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Obsidian/00.03 News/Inside ‘Justice,’ Sundance’...

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Tag: ["🎭", "🎥", "🇺🇸", "🧑🏻‍⚖️"]
Date: 2023-01-22
DocType: "WebClipping"
Hierarchy:
TimeStamp: 2023-01-22
Link: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/inside-justice-sundance-top-secret-brett-kavanaugh-documentary-doug-liman-deborah-ramirez-1234665450/
location:
CollapseMetaTable: true
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Parent:: [[@News|News]]
Read:: [[2023-01-23]]
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```button
name Save
type command
action Save current file
id Save
```
^button-InsideJusticeNSave
 
# Inside Justice, Sundances Top-Secret Brett Kavanaugh Documentary
*Justice*, director Doug Limans (*The Bourne Identity*) film exploring the allegations of sexual misconduct against the Supreme Court Justice, debuted at the Sundance Film Festival
A collective eyebrow was raised when the [2023 Sundance Film Festival](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/pretty-baby-brooke-shields-child-sexual-exploitation-documentary-sundance-film-festival-1234665366/) announced a last-minute addition to the lineup: *Justice*, a [documentary](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/documentary/) probing the allegations of [sexual misconduct](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/sexual-misconduct/) against [Supreme Court](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/supreme-court/) Justice [Brett Kavanaugh](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/brett-kavanaugh/). That the film marked the first documentary directed by [Doug Liman](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/no-tomorrow-doug-liman-on-the-blockbuster-that-almost-broke-him-62193/), the man behind *Swingers* and *The Bourne Identity*, and was produced by Amy Herdy, an ex-journalist and key researcher for the documentaries *[Allen v. Farrow](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-features/allen-v-farrow-things-we-learned-docuseries-1130833/)* and *[On the Record](https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/on-the-record-movie-review-russell-simmons-hbo-max-943145/)*, only piqued curiosity further. Would the film contain new claims against Kavanaugh beyond what emerged during and around his explosive hearing in front of the [Senate](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/senate/) Judiciary Committee? Or perhaps offer new evidence corroborating the accounts of women whod already come forward against Kavanaugh alleging a range of sexual misconduct, including [Christine Blasey Ford](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/christine-blasey-ford/), [Deborah Ramirez](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/deborah-ramirez/) and Julie Swetnick?
*Justice* debuted on Jan. 20 to a capacity crowd of 295 people at Sundances Park Avenue Theatre, including a few dozen members of the press. Liman made his entire crew sign NDAs and financed the project himself in order to keep it completely under wraps.
And the film raises more questions than it answers.
It opens with Liman seated on a couch across from Christine Blasey Ford, who questions him about why he, a Hollywood director, wanted to make this film. Only the back of Fords head is visible, and she does not appear on-camera again, save archival footage of her powerful testimony. In a post-screening Q&A, Liman said that he chose not to include new footage of Ford in order to spare her the added scrutiny and threats. Swetnick, meanwhile, goes unmentioned.
Most of the films attention concerns Deborah Ramirez, who [told](https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez) *The New Yorker*s Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer that while a freshman at [Yale](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/yale/) in 1983, “Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.” She repeats those allegations during a sit-down interview in *Justice*. (Kavanaugh has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.)
## Editors picks
While the FBI spoke with Ramirez as part of their one-week “limited scope” investigation into Trump nominee Kavanaughs alleged sexual misconduct, ultimately concluding they found “no corroboration of the allegations \[of sexual misconduct\],” leading to the conservative Justices lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, Bureau agents admittedly failed to so much as talk to a number of people who either corroborated her account or had other stories of Kavanaughs behavior at Yale.
The biggest reveal in *Justice* concerns Max Stier, a Yale classmate of Kavanaughs. [According to](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/14/sunday-review/brett-kavanaugh-deborah-ramirez-yale.html) the book *The Education of Brett Kavanaugh*, by *New York Times* reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, Stier, who runs the Partnership for Public Service, a prominent nonprofit (and nonpartisan) organization in Washington, D.C., informed senators and the FBI that he “saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student,” but that the FBI did not follow up with him. *Justice* goes one step further, airing an audio recording of Stiers account, which the filmmakers say was entrusted to them by an anonymous source. (Stier declined to speak to the filmmakers, as did Kavanaugh.)
“This is something that I reported to my wife years ago,” Stier says, before going into detail about how hed heard a story “firsthand” of Kavanaughs friends asking a heavily inebriated young woman to “hold his penis” during a dorm party. He also recalls on the audio an alleged episode hed heard wherein a drunken Kavanaugh attempted to insert his penis into the mouth of a young woman at a dorm party while she was nearly passed out on the floor from drinking.
## Trending
Elsewhere in *Justice*, several Yale classmates of Ramirezs express their frustration with the FBI over failing to interview them, and even suggest that Kavanaughs team was contacting Yale classmates of theirs during the inquiry to try to steer them in his direction. A series of text messages are shown in the film that appear to show Yale classmates of Kavanaughs discussing how members of Kavanaughs circle had contacted them about their recollections with regard to the Ramirez allegations. Since Kavanaugh was adamant that he did no such thing during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the film contends that he committed perjury.
More than anything, though, *Justice* feels like a signal flare for future accusers and witnesses of Kavanaughs alleged sexual misconduct to come forward. The press was informed that the 83-minute version screened at Sundance was not a final cut, and Herdy and Liman told festivalgoers during the post-screening Q&A that theyd received new tips since announcing the documentary on Jan. 19, and that the film — and their investigation — is not yet finished.
 
 
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