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KEY POINTS Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and members of his team worked behind the scenes to refute an allegation of sexual misconduct before it surfaced in The New Yorker last month, according to text messages obtained by NBC News.

The existence of the messages, which have not been independently obtained by CNBC, is striking.

Kavanaugh has testified, under oath, that the first time he learned about the accusation was in "in the New Yorker story" that was published Sept. 23.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and members of his team worked behind the scenes to refute an allegation of sexual misconduct before it surfaced in The New Yorker last month, according to text messages obtained by NBC News. The text messages were exchanged between two friends of the judge. They reveal that Kavanaugh had personally discussed an allegation from former Yale University classmate Deborah Ramirez before it was made public. Ramirez claims Kavanaugh drunkenly exposed himself to her at a party decades ago. In one message, one of those friends says Kavanaugh asked her to publicly defend him. The messages, which have not been independently viewed by CNBC, are striking because Kavanaugh has testified under oath that the first time he learned about the accusation was in "in the New Yorker story" that was published Sept. 23. The federal appeals court judge has also criticized Ramirez for "calling around to classmates trying to see if they remembered" the incident before she came forward with her accusation. The messages were sent between Kerry Berchem, a lawyer and former Yale University classmate, and Karen Yarasavage. Berchem, a partner at the law firm Akin Gump, told NBC News that she had reached out to the FBI multiple times, on Sunday and Monday, but had not heard back. Last Friday, President Donald Trump ordered the FBI to reopen its background investigation into Kavanaugh after key Republicans made that a contingency for moving the nomination to a full Senate vote. The president directed the agency to complete its investigation in a week. "I have not drawn any conclusions as to what the texts may mean or may not mean but I do believe they merit investigation by the FBI and the Senate," Berchem told NBC in a statement. The FBI declined to comment Tuesday morning.

In a memo obtained by NBC that outlined her conversations with Yarasavage, Berchem suggests that there may be a number of witnesses who could have relevant information. Berchem also writes that Kavanaugh "and/or" his friends "may have initiated an anticipatory narrative" as early as July to discredit Ramirez — months before Kavanaugh said he first became aware of the accusation. A spokesperson for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which voted last week along party lines to advance Kavanaugh's nomination to the full Senate, denied that anything in the text messages contradicted Kavanaugh's sworn statements. George Hartmann, a spokesman for the committee's chairman, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told NBC News that "the texts from Ms. Berchem do not appear relevant or contradictory to Judge Kavanaugh's testimony." The White House has not responded to a request for comment. Kavanaugh has vigorously denied Ramirez's allegation, as well as two others that have surfaced in recent weeks. He has alleged that the accusations are part of a "smear" campaign motivated by political revenge. Kavanaugh, a longtime judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, served in the White House under President George W. Bush and worked in the Office of the Independent Counsel investigating President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s. The judge and his conservative supporters have blasted Democrats for what they say is an 11th-hour attempt to discredit the president's nominee.