2002 Book Depicts Brett Kavanaugh Calling Hillary Clinton a “Bitch”

David Brock is a former Republican political operative of vicious ‘90s stripe—among his credits is sabotaging Anita Hill’s reputation during the Clarence Thomas hearings—turned Hillary Clinton devotee. He’s now the head of several centrist Democrat-oriented PACs, and ran “Correct the Record,” which tried desperately to push a pro-Hillary message across social media while undermining Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump during the 2016 election. But back in 2002, Brock wrote a book called Blinded By the Right in which he detailed his time in the trenches for the right wing before his great conversion. In that book, on page 306, he describes receiving an invitation to watch Bill Clinton’s Jan. 1997 State of he Union Address at Laura Ingraham’s house.

Brock writes:

As I arrived at the house, which was decied out in an oversized southwestern motif more appropriate for a bachelor’s mountain hideaway, the network cameras were comig on. When I saw one of Ken Starr’s deputies, Brett Kavanaugh, who was sitting across from me, mouth the word “bitch” when the camera panned to Hillary, I excused myself and asat in the darkened pine-scented dining room alone, smoking.

Brock referenced that passage recently in an essay for NBC News in which he urged senators who care about U.S. democracy to vote “no” on Kavanaugh—not just for his response to Hillary, but for the way he played dirty on Kenneth Starr’s team during the Clinton years, leaking bad information to the press and trying to bolster right-wing conspiracy theories. Brock’s main point is that Kavanaugh is far from objective, and would bring these same ultra-right-wing politics to bear as a member of the Supreme Court.

That essay, though, was written on Sept. 7, five days before the first inklings of Christine Blasey Ford’s letter began to hit the press. Now, that small moment in Laura Ingraham’s house starts to look a little more meaningful—it’s more than some aberration at a party. It’s a continuation of the anti-woman pattern of behavior that is threatening to undermine Kavanaugh’s chances at nomination.