Brett Kavanaugh thought Fred Guttenberg, Parkland father, was a protester

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh told lawmakers Wednesday he thought the father of a victim from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was a protester so he didn’t shake his hand during last week’s confirmation hearings.

Judge Kavanaugh’s explanation came as part of written answers to nearly 1,300 questions submitted to him by senators after his week-long hearing.

Among his written answers Judge Kavanaugh defended his 12 years of opinions as a judge on the federal circuit court in Washington, D.C.; refuted allegations he knowingly trafficked in purloined information; and declined to lay out a recusal policy should he be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

The one question on which he was most forthcoming was an inquiry from Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who asked him about a highly publicized encounter at the witness table during a break in the hearings, when he was approached by Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter in the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida earlier this year.

Video of the encounter shows Judge Kavanaugh facing away from Mr. Guttenberg, turning back to face him, then turning around again just as Mr. Guttenberg extended his hand.

“It had been a chaotic morning with a large number of protestors in the hearing room,” Judge Kavanaugh said. “When I turned and did not recognize the man, I assumed he was a protestor. In a split second, my security detail intervened and ushered me out of the hearing room.”

Judge Kavanaugh said he would have shook Mr. Guttenberg’s hand if he had recognized him.

“Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him,” he said.

Judge Kavanaugh faced 1,278 written questions submitted by senators on the Judiciary Committee. That’s more than every previous nominee in history combined, Republicans said.

All but nine of the questions came from Democrats.

For many of his answers, Judge Kavanaugh said he would not discuss hot-topic issues that may come before him either in his current job as a judge, or on the Supreme Court, should he be confirmed.

He also brushed aside complaints about the process by which documents from his years in the Bush White House were processed — though he did admit to having seen some documents marked “committee confidential” in the run-up to the hearing, as part of his preparation for answering senators’ questions.