Long-Secret Report on Leaks From Starr Inquiry May Be Released

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the release of a long-secret report that could shed light on whether lawyers working for Ken Starr, the independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton, violated the law in disclosing information to news organizations.

Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, was among the lawyers in Starr’s office, which was accused by Clinton’s lawyers of violating grand jury secrecy rules. It is not known whether Kavanaugh, now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, was named or criticized in the 1999 report.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth, of the U.S. District Court in Washington, ordered the National Archives to release the report by Friday afternoon.

The Justice Department, in a court filing on Wednesday, told Lamberth it did not object to the release of the report, which it said “investigates allegations of wrongdoing but ultimately finds no violations.”

“With the exception of redactions to protect the privacy of one individual discussed in the report — an individual who is not Judge Brett Kavanaugh — and subject to the ordinary review process of the National Archives, the government does not object to the report’s unsealing,” the Justice Department’s filing said.

The report, from a special master appointed by a federal judge, has been the subject of extraordinary secrecy. American Oversight, a liberal watchdog group, asked for its release last week, saying that “Judge Kavanaugh’s potential involvement” in misconduct “is a matter of great public importance and current national debate.”

Only four copies were prepared, and until recently their whereabouts was unknown. In a court filing Tuesday, lawyers for American Oversight said the National Archives had recently located a copy.

The report was prepared by a special master appointed in 1998 by Judge Norma Holloway Johnson of the U.S. District Court in Washington in response to complaints from lawyers for Clinton and others that Starr’s team had violated the law by disclosing information protected by grand jury secrecy rules.

Johnson, who died in 2011, said at the time that there was reason to think Starr’s team had violated the law by providing information to journalists for many news reports, including some in The New York Times.

She appointed a special master, Judge John Kern, who sat on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, a local court, to investigate. He died in January.

According to a 1999 filing, Kern prepared “exactly four copies of his report,” retaining two and delivering one each to Johnson and to a lawyer for Starr’s office. The report was not filed in court.

Nonetheless, a Newsweek article citing confidential sources soon reported that Kern had been critical of the conduct of some members of Starr’s team but stopped short of concluding they had broken the law.

Johnson was not pleased. “The special master’s report was to be kept strictly confidential and under seal,” she wrote. “The court was deeply disturbed to discover that the existence and substance of the special master’s report was leaked to the press.”

Democrats said the report could provide important information about Kavanaugh.

“We know Ken Starr played a dangerous game of using the news media to prosecute his case in the court of public opinion, and we know that Brett Kavanaugh was an important part of Starr’s team,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. “This report may show us whether Kavanaugh stepped over a critically important line for all prosecutors.”