William Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing on January 15, 2019. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM)

At a private ceremony Thursday morning, U.S. Attorney General William Barr presented one of the Justice Department's most prestigious awards to a group of government lawyers who supported Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018, a contentious confirmation process that became embroiled in allegations of sexual misconduct.

The ceremony came a day after a public event at DAR Constitution Hall, a venue near the White House, where other recipients of the Attorney General's Award for Distinguished Service were honored for their work on significant prosecutions last year. Lee Lofthus, a Justice Department leader who has served since 2006 as assistant attorney general for administration, said during Wednesday's ceremony that the Kavanaugh team would be honored Thursday at the Justice Department.

The Justice Department awards ceremony is a widely attended annual event, drawing career and political leaders—and their staff—from across divisions. Lawyers are honored on stage by name and pose for photographs with the attorney general, along with other Justice Department leaders. Ten DOJ lawyers were honored publicly in 2017 for their work on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

A Justice Department official said the Kavanaugh honorees, including more than 25 political appointees and career lawyers, were not presented with their awards during Wednesday's public ceremony because of time restrictions for the event.

Among the Justice Department lawyers awarded for their support of Kavanaugh's nomination was Assistant Attorney General Beth Williams, the head of the office of legal policy, which traditionally takes a leading role advancing Supreme Court nominations. Her top deputy, Mark Champoux—along with lawyers from various divisions of the Justice Department and career prosecutors  from U.S. attorneys' offices in Massachusetts, New Mexico and California—also received the distinguished service honor.

During the private awards presentation Thursday, held on the top floor of the Justice Department, Barr also recognized lawyers who were detailed to the White House during Kavanaugh's confirmation process, including deputy assistant attorneys general James Burnham and Michael Murray. Those lawyers were ineligible for the distinguished service award because they had been detailed to the Trump White House.

Thursday's private ceremony, like the public one held a day before, was emceed by Claire McCusker Murray, a top Justice Department official who helped shepherd Kavanaugh through the confirmation process last year while serving as a Trump White House lawyer. Murray, a former Kirkland & Ellis partner who clerked for Kavanaugh during his tenure on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, left the White House earlier this year to become a top adviser to Barr. In May, she was named principal deputy associate attorney general, a role that has given her broad oversight of the Justice Department's civil cases, including litigation in defense of Trump administration policies.

The distinguished service honor, the Justice Department's second highest, is customarily given to lawyers involved in significant prosecutions. At Wednesday's public ceremony, it was awarded to teams that dismantled a transnational sex trafficking ring, pursued hackers backed by North Korea and prosecuted members of violent street gangs in New York, in what the Justice Department described as the "largest gang takedown" in the city's history.

When President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court last year, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asked prosecutors to help review the records from the judge's government service, including his time as a White House aide for George W. Bush and as a lawyer in the independent counsel investigation of President Bill Clinton.

In a program for Wednesday's awards ceremony, the Justice Department lawyers involved in Kavaugh's nomination process were praised for displaying "exemplary leadership, organization, coordination, and professionalism." The team produced more than 440,000 pages to the U.S. Senate and responded to more than 1,200 questions in "just three days," the Justice Department said.

"The recipients completed an unprecedented amount of work under demanding, extraordinary, and unprecedented circumstances, maintaining the highest standards of excellence, commitment and civility," the Justice Department said.

Brett Kavanaugh Brett Kavanaugh walks along the hallways of the Russell Senate Office Building on July 11, 2018. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM)

Kavanaugh's confirmation was nearly derailed by a California college professor's allegation that the judge had sexually assaulted her when the two were teenagers living in the Washington suburbs. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh denied the allegations and said his confirmation process had become a "national disgrace."

In 2017, then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly honored the lawyers and staff that worked on the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Those distinguished service honorees included Laurence Rothenberg, a deputy assistant attorney general; senior counsel Ryan Higginbotham; and Lola Kingo, nomination counsel in the office of legal policy. Another nominee, Patrick Bumatay, has been nominated for a seat on the Ninth Circuit.

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