Democrats blast FBI as new details of Kavanaugh inquiry emerge
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A group of Democratic senators are demanding more answers from the FBI after the agency revealed new details about the limited scope of its supplemental investigation into the background of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
In a June 30 letter to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., and Chris Coons, D-Del., made public Thursday, Jill Tyson of the FBI’s congressional affairs office acknowledged the department only conducted 10 additional interviews during its supplemental investigation into Kavanaugh, despite receiving over 4,500 tips.
Tyson said “relevant tips” from phone calls and messages were forwarded to the White House counsel’s office. It’s unclear what became of the tips after that.
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Whitehouse, who had written FBI Director Christopher Wray for details about the inquiry back in July of 2019, said, “This long-delayed answer confirms how badly we were spun by Director Wray and the FBI in the Kavanaugh background investigation and hearing.”
While Wray has said the FBI followed tip line procedures, “he meant the ‘procedure’ of doing whatever Trump White House counsel told them to do. That’s misleading as hell,” Whitehouse tweeted.
A spokesperson for the FBI declined comment. Former White House counsel Don McGahn did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment.
Then-President Donald Trump tasked the FBI with doing a supplemental background probe into Kavanaugh at the urging of some Republican senators after his 2018 nomination to the high court was endangered by sexual misconduct allegations dating back to his high school and college years. Kavanaugh repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
“As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week,” Trump said at the time.
Republicans said the subsequent FBI report vindicated Kavanaugh, while Democrats maintained it was incomplete. NBC News reported at the time that over 40 people with potential information into the sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh had not been contacted by the FBI.
The Senate confirmed his nomination in a narrow 50-48 vote.
Lawyers for the Kavanaugh accuser who testified at his confirmation hearing, Christine Blasey Ford, said in a statement that the new FBI letter confirmed the agency’s investigation was “a sham and a major institutional failure.”
“Because the FBI and Trump’s White House Counsel hid the ball on this, we do not know how many of those 4,500 tips were consequential how many of those tips supported Dr. Ford’s testimony, or how many showed that Kavanaugh perjured himself during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee,” said the attorneys, Debra S. Katz and Lisa J. Banks. “Our nation deserved better.’