Courts

Senator Says What We've All Been Thinking: Brett Kavanaugh Investigation Was 'Fake'

The Senator would like some answers.

By  
on

(Photo by MELINA MARA/AFP/Getty Images)

Sheldon Whitehouse has some questions. And, well, same.

The Democratic Senator from Rhode Island released a letter to newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland about the Judiciary Committee’s oversight of the Department of Justice in four key matters:

review of civil litigation, based on tobacco industry precedent, concerning climate change denial and obstruction by the fossil fuel industry; the cursory and politically constrained FBI investigation of allegations of sexual assault regarding Brett Kavanaugh; the Antitrust Division’s interaction with automakers regarding their California fuel efficiency standards negotiation; and the Department’s failure to investigate apparently false statements made by politically active nonprofit groups to the Internal Revenue Service.

By far the splashiest inquiry is that surrounding now-Justice Kavanaugh. As you’ll recall, his confirmation hearing came to a halt (and then quickly started right back up again) when the sexual assault allegations of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford became public. Since then, questions about how the FBI’s background check could have overlooked such major questions have circulated. But, finally, with Garland in charge of the DOJ, there may actually be someone willing to take action. And Senator Whitehouse would finally like some answers.

After Dr. Blasey Ford came forward and testified, the FBI was contacted by law firms representing other witnesses, but were shut down. As Whitehouse notes:

This was unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI.

Sponsored

And even after a tip line was opened, well, nothing much was done about it — and Whitehouse doesn’t mince words calling out the BS he sees:

After several days with the drawbridge up against evidence or information, the FBI ultimately opened up an entry point for additional allegations and other potential corroborating evidence through a “tip line.” When allegations flowed in through that “tip line,” we received no explanation of how, or whether, those allegations were processed and evaluated.[21] Senators were later given only highly restricted access, over intermittent one-hour windows, to review various materials the FBI had gathered. In addition to showing some cursory efforts to corroborate Dr. Ford’s hearing testimony, our brief review showed that a stack of information had indeed flowed in through the “tip line.”

It did not appear, however, that any review had been undertaken of any of the information that flowed through this tip line. We could get no explanation of the tip line procedures. In 2011, the FBI had posted a video, “Inside the FBI’s Internet Tip Line,”[22] in which the Bureau described procedures for review of tip line information in criminal investigations, for sorting out investigative wheat from the chaff such tip lines customarily produce, and for forwarding credible information appropriately within the Bureau for further investigation. The FBI appears not to have followed these procedures, and the Bureau has repeatedly refused to answer questions from Senate Judiciary Committee members about this matter. This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster.

He also raises the allegation that the entire investigation was “fake,” and if it was an earnest investigation, well, that doesn’t bode much better for the FBI:

If standard procedures were violated, and the Bureau conducted a fake investigation rather than a sincere, thorough and professional one, that in my view merits congressional oversight to understand how, why, and at whose behest and with whose knowledge or connivance, this was done. The FBI “stonewall” of all questions related to this episode provides little reassurance of its propriety. If, on the other hand, the “investigation” was conducted with drawbridges up and a fake “tip line” and that was somehow “by the book,” as Director Wray claimed, that would raise serious questions about the “book” itself. It cannot and should not be the policy of the FBI to not follow up on serious allegations of misconduct during background check investigations.

We can only hope such pointed questions don’t fall on deaf ears, and something finally gets done.

Sponsored

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Topics

, , , , , , ,