moldyoldy

The F.B.I. said some of the 4,500 tips it received about Justice Brett Kavanaugh were given to the Trump White House, leading some Democrats to call the process a sham.

A group of Democratic senators is pressing the F.B.I. for more information about how it worked with the Trump White House on the background investigations into Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
A group of Democratic senators is pressing the F.B.I. for more information about how it worked with the Trump White House on the background investigations into Justice Brett Kavanaugh.Credit...T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York Times

By Kate Kelly
July 22, 2021, 11:39 a.m. ET
Nearly three years after Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh’s tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the F.B.I. has disclosed more details about its efforts to review the justice’s background, leading a group of Senate Democrats to question the thoroughness of the vetting and conclude that it was shaped largely by the Trump White House.

In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh’s past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear.

The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads. The agency was conducting a background check rather than a criminal investigation, meaning that “the authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters did not apply,” the letter said.

Ms. Tyson’s letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, posing questions about how the F.B.I.’s review of Mr. Kavanaugh was handled.

In an interview, Mr. Whitehouse said the F.B.I.’s response showed that the F.B.I.’s handling of the accusations into misconduct by Mr. Kavanaugh was a sham. Ms. Tyson’s letter, Mr. Whitehouse said, suggested that the F.B.I. ran a “f**e tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.”

Mr. Whitehouse and six of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the F.B.I.’s letter on Wednesday with demands for additional details on the agreement with the White House that governed the inquiry. They also pressed for more information on how incoming tips were handled.

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“Your letter confirms that the F.B.I.’s tip line was a departure from past practice and that the F.B.I. was politically constrained by the Trump White House,” the senators wrote. Among those signing the letter were Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the committee’s chairman, Mr. Coons and Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Donald F. McGahn, the White House’s general counsel at the time, and the F.B.I. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Former President Donald J. Trump has long taken credit for Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation, which was almost derailed over allegations by a California professor that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her during a high school gathering in the early 1980s.

Despite widespread concern over the claims — which were followed by other allegations of sexual misconduct, all of which Mr. Kavanaugh has consistently denied — Mr. Trump steadfastly backed the judge. He deployed Mr. McGahn to shepherd Mr. Kavanaugh through the unusually fraught confirmation, which culminated in a heated, daylong hearing in September of 2018.

Both Christine Blasey Ford, the professor who said she was assaulted, and Mr. Kavanaugh were grilled by Senators on the Judiciary Committee.

In a recent interview with the author Michael Wolff, Mr. Trump put his handling of Justice Kavanaugh into stark terms, asking “Where would he be without me? I saved his life.”

But in addition to offering shows of support, the Trump White House carefully controlled the investigations into Mr. Kavanaugh’s past. After Dr. Ford came forward, Mr. Trump’s staff tried to limit the number of people the F.B.I. interviewed as part of that probe. Only after an outcry from Democrats over the president’s approach did the administration say the agency could conduct a more open investigation.

Ultimately, 10 witnesses were interviewed by the F.B.I., according to the F.B.I.’s recent letter. Dr. Ford and Mr. Kavanaugh themselves were never interviewed by the F.B.I.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who signed Wednesday’s letter to the F.B.I., called the process “an injustice in fact orchestrated by the White House under Donald Trump, an injustice that frankly was a disservice to the F.B.I.”

Kate Kelly is a business reporter, covering big banks, trading and key financial-policy players. She is also the co-author of “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh” and the author of “Street Fighters.” @katekelly
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/22/us/politics/kavanaugh-fbi-investigation.amp.html

FarOutWest

A portion of Senator Grassley's letter to AG Barr and FBI Director Wray October 8, 2019:

'For example, one of the referrals related to an individual from Rhode Island who falsely alleged to Congress that Judge Kavanaugh had assaulted a friend on a boat, only to later admit on social media that he lied about the event. Two referrals related to allegations made by Mr. Michael Avenatti and his client, Ms. Julie Swetnick, who accused Judge Kavanaugh of being involved in gang rape activities. The Committee identified no verifiable evidence to support the allegations. The Committee found that Mr. Avenatti, who has since been convicted on felony extortion charges, and his client, Ms. Swetnick, had a long history of credibility issues and may have criminally conspired to mislead the Committee regarding those allegations and obstruct its investigation. A final referral related to Ms. Judy Munro-Leighton, a woman who claimed to be the author of an anonymous letter stating that Judge Kavanaugh and a friend raped her “several times each” in the back seat of a car. Ms. Munro-Leighton later admitted that she falsely claimed that she was the author of the letter and its allegations and only claimed authorship of the letter “as a way to grab attention.” (Ms. Munro-Leighton is 18 years older than Mr. Kavanaugh and lived in Kentucky at the time of her allegations while Mr. Kavanaugh lived in Maryland).
These false allegations materially impeded the Committee’s work and diverted important Committee resources during its time-sensitive investigation.'

A correction- Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut and Vietnam War veteran and hero, who signed Wednesday’s letter to the F.B.I., called the process “an injustice in fact orchestrated by the White House under Donald Trump, an injustice that frankly was a disservice to the F.B.I.”

moldyoldy

The crazies always come out, but the most credible were not allowed to be interviewed. The FBI could not talk to new witnesses.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

More f**e BS about Kavanaugh.

moldyoldy

Right, trump protected him from the investigation. He thought that he was bought and paid for with that.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

BS. Not one witness could corroborate another. Biggest joke in confirmation history.

Rose42

The most credible crazies not allowed to speak?

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

They were pulling crazies out of the wood work. It was a joke and the democrats looked like pure stupidity trying to bring more.

moldyoldy

The question now is, what will the FBI do now after they failed to investigate it.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has now admitted that it failed to investigate even the most "relevant" of the 4,500 tips it received during an investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, then a Supreme Court nominee, now a Supreme Court justice. That was in response to a two-year-old letter from Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Coons. "We apologize for the extended delay in responding," says Assistant Director Jill C. Tyson.

Which is problem No. 1 for the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Whitehouse and Coons are members: the FBI and Director Christopher Wray. Wray was the original recipient of the Aug. 19, 2019 letter from the senators. A letter which was ignored until June 30, 2021. Wray was the person ultimately responsible for how the FBI handled the background investigation with that "tip line," which ended up apparently just being a dumping ground. Whitehouse and Coons first pressed Wray on this in a July 2019 hearing.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

I say investigate. Put Schiff on it, and Pelosi! Let their stupidity shine!

moldyoldy

With trump gone, the shackles are off of the FBI.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

They should go for it!