Grassley Refers New Case Of Alleged False Statements To The Justice Department From the Kavanaugh Hearings

I have previously written about the mutually assured destruction that could await the two parties if they pursue alleged false statements related to the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings.  Now, however, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley referred a new possible target for indictment to the Justice Department and this referral could prove a strong case for such an indictment.  My objections in the prior column concerned difficulty in proving intentional false statements over the description of habits or incidents occurring decades earlier.  However, the letter from Grassley details alleged admissions from Judy Munro-Leighton that she knowingly lied in claiming to be a previously identified “Jane Doe” and to have been raped repeatedly by Kavanaugh in the backseat of a car.

She is accused of  “materially false statements” and “obstruction”. Grassley is citing the type of evidence that would worry any defense counsel.

Grassley says that the “Jane Doe” letter provided to Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Cal.) was promptly investigated: “Given her relatively unique name, Committee investigators were able to use open-source research to locate Ms. Munro-Leighton and determine that she: (1) is a left-wing activist; (2) is decades older than Judge Kavanaugh; and (3) lives in neither the Washington DC area nor California, but in Kentucky.”

He alleged that she “admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by … Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original ‘Jane Doe’ letter . . . When directly asked by Committee investigators if she was, as she had claimed, the ‘Jane Doe’ from Oceanside California who had sent the letter to Senator Harris, she admitted: ‘No, no, no. I did that as a way to grab attention. I am not Jane Doe . . . but I did read Jane Doe’s letter. I read the transcript of the call to your Committee. . . . I saw it online. It was news.”

If she wanted to “grab attention,” she succeeded.  The more dangerous claim would be false statements to any congressional or federal investigators.  It is not clear what false statement preceded her reported admission. The letter reads that the original letter lacked any name or address and was vehemently denied by Kavanaugh. It added:

Judy Munro-Leighton appears to live in Kentucky and is 70-years-old. As discussed by Heavy.com, a 2005 Washington Post article described Judy Munro-Leighton as a history teacher and an organizer of protests against the Iraq War. The letter makes out a prima facie case for false statements to Congress.  Obstruction may be more difficult to prove but the false statement charge is a favorite of prosecutors because it treated as cut-and-dry type of charge by jurors and judges alike.