The New York Times and the Associated Press have filed public-records requests for emails sent by the wife of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh during her tenure as a local town manager.
The Maryland public-records request, obtained by the conservative political-advocacy group America Rising Squared, specifically seeks emails sent or received by Ashley Kavanaugh containing politically charged words such as “gun,” “abortion,” and “gay,” among others.
Mrs. Kavanaugh, who previously served as the personal secretary to George W. Bush, is currently the Chevy Chase, Md. Section 5 town manager.
The Associated Press records request foregoes the Times’s specificity, instead seeking “all emails sent or received” by Mrs. Kavanaugh during her time in office.
Mr. Kavanaugh, a two-time Yale graduate who previously served as a federals appeals-court judge, has come under recent scrutiny for his service in the George W. Bush White House, where, his critics allege, he may have been involved in crafting the legal underpinnings for the CIA’s enhanced-interrogation program. He has denied under oath having had any knowledge of the legal work done to justify the CIA program.
The High Court nominee has also endured criticisms of his spending habits, after it was revealed that he racked up thousands of dollars in short-term credit-card debt purchasing Washington Nationals season tickets for a group of friends who later reimbursed him.
Prominent Democrats have cast the battle over Kavanaugh’s confirmation in epic terms. Earlier this week, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said anyone who supported his confirmation was “complicit in evil.”
“I’m here to call on folk to understand that in a moral moment there is no neutral. In a moral moment there is [sic] no bystanders,” Booker told the crowd gathered at his Tuesday Capitol Hill press conference. “You are either complicit in the evil, you are either contributing to the wrong, or you are fighting against it.”