“Justice”, a documentary that premiered Friday exclusively at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, is poised to reveal more about sexual assault allegations tied to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
During the confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh, who was appointed to the court by former President Donald Trump in 2018, allegations that he sexually assaulted women were revealed. Even so, he was sworn in as a justice of the nation’s highest court.
“Nearly all of America was transfixed by Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, alleging then-Supreme-Court-nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the summer of 1982,” said a summary of the film. “While many Americans remember Ford’s allegations, not as many know about Deborah Ramirez, who came forward during the nomination process with her own story of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh during their time as Yale classmates.”
According to a review of the film in The Hollywood Reporter, the documentary “goes into considerable detail indicating that Kavanaugh’s circle got to other Yale alumni who were present at the incident and intimidated them into silence.”
This premiere was “big news” in part due to “the fact that its existence had been kept under wraps for more than a year, with all participants signing NDAs,” said the Reporter.
The review also references that the existence of a “text chain” indicates the Supreme Court nominee may have “perjured himself in testimony” about Ronan Farrow’s New Yorker piece regarding Ramirez’s allegations.
While The Hollywood Reporter did not believe the film contained many bombshells about Kavanaugh, it said the “most substantial piece of new evidence” from “Justice” is testimony from Max Stier, the founding president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service.
“He states in a recording that he witnessed sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh during a drunken dorm party involving another woman, who chose to remain anonymous after seeing how Ford was treated,” said the outlet. “Again, the FBI declined to follow up on Stier’s allegations.”
Indeed, the Reporter said that the film’s production and investigative team “deserve credit for shining a light on the extent to which the FBI were puppets of the Trump government, severely limiting their investigation, ignoring the vast majority of relevant information gathered on a tip line and providing only a handful of Kavanaugh-related documents to the White House.”
For example, it said that “it’s startling, for example, that no attempt was made to interview Ramirez or the other Yale alumni seen here with incriminatory recollections of Kavanaugh.”
Doug Liman, known for films such as the “Bourne” franchise and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” directed the film, his first documentary. It was produced by Amy Herdy.
“With harrowing accounts, disturbing revelations, and shockingly direct lies from a man who now sits with a lifetime term on the highest court in the land, ‘Justice’ is a portrait of a broken, corrupt system and the brave citizens who still feel duty-bound to tell their story,” said the film’s Sundance description.
Liman and Herdy said after the film’s premiere that they hope that it might trigger action and lead to “a real investigation with subpoena powers,” the Reporter said.
According to Collider, select films from the Sundance Film Festival will be available online beginning Jan. 24 to Jan. 29.
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