Brett Kavanaugh was concerned with his Federalist Society membership in 2001, emails show
By Annie Grayer
Updated 1:03 PM ET, Sun August 19, 2018
Washington (CNN)In an email chain addressed to two of his colleagues in March 2001, Brett Kavanaugh, then associate counsel to President George W. Bush, complained to his colleagues about recent press reports characterizing him.
"While you cannot possibly respond to every false statement in the press reports," Kavanaugh wrote, "you may want to (or at least have the press office do so) point out obvious whoppers to some of these reporters/writers." There were two "whoppers" Kavanaugh was referring to.
The first, was that the press was claiming multiple members of the Bush administration had worked for Ken Starr at the Office of the Independent Counsel, when, according to Kavanaugh, he was the only one. And the second was the notion that he was still a member of the Federalist Society, when he claimed to have resigned.
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In the email chain Kavanaugh wrote, "the reason I (and others) resigned from Fed society was precisely because I did not want anyone to be able to say that I had an ongoing relationship with any group that has a strong interest in the work of this office."
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Despite what he told colleagues in 2001, when Kavanaugh filled out his Senate Judiciary Questionnaire on July 20, 2018, he wrote that he had been a member of the Federalist Society since 1988 without any gaps in membership.
A source close to Kavanaugh attempted to rectify the discrepancy by confirming that Kavanaugh has been a member of the Federalist Society since 1988 "save for a brief lapse at the beginning of his time in the White House Counsel's Office," although the source could not specify an exact time frame. The source said that Kavanaugh canceled his membership early on in his career at the White House when he was under the impression that it was proper procedure to cancel the membership. According to the same source, once Kavanaugh learned that he could continue his membership, he renewed.
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https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/19/politics/brett-kavanaugh-federalist-society-emails/index.html
