RSN: FOCUS: Charles Pierce | The FBI's Brett Kavanaugh Probe Always Smelled Like a Sham

 

 

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FOCUS: Charles Pierce | The FBI's Brett Kavanaugh Probe Always Smelled Like a Sham
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "A new report from the New York Times suggests those instincts were correct."

nyone who sat through the extended hearings into the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court realized that the whole business was completely off at its center. Christine Blasey Ford was so believable that the blasts of outrage from the likes of Lindsey Graham, and from the nominee himself, smacked of ludicrous overkill, particularly since they had the votes to confirm him unless they found his fingerprints on the Lindbergh baby. When Kavanaugh angrily asked Senator Amy Klobuchar if she’d ever been blackout drunk—even if he didn’t know about her father’s alcoholism—he made Clarence Thomas’ evocation of a “high-tech lynching” sound like calm, reasoned parliamentary rhetoric. He sounded guilty as hell, and even some of the Republicans, especially then-Senator Jeff Flake, suspected the same.

And when the Senate Judiciary Committee ordered up an FBI investigation at the last minute, it seemed like a transparent attempt to run out the clock and, if the New York Times is correct, it was even more of a bag job than it appeared.

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.

The Democrats on the committee haven’t quite gotten over the surreality of the whole thing.

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 “fake 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. “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.

It’s nice to have your reportorial instincts validated, even ex post facto. But it does make you wonder about what other secrets the new management at DOJ and the FBI will find. And about lying to Congress, now that I think about it.

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Details on FBI Inquiry Into Kavanaugh Draw Fire From Democrats

Kate Kelly 

Tbu Jul 22, 2021 

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh speaks at the Federalist Society's Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner during the organization's National Lawyers Convention in Washington, Nov. 14, 2019. (T.J. Kirkpatrick/The New York Times)

Nearly three years after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the FBI 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 FBI assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into 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 FBI 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.

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

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

Whitehouse and six of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the FBI’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.

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

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

Former President Donald Trump has long taken credit for Kavanaugh’s confirmation, which was almost derailed over allegations by a California professor that 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 Kavanaugh has consistently denied — Trump steadfastly backed the judge. He deployed McGahn to shepherd 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 Kavanaugh were grilled by senators on the Judiciary Committee.

In a recent interview with author Michael Wolff, Trump put his handling of 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 Kavanaugh’s past. After Ford came forward, Trump’s staff tried to limit the number of people the FBI 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 FBI, according to the FBI’s recent letter. Ford and Kavanaugh themselves were never interviewed by the FBI.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who signed Wednesday’s letter to the FBI, called the process “an injustice in fact orchestrated by the White House under Donald Trump, an injustice that frankly was a disservice to the FBI.”

Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, the lawyers who represented Ford, said in a statement that the nation “deserved better” when it came to the inquiry into Kavanaugh.

© 2021 The New York Times Company