August 8, 2018
Senator Charles Grassley
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
135 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Dianne Feinstein
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Re: Senate access to records relevant to Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination
Dear Chairman Grassley and Ranking Member Feinstein,
As organizations committed to open government and accountability, we are concerned by reports
of incomplete requests for access to government records related to the nomination of Judge Brett
Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. We are concerned that the curtailed document requests will
hinder the Senate’s ability to fully assess Judge Kavanaugh’s background and qualifications and
makes an assumption of privilege without requiring the White House to assert a claim. We believe it
is the role of the White House to assert privilege claims over documents, not the role of the Senate
Judiciary Committee to save them the trouble. The Senate’s decision on whether to confirm a
Supreme Court nominee has vast and long-lasting ramifications for the nation, and it is vital that
senators from all parties are able to request and access the documents they need to make that
decision.
In the case of Judge Kavanaugh, it appears that senators belonging to the majority party are using
outside channels to secure preferential access to records and to determine which documents will be
released, and therefore have undue influence over both the Senate’s and the public’s perceptions of
the nominee. Minority senators are being denied the right to request documents related to Judge
Kavanaugh, while Majority senators appear to have access to documents via former President
George W. Bush’s personal access to his presidential library. This process gives an unfair advantage
to senators supporting Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, at the expense of a fully transparent process
that allows for full disclosure and scrutiny by all voting lawmakers.
Senator Grassley, we support you in your fight to ensure that all senators are able to conduct
oversight of the executive branch and request information from federal agencies.1 We believe the
same principle should hold true for requests under the Presidential Records Act. Even if an
individual Senator may not act as a committee, the Chair has the authority to include both majority
and minority requests for documents in his own request. We ask that, for the sake of the Senate’s
1

“Grassley Wins Commitments of Cooperation from Administration on Oversight Requests,” July 28, 2017,
available at: https://bit.ly/2ABMcr4.

 ability to fulfill its constitutional role, you work to ensure that the George W. Bush Presidential
Library and Museum provides the Senate Judiciary Committee with the documents requested in the
July 31 letter from Democratic senators.2 Senator Feinstein, we also ask that you and all Democratic
senators commit to honoring Republican requests for documents should they hold the majority in
the future.
In order for the Senate to fulfill its constitutional “advice and consent” responsibility, senators from
both parties must have equal access to all documents relevant to a nominee, in as timely and
complete a manner as possible. Both Senator Feinstein’s and Senator Grassley’s letters to Archivist
David Ferriero illustrate unequal access is a problem that spans administrations, and we are calling
on the committee to rise above partisan politics in order to ensure that all senators are adequately
informed prior to making a decision on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme
Court.3
Thank you for your attention to these requests. For more information, please contact Lisa
Rosenberg at Open the Government, lrosenberg@openthegovernment.org or 202-332-6736.
Sincerely,
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
American Oversight
Campaign for Accountability
Center for Media and Democracy
Center for Victims of Torture
Defending Rights & Dissent
Demand Progress
Electronic Privacy Information Center
Human Rights Watch
Liberty Coalition
National Coalition Against Censorship
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
National Security Archive
Open the Government
Project On Government Oversight
Sunlight Foundation

2

Letter to George W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum, July 31, 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2Aq13oi.
Letters to Archivist David S. Ferreiro from Senator Feinstein, July 27, 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2M3hBY8;
Letter from Senator Grassley, July 30, 2018, available at: https://bit.ly/2KmOcmv.
3