Update
“At another point, Liman uses text message exchanges from Kavanaugh’s fellow Yale classmates to suggest that Kavanaugh was worried that sexual assault allegations against him, including Ramirez’s account, might resurface months before Farrow’s article came out and the confirmation hearing. That in itself offers proof that Kavanaugh perjured himself when he claimed to have found out about Ramirez’s accusation only after reading about it in The New Yorker. But it doesn’t do anything more, which might have been a possibility had “Justice” been the kind of explosive documentary it wanted to be, capable of triggering outrage and relaunching an investigation. All it does in its current form is remind us that everything we knew about The White House-enabled cover-up of Kavanaugh’s crimes is true.” A later report from theplaylist.net gives this trending story a bit more context. The text messages would be additional proof of perjury and the possibility that Kavanaugh’s Republican handlers at the time had knowledge of the accusations. This would implicate them in the Kavanaugh lie before Congress and suggest that the accusations at least should have sparked a Republican vetting prior to the hearings.
Stay tuned.
The report that “Justice” a documentary about Brett Kavanaugh’s drunken and criminal youth premiered at Sundance last night. The film takes us back to the Supreme Court Justice’s time at Yale where he is alleged to have attacked another woman in a drunken, sexual rage which is eerily reminiscent of the charges brought by Christine Blasey Ford in her testimony in 2018 accusing the prep school perp of attempted rape. The film was covertly produced and self-funded by its director, Doug Liman. The documentary was based upon the reported tip by another Yale student at the time who witnessed the alleged attack and reported his first-hand account to the FBI at the time of Kavanaugh’s nomination hearing:
Perhaps the most explosive revelation in the film is the FBI’s failure to follow up on a tip from Max Stier, a fellow Yale student during the time Ramirez and Kavanaugh attended the school, who said he was told about a similar alleged incident involving Kavanaugh exposing himself to another female student. The film includes a tape recorded statement from Stier, one of 4,500 tips to an FBI hotline that was set up after Ramirez and Blasey Ford came forward.
— Deadline, ‘Justice,’ Doug Liman’s Explosive Sundance Doc, Reinvestigates Sexual Assault Allegations Against Brett Kavanaugh; Filmmakers Say New Tips Pouring In. By Jill Goldsmith, Matthew Carey January 20, 2023 10:40pm
The documentary was shrouded in secrecy as Liman feared political forces that could destroy the project:
Liman told the crowd at the Park Avenue Theater at Sundance that it was crucial to keep production of the film a complete secret, recognizing in the course of making it that “the machinery that was put into place to prevent anyone from speaking out” could eventually be turned on them and the subjects involved. Liman appeared on stage with producer Amy Herdy, who explained that everyone who participated signed an NDA, and that codenames were even provided for the film’s subjects. They said “Justice” would never have come to fruition were it not for this caution.
“There would’ve been some kind of injunction. This film wouldn’t have been showing here,” Liman said.
— Indiewire.com
The film debuted in front of a small crowd that included members of the press. It is, in part, a recounting of Ms. Ramirez’s story in The New Yorker by Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer in which Ramirez states that she encountered Kavanaugh at a party at Yale in 1983:
“Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”
The piece in The New Yorker contained a full denial of Ramirez’s account by Kavanaugh. The tape of Stiers’ reported tip— among the more than 4500 tips received by the FBI— is a damning addition to both Ramirez’s and Blasey Ford’s stories that were dismissed at the time. The FBI refused to investigate any of the tips and reportedly passed them on to the White House. Stiers who refused to be included in the film was present during the assault and had reported it to several friends, his wife, and to the FBI.
The Kavanaugh revelations in Justice come at a time in which SCOTUS has come under renewed scrutiny after the failure to find the source of leaks to the court’s Roe decision authored by Samuel Alito. This is a developing story as Liman has reported numerous tips have come forward since the Sundance event last evening.