Brett Kavanaugh’s letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Brett Kavanaugh’s letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee was a written defense issued during the dispute over allegations against him and the procedures for considering them. The available account establishes its date, recipient, and purpose, placing the letter within a contest over both the allegation and the process by which it would be examined.

Procedural Context

Before the letter’s release, Christine Blasey Ford’s team had requested an FBI investigation, while the FBI declined to reopen Kavanaugh’s background check. The committee and Ford’s lawyers were negotiating the terms of a hearing, including who would participate. Ford’s team pressed for Mark Judge to testify in person; instead, the committee accepted written statements from Judge and P. J. Smyth, who said they did not recall the party Ford described. The letter appeared against this unsettled procedural backdrop.

The Letter

On September 24, 2018, Kavanaugh released a letter addressed to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The contemporaneous account characterizes it as a defense of himself. It does not detail the letter’s individual arguments, so its significance here rests on its form and intended audience: Kavanaugh put a written response before the committee at a moment when the allegations and the hearing’s terms were under active dispute.

Place in the Dispute

The letter belongs to a wider exchange in which allegations, witness accounts, and procedural choices shaped what the committee could consider. Earlier, the committee had accepted written denials from two men Ford identified as connected to the party, rather than requiring them to appear in person. Kavanaugh’s letter added his own written defense to that record. Its release marks a documented step in his response, but the available account does not establish how committee members assessed it or what effect it had on their eventual decision.