So there's some hints floating around about why the GOP won't release Kavanaugh's records. The TL;DR is that Kavanaugh could have served as a conduit between the White House and the DOJ legal counsel office that created the illegal surveillance and torture programs after 9/11.
While Kavanaugh claimed ignorance of the surveillance program, he was definitely interested and involved in the topic a week after 9/11, based on an email he sent to John Yoo, who eventually laid the legal foundation for both programs.
And a couple of months later, he's sending a message to Ed Whelan, who works for the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel where John Yoo and David Addington work (assumed to be the "Addington" in this email).
A few years later, when the surveillance program was up for renewal, and a bunch of people (including both Comey and Mueller) threatened to resign if it was renewed (as they considered it illegal), how did Ed Whelan let the White House know what was happening? Kavanaugh. 
That last is from the book "Days of Fire" about the Bush/Cheney White House. Along with this little tidbit:
John Yoo received the brunt of the blame for the programs, but anyone who was connected to these programs is considered tainted. If Kavanaugh had a hand in this, that would be bad to start with, but at this point (if he had a hand in it) he has lied to Congress about it.
It's interesting to note that when I say "White House" above, I mean Cheney not Bush. Bush was kept in the dark about the refusal to renew the surveillance until the very last moment. By which time, he felt that if a dozen staff all resigned he'd be impeached.
So far, this is just three pieces of information that suggest Kavanaugh is connected to the surveillance program. There's no absolute smoking gun. But there is definite smoke, enough that we MUST have the documents that are being withheld.
P.S. The people who were forming a "shadow government" under Cheney behind Bush's back then, are the same people who according to that NYT op-ed are now forming a "shadow government" to protect us from Trump.
Not reassuring.
Not reassuring.
Addendum: the "Days of Fire" author Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) attributed his claim that Whelan emailed Kavanaugh to another book, Angler by Barton Gellman (@bartongellman). Gellman says that Whelan claimed he didn't know the reason for the resignation threats.
If true, this would mean the message doesn't make Kavanaugh's testimony perjury. But of course there's no way to know if Whelan was being honest with Gellman, who says Whelan made this in an email to Gellman several years later.
It's hard for me to believe that either of these people woudn't know the context. Whelan was deputy to Jack Goldsmith, who headed the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, under which Addington and Yoo worked. And Kavanaugh was basically gatekeeper to White House access.
I would sure love to see that email message from Whelan to Kavanaugh, if it still exists.
Since writing this thread I've also read Comey's description of the events. Comey says that neither Whelan nor Kavanaugh were read in on the surveillance program. Everyone is in agreement that they were not supposed to know about it.
But the connections in the early part of the thread do suggest that Kavanaugh could have played a hand in developing the legal justifications for the program. There's no smoking gun, but people should keep asking questions about it and poking around for more evidence.
