Talk:Brett Kavanaugh

Semi-protected edit request on 25 February 2026

Change "one of whom later recanted her story" to "one anonymous". According to the USA Today reference, the allegation was never recanted, only a claim of being the author of the anonymous letter. Mevsherd (talk) 18:03, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

Not acting on this yet, but I took a look at the source, which confusingly says,

After she was tracked down and interviewed by Senate investigators, the woman recanted and said she was not, in fact. the author and had never met Kavanaugh.

I don't understand how you can both deny being the author, and recant (which implies authorship) at the same time. That combined with the crucial punctuation error means I don't think this is a usable source for this statement at all, and I'm inclined to just remove the mention, period. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 23:05, 25 February 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand what this means. "This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request." The article suggests the person making the allegation retracted it, which isn't what happened. Mevsherd (talk) 17:47, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

Why was my edit on this reverted, without explanation? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mevsherd (talk • contribs) 01:45, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

User:StalkerFishy reverted your edit; perhaps they can explain? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:48, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I only reverted the original unexplained changes. I am open to hearing suggestions as how to best reflect the convoluted nature of each accusation. The sources included state the following:

Grassley, in a letter to the Department of Justice and FBI, said a woman by the name of Judy Munro-Leighton took resaponsibility for authoring an anonymous letter that made allegations that Kavanaugh and a friend raped her. After she was tracked down and interviewed by Senate investigators, the woman recanted and said she was not, in fact. the author and had never met Kavanaugh.

Investigators got in touch with her over the phone and Munro-Leighton admitted she wrote the email after seeing the "Jane Doe" letter in news reports. She said she claimed to be Jane Doe so the letter would gain attention, "I was angry and I sent it out," the woman told investigators, according to Grassley's letter, but in fact did not write it.

And from the referenced Grassley letter:

Then, on October 3, 2018, Committee staff received an email from a Ms. Judy Munro-Leighton with a subject line claiming: “I am Jane Doe from Oceanside CA -- Kavanaugh raped me.”

In short, during the Committee’s time-sensitive investigation of allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, Ms. Munro-Leighton submitted a fabricated allegation, which diverted Committee resources. When questioned by Committee investigators she admitted it was false, a “ploy,” and a “tactic.”

In short, Judy Munro-Leighton admitted to writing the letter and reiterated her accusation of rape against Kavanaugh. She later recanted her authorship of the letter as well as her accusation. If we want to detach her association from the letter, a more accurate description would read something like "Four other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, one anonymous, and another whom later recanted her story." But this feels needlessly protracted. In addition, Swetnick has also somewhat recanted her claim against Kavanaugh as detailed later in the article. I'm not sure if that means the line should now change to ""Four other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, one anonymous, and two of whom later recanted their story." StalkerFishy (talk) 12:48, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

The original change was not "unexplained." It is discussed above. Somebody made an anonymous allegation, which has never been withdrawn. Somebody falsely claimed authorship of the anonymous allegation, and then admitted she wasn't the author. The article misleadingly suggests the original allegation was withdrawn. This was all discussed above. Mevsherd (talk) 01:30, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

It was not discussed. You requested a specific change. Another user responded saying they didn't agree with you and instead preferred to remove the mention entirely. You then went ahead and made the change. I reverted that change because it was not sufficiently explained or justified.

The article states the allegation was withdrawn, which it was. But it was withdrawn by someone who later said they didn't make that specific allegation, and instead made another one. Please review the two draft changes I recommended in my comment above.

Figuring out how many accusations were made, who made them, and which were recanted is a messy task. As I'm reading through this article again, the Swetnick allegation has also been largely walked back, albeit not fully recanted. I'm unsure how/if that detail should be included as well.

Again, I'm happy to have a conversation about how best to characterize all of this.

StalkerFishy (talk) 11:42, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

That is not an accurate description of the discussion beginning this section. In any case, three allegations were made by victims, One was anonymous, and there was a brief distraction when somebody falsely claimed to be the author of the anonymous one. The article currently misleadingly suggests the anonymous allegation was withdrawn. There was also a 4th allegation of misconduct observed but not by someone directly subjected to it (Swetnick).

No final conclusions were reached regarding any of the allegations:

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/11/fbi-didnt-reach-conclusion-on-kavanaugh-accusations/ Mevsherd (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

What changes are you proposing? It's difficult to encapsulate into a sentence or two these five(?) allegations and their subsequent changes.

Three other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, including allegations that were not corroborated and one that was later withdrawn.

Brevity is important in the introduction, so this change highlights each of the accusations that is detailed later on in the article. The problem I see with it is, like you noted earlier, it conflates the Jane Doe accusation with the JML accusation. Since JML took ownership of the Jane Doe letter but later recanted and said she was not the Jane Doe author, I'm unsure if this counts as a separate accusation.

StalkerFishy (talk) 13:28, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

The first sentence of this discussion, and the change I made: Change "one of whom later recanted her story" to "one anonymous". Mevsherd (talk) 14:55, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

The source clearly states JLM recanted her story. Whether she was the original Jane Doe or not, it doesn't change the fact that she recanted. You can take a stab at reworking the sentence, as I did in my previous comment, but your suggested edit doesn't improve clarity.

StalkerFishy (talk) 15:20, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

The recanted "story" is that she was the author of the allegation, not the allegation itself. This article suggests otherwise.

I don't think the false claim of authorship is very significant: it created a distraction for a month or two. Regardless, if it is in this article, it shouldn't be misrepresented as a withdrawal of the anonymous allegation. Mevsherd (talk) 15:26, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

So you're saying JLM recanted her authorship of the Jane Doe letter, but not her accusation of rape against Kavanaugh? I don't read that at all in the source. StalkerFishy (talk) 15:41, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

No, that is simply not what I said. The anonymous author never recanted anything. This article suggests otherwise. Thus, the article misleads the reader. Mevsherd (talk) 03:04, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

Do you mind if I restore my edit? Mevsherd (talk) 15:15, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I do mind. There is no consensus for the change you're proposing, and as I've detailed before it does not improve the readers understanding of the source material. Those sources explicitly state that JLM recanted her accusation and authorship of the letter. The introduction section reflects the content that follows in the article. You can propose propose a change that better articulates each accusation, but you can't change something that is clearly established in the sources.

StalkerFishy (talk) 15:49, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Jane Doe did not recant her accusation. JLM withdrew her claim of being Jane Doe.

If you are counting JLM as an accusation separate from Jane Doe, then this sentence is wrong: "Three other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, one of whom later recanted her story." In your accounting, there were four other accusations: Swetnick, Ramirez, JLM, Jane Doe. The bottom line is that there are currently three unrecanted accusations, and the article suggests there are two. Mevsherd (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

I mentioned this in previous comments already. You can look over my suggestions here and here.

You keep saying JLM didn't recant her accusation, but the sources still say otherwise.

Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-Leighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter.

StalkerFishy (talk) 17:01, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

"You keep saying JLM didn't recant her accusation" I did not say that. You are just continually misrepresenting what I said. Mevsherd (talk) 17:41, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

How about changing "Three other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, one of whom later recanted her story" to:

"There were three other alleged incidents of sexual misconduct, one reported anonymously"?

We could simply change "three" to "four" in the original, since you insist on treating JLM as a separate allegation, but I think that misleadingly suggests there were four alleged incidents. Mevsherd (talk) 03:26, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

You've already proposed that change before, which does not better reflect the body of the article. Changing the original from three to four could work, but the body of the article would need to support the change as well. Perhaps something like this?

Three other women also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct; one later altered her account, while a separate claimant recanted after falsely presenting herself as an anonymous accuser.

StalkerFishy (talk) 12:34, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

I didn't propose that change before. Please note that the new element is to change it to the number of alleged incidents, instead of number of alleged accusers, since the number of incidents is less ambiguous. JLM did not allege a new incident, merely falsely claimed authorship pf an anonymous one.

Your proposal seems misleading, but I'm not sure what you mean by "one later altered her account." This is misleading for the reasons previously discussed: "a separate claimant recanted after falsely presenting herself as an anonymous accuser." You can't recant what you didn't write.

I now agree with this comment: " I don't think this is a usable source for this statement at all, and I'm inclined to just remove the mention, period." I'm inclined to make the edit agreed upon by 2/3 of participants. Mevsherd (talk) 22:23, 30 April 2026 (UTC)

The "one later altered her account" is in reference to Swetnick, as detailed in the body. The "a separate claimant recanted after falsely presenting herself as an anonymous accuser" is about JLM. The sources given clearly state that JLM withdrew her allegation against Kavanaugh AND ownership of the Jane Doe letter. These are JLM's own words:

My name is Jane Doe, from Oceanside CA. I am sharing with you the story of the night that Brett Kavanaugh and his friend sexually assaulted and raped me in his car. Here is the letter that I sent to Sen. Kamala Harris on Sept. 19 with details of this vicious assault. The Senate Judiciary Comm had a phone interview on Sept. 26 with Kavanaugh to ask him about my letter.

I refuse to allow Donald J. Trump to use me or my story as an ugly chant at one of his Republican rallies. I know that Jane Doe will get no media attention, but I am deathly afraid of revealing any information about myself or my family. I watched in horror as Trump vilified Dr. Blasey-Ford. I will not allow this abuse to be directed toward me.

She very clearly:

1. Details her accusation of rape against Kavanaugh
2. Takes ownership of the previous Jane Doe letter

The source goes on to say:

Eventually, on November 1, 2018, Committee investigators connected with Ms. Munro-Leighton by phone and spoke with her about the sexual-assault allegations against Judge Kavanaugh she had made to the Committee. Under questioning by Committee investigators, Ms. Munro-Leighton admitted, contrary to her prior claims, that she had not been sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh and was not the author of the original “Jane Doe” letter.

She very clearly:

1. Admits she was not raped by Kavanaugh
2. Was not the author of the Jane Doe letter

StalkerFishy (talk) 15:16, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

We've been over all this. JLM does not allege a new incident. She falsely claimed she was the author of a previous and anonymous allegation. Jane Doe did not recant her allegation. Thus, the story of the alleged incident has never been recanted. JLM withdrew her claim of being the author; she cannot recant a letter she did not write, and did not try. The media headline is misleading. So, the article currently misinforms the reader. I agree with Deacon Vorbis: " I don't think this is a usable source for this statement at all, and I'm inclined to just remove the mention, period" Thus, there is an agreement of 2 editors. Mevsherd (talk) 16:17, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

@StalkerFishy The question was why did you revert the edit without an explanation. You also reverted the intervening change. Mme Maigret (talk) 09:25, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 July 2026

...he emigrated from (not immigrated from). Emigrate from, immigrate to. ~2026-39748-61 (talk) 01:36, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for catching that. Station1 (talk) 07:04, 14 July 2026 (UTC)

Sexual misconduct

Brett Kavanaugh was accused of attempted rape by Dr. Christine Ford. She testified under oath that he attempted to rape her when she was 15 years old and he was 17 years old. She passed a lie detector test. Kavanaugh refused to take a lie detector test ~2026-42294-02 (talk) 15:12, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

We know. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:55, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 July 2026

Sexual misconduct: Brett Kavanaugh was accused of attempted rape by Dr. Christine Ford. She testified under oath that he attempted to rape her when she was 15 years old and he was 17 years old. She passed a lie detector test. Kavanaugh refused to take a lie detector test. Juliannath (talk) 15:25, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want made. Please detail the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. – Muboshgu (talk) 15:56, 30 July 2026 (UTC)