Brett Michael Kavanaugh (/ˈkævənɔː/ KAV-ə-naw; born February 12, 1965) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President Donald Trump on July 9, 2018, and has served since October 6, 2018. He was previously a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and worked as a staff lawyer for various offices of the federal government of the United States. Kavanaugh studied history at Yale University, where he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He then attended Yale Law School, after which he began his career as a law clerk working under Judge Ken Starr. After Starr left the D.C. Circuit to become the head of the Office of Independent Counsel, Kavanaugh assisted him with investigations concerning President Bill Clinton, including drafting the Starr Report recommending Clinton's impeachment. After the 2000 U.S. presidential election—in which he worked for George W. Bush's campaign in the Florida recount—he joined the Bush administration as White House staff secretary and was a central figure in its efforts to identify and confirm judicial nominees. Bush nominated Kavanaugh to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 2003. His confirmation hearings were contentious and stalled for three years over charges of partisanship. Kavanaugh was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit in May 2006. Two law professors performed an evaluation of Kavanaugh's appellate court decisions in four separate public policy areas for The Washington Post. It found he had been "one of the most conservative judges on the D.C. Circuit" from 2003 to 2018. President Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court on July 9, 2018, to fill the position vacated by retiring associate justice Anthony Kennedy. Later in July, Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in the early 1980s. Three other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, one of whom later recanted her story. None of the accusations were corroborated by eyewitness testimony, and Kavanaugh denied them. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a supplemental hearing over Ford's allegations. Afterward, it voted 11–10 along party lines to advance the confirmation to a full Senate vote. On October 6, the full Senate confirmed Kavanaugh by a vote of 50–48, with one Democrat voting to confirm and one Republican in opposition but not voting. Since the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, Kavanaugh has come to be regarded, along with Chief Justice John Roberts, as a swing vote on the Court. Kavanaugh became the "median justice" of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 according to a study by professors at three prominent law schools and published by the National Academy of Sciences. After voting in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen and Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, he was the target of an assassination attempt in June 2022; the suspect had hoped to disrupt potential rulings on the two cases.
