Journalist Bob Woodward was set to reveal that now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh was a source in a book he wrote more than 20 years ago, until he was talked out of it by a Washington Post editor, The New York Times reports.
Woodward was writing a piece scheduled to be published in October 2018 that would have exposed Kavanaugh as an anonymous source for his 1999 book "Shadow: Five Presidents and the Legacy of Watergate."
At the time the book was being written, Kavanaugh worked as a lawyer on independent counsel Ken Starr's team in its investigation of President Bill Clinton.
The article would have come out as Kavanaugh was going through his Supreme Court confirmation hearings, which were already contentious. Kavanaugh was facing allegations of sexual misconduct.
Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron asked Woodward not to identify Kavanaugh as his anonymous source because it would be “"bad for Bob" and the newspaper, The New York Times reports.
That’s because Kavanaugh penned a letter to The Washington Post in 1999 that directly contradicted what Woodward would have published in his article, according to the newspaper.
Ultimately, Woodward’s 2018 outing of Kavanaugh did not run per Baron’s request, according to the New York Times.
Woodward is known for his investigative reporting of Watergate.
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