Justice Doug Limans Explosive Sundance Doc Reexamines Sexual Assault Allegations Against Brett Kavanaugh; Filmmakers say new tips are pouring in

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Director Doug Liman said his self-funded documentary about Brett Kavanaugh Justice, which premiered at Sundance on Friday night, may be far from done as new advice started pouring in within half an hour of the announcement of the top-secret project on Thursday.

I thought the movie was over, I thought I was off the hook. I’m at Sundance, I thought, I can sell the movie, Liman said sadly during a Q&A after the world premiere of his debut documentary, which revisits sexual assault charges against the judge in Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh raised during his confirmation hearings in 2018. The film follows advice the FBI apparently ignored in an investigation launched after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her during a a party in 1982 when they were both high school students in Maryland.

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Justice is paying close attention to the allegations of another woman, Deborah Ramirez, who also came forward amid the hearings to say that in 1983 a drunk Kavanaugh, then a freshman at Yale University, had exposed himself to her during a gathering of several young people on campus.

CAA is handling sales of what immediately became the hottest acquisition title at the first in-person Sundance since 2020. Justice premiered to a packed theater with an enthusiastic response. The documentary had been kept secret and only announced as part of the lineup at the opening press conference a day earlier.

Perhaps the film’s most explosive revelation is the FBI’s failure to act on a tip from Max Stier, another Yale student at the time Ramirez and Kavanaugh attended school, who said he was told of a similar alleged incident involving Kavanaugh exposing himself to another female student. The film includes a tape-recorded statement from Stier, one of 4,500 tips to an FBI hotline that was set up after Ramirez and Blasey Ford came forward.

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Liman said the filmmakers had yet to receive any blowback, but he felt the filmmakers and interviewees in the film were at risk of retaliation during the filming of Justice, hence the need of extreme secrecy which extended to requiring everyone involved in the film to sign NDAs.

The machinery that is set against anyone who speaks, we knew the machinery would be turned against us, Liman said. The film would not have been shown at Sundance, there would have been an injunction if word had been leaked in advance.

Producer Amy Herdy, also at the Q&A, investigated other personalities accused of sexual misconduct, including Woody Allen in the 2021 documentary series Allen v. Farrow, and music industry mogul Russell Simmons in the 2020 doc On the Record. Academy Award-winning Dan Cogan and Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Liz Garbus produced the film, along with Liman. Cogan and Garbus production company Story Syndicate produced the film.

Herdy said she hoped the film would spark outrage and an investigation with subpoena powers.

Blasey Ford appears briefly in the opening minutes of the film. Excerpts from his dramatic testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee serve to tell his story. Liman said he didn’t include a new on-camera interview with Blasey Ford because she did her part. She has more than done her part for this country. She’s done enough for 10 lives.

In a statement released after the festival announced the documentary’s premiere, Liman said, “It shouldn’t be that hard to have an open and honest conversation about whether a Supreme Court justice assaulted or not many women in his youth. Thanks to this fantastic team of investigators and the brave souls who shared their stories with us, Justice picks up where the FBI’s investigation of Brett Kavanaugh failed miserably. The film examines our judicial process and the institutions that underpin it, highlighting the bureaucratic missteps and political power grabs that continue to have an outsized impact on our nation today.

President Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July 2018 to succeed retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. The Senate Judiciary Committee conducted Kavanaugh’s initial confirmation hearings Sept. 4-7. On September 16, The Washington Post published an explosive report that Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they were both teenagers in Bethesda, Maryland.

In an excerpt from FBI Director Christopher Wray’s congressional testimony that is seen in the film, the G-man admits that information received about Kavanaugh was shared with the Trump White House. The film ends with Vice President Mike Pence announcing the 50-48 Senate vote that confirmed Kavanaugh’s lifetime Supreme Court nomination.

The doc notes that Kavanaugh declined to comment on the filmmakers. He has previously flatly denied all the allegations.

Among Kavanaugh’s most significant decisions since joining the court was his vote last year to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. He was joined in the 6-3 decision by other Tories, including Amy Coney Barrett who was upheld in court in 2020.

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