Newly revealed police report raises serious questions about Kavanaugh's Senate testimony

A report reveals that police questioned Kavanaugh in 1985 after a bar fight, possibly contradicting his testimony

By Matthew Rozsa

Staff Writer

Published October 2, 2018 9:19AM (EDT)

Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, Sept. 27, 2018. (AP/Tom Williams)
Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill, Sept. 27, 2018. (AP/Tom Williams)

As the FBI carries out its investigation, more reports are coming out from the past of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, and they risk further undermining the judicial aspirant's case for America's highest bench.

On Monday it was reported in The New York Times that Kavanaugh was accused of being in a bar fight as a Yale University undergraduate after he allegedly threw ice on another patron at the establishment. One witness to the fight claimed that after Kavanaugh threw the ice on the patron, his friend Chris Dudley (then a basketball player for the university) threw a glass at the man which hit him in the ear. The supposed incident occurred in September 1985, when Kavanaugh was a junior, leading to Kavanaugh being questioned along with four other men by the New Haven Police Department.

Dudley denied the accusation against him as he was being questioned by police, while Kavanaugh did not want to say whether had thrown ice at another person or not. The incident was characterized by the police as an assault, although the report at the time did not specify whether anyone had been arrested or whether charges had been filed.

The reported incident seems to flesh out an accusation against Kavanaugh based on the recollection of one of his college friends, Chad Ludington. According to Ludington, Kavanaugh and his friends were trying to figure out if a bar patron was actually Ali Campbell, the lead signer of the group UB40 whose concert they had just attended. When the patron objected to being stared at by them, Ludington claims that Kavanaugh threw his beer at him and the guy took a swing at the future Supreme Court nominee. After that, Dudley "took his beer and smashed it into the head of the guy, who by now had Brett in an embrace. I then tried to pull Chris back, and a bunch of other guys tried to pull the other guy back. I don’t know what Brett was doing in the melee, but there was blood, there was glass, there was beer and there was some shouting, and the police showed up."

READ MORE: Psychiatrist Bandy Lee: Trump is getting worse; "I suspect he is unable to tolerate reality"

At his Senate hearing last week, Kavanaugh insisted under oath that Kavanaugh denied that he drank excessively in his youth.

The latest stories about Kavanaugh have come out as the FBI investigation into the judge's background has been increasingly scrutinized, with reports indicating that Trump initially imposed limits on the scope of the bureau's investigation. The notion that the FBI isn't conducting a thorough investigation were reinforced on Monday morning when Kavanaugh's freshman roommate posted on Twitter: "As Brett Kavanaugh's college freshman roommate, I was never contacted by the FBI for any of their background checks. I assume college behavior was not a topic of interest. They did not find Debbie's story because they were not looking for it."

In addition to potentially lying about his past drinking at Yale, Kavanaugh has also been accused of lying about his role working with independent counsel Kenneth Starr on his various investigations into President Bill Clinton.


By Matthew Rozsa

Matthew Rozsa is a staff writer at Salon. He received a Master's Degree in History from Rutgers-Newark in 2012 and was awarded a science journalism fellowship from the Metcalf Institute in 2022.

MORE FROM Matthew Rozsa


Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Alcoholism Brett Kavanaugh Drinking Yale University