President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, sought to ask former President Clinton explicit questions about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky while he worked for the independent counsel in 1998.
Kavanaugh wrote in a memo that year that he was “strongly opposed” to giving Clinton a “break” during the counsel’s questioning, according to a document released on Monday.
{mosads}The memo also shows Kavanaugh’s proposed questions, which includes, “If Monica Lewinsky says that you inserted a cigar into her vagina while you were in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?”
Excerpts from the memo had been previously reported on, according to The Washington Post. But on Monday the full memo was released by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Post.
The details come just weeks before Senate hearings will begin for Kavanaugh’s potential confirmation to the Supreme Court.
The memo, written on Aug. 15 and sent to independent counsel Ken Starr, includes the subject line, “Slack for the President?”
“I have tried hard to bend over backwards and to be fair to him and to think of all reasonable defenses to his pattern of behavior,” he writes. “In the end, I am convinced there really are none. The idea of going easy on him at the questioning is thus abhorrent.”
Kavanaugh later writes that Starr’s investigation would be failing its duty if it “willingly” conspired with Clinton “in an effort to conceal the true nature of his acts.”
The memo concludes with 10 proposed questions from Kavanaugh.
Updated at 12:02 p.m.