explicit narrative — without even reading it first.

“I believe we should never express any regret over the contents of the referral itself, as the referral simply summarized, organized and analyzed the relevant evidence,” Judge Kavanaugh wrote.

“We can and should express regret over how Congress handled the referral,” he added. “We can safely also express regret that we did not do more at the time to jump in front of the train and to try to prevent the House from immediately and publicly releasing all of the details.”

Judge Kavanaugh was responsible for drafting the “grounds for impeachment” section of the Starr report, according to lawyers who worked in the office. Others worked on developing the more explicit narrative that included details about the sex acts between the president and his intern.