Maybe Donald Trump’s relentless attacks on the integrity of the FBI had its intended effect, and the agency was beaten into submission to the will of the president.
How else to explain the slipshod “investigation” that did not include a discussion with either Kavanaugh or Ford or many witnesses who offered to testify but were overlooked.
This was not a thorough investigation, as the public was promised. It is a whitewash intended to give Trump and McConnell what they wanted: the key seat on the Supreme Court that would pave the way to eliminating Roe V. Wade and rolling back civil rights and environmental regulation, while putting in place a compliant justice who doesn’t believe that sitting presidents should ever be prosecuted.
Here’s a list of the people who we know have not been interviewed:
A suitemate of Kavanaugh’s has now told the New Yorker he remembers hearing at the time about the incident Deborah Ramirez has recounted. Ramirez, who has been interviewed, had claimed that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dorm party at Yale. The suitemate, Kenneth G. Appold, now says he is “one-hundred-per-cent certain” that he was told the culprit was Kavanaugh. He does say he never discussed this with Ramirez, but he claims an eyewitness described the episode to him at the time. Appold has tried to share this story with the FBI, but there’s no indication the FBI is willing to hear from him.
A classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Georgetown Prep now strongly challenges one of Kavanaugh’s assertions under oath. The person told the New Yorker that he heard Kavanaugh talk repeatedly about Renate Dolphin as someone “that everyone passed around for sex” (the witness’ words), and even heard Kavanaugh singing a rhyme that included the words “you wanna get laid, you can make it with REE-NATE.” Kavanaugh (and many others) described themselves in their yearbook as a “Renate Alumnius,” but Kavanaugh has denied under oath that this was a sexual reference, claiming, ludicrously, that it was intended to show “affection.”
This classmate is not named by the New Yorker. But he put his name on a statement to the FBI and Judiciary Committee that makes this claim, and he is prepared to talk to the FBI. There is no indication this happened.
James Roche, one of Kavanaugh’s roommates at Yale, has written a piece for Slate that claims Kavanaugh lied under oath about his use of slang and his drinking. Roche claims that Kavanaugh “regularly” blacked out. Roche has offered to talk to the FBI, but there’s no indication this happened.
Roche also pointedly added of Kavanaugh: “He said that ‘boofing’ was farting and the ‘Devil’s Triangle’ was a drinking game. ‘Boofing’ and ‘Devil’s Triangle’ are sexual references. I know this because I heard Brett and his friends using these terms on multiple occasions.” Roche concluded that Kavanaugh “has demonstrated a willingness to be untruthful under oath about easily verified information.”
NBC News reports that the FBI has not contacted dozens of people who could potentially corroborate the allegations against Kavanaugh or testify to his behavior at the time. This includes many people who knew either Ford or Ramirez at the time, and people who actually approached the FBI offering information.
The Post reports that Ramirez’s lawyers provided the FBI with a list of more than 20 people who might have relevant information, but “as of Wednesday, Ramirez’s team had no indication that the bureau had interviewed any of them.”
Blasey Ford’s legal team today put out a list of additional people who have not been contacted by the FBI, some of whom were prepared to corroborate that she had in the past discussed being the victim of a sexual assault by a federal judge.
Neither Ford nor Kavanaugh have been interviewed by the FBI.
As the Brookings Institution’s Susan Hennessey points out: “It is inconceivable they could close a real investigation without re-interviewing Kavanaugh.”
We’ll have to wait to hear from individual senators to learn what the FBI findings, such as they are, tell us about the sexual assault allegations. But whatever that is to be, are the undecided senators — Republicans Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and Democrats Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp — really going to brush off all these new claims, and the restrictions the White House placed on the FBI, lightly?
The FBI did not conduct a fair, impartial and thorough investigation. It conducted a whitewash to please its sponsor: the president.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:
This was not an investigation, it was a farce.
It was a smoke and mirrors show from the git go. Neither Flake, Murkowsky or Collins had any intention of not confirming Kavanaugh. And their “satisfaction” at the rushed FBI probe only confirms this. Probe? More like the monumental shaft. Whether people believe the accusations or not (and I do), what kills me is the bluster, rage, insulting demenor and lack of jurisprudence displayed during his interview/hearing would have disqualified anyone of us from getting considered for a position, let alone hired. It appears that a SCOTUS nominee gets a free pass…
You are so right, Priscilla. If you went for a job interview and behaved as Kavanaugh did, you would have been thrown out.
Red-state Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp says she will not vote for Supreme Court nominee Brett M. K
In an interview with WDAY in North Dakota, Heitkamp said the confirmation process has been bad, but at the end of the day she had to make a decision: “I will be voting no on Judge K.”
Word of her decision came as two Republican colleagues who are swing votes signaled that they found the FBI investigation satisfactory.
The North Dakota Democrat is a key vote as 50 senators are needed to support K’s nomination. Vice President Pence would cast the tie-breaking vote if necessary.
Well, it’s heartening that at least one (the woman, of course) found her soul. Any word on Donnelly and/or Manchin?
dienne77: My girlfriend told me yesterday that Donnelly is voting “No”. I called and left a message thanking him, on the condition that what I heard was correct.
Well, that’s somewhat faith restoring. Thanks!
It was a smoke and mirrors show from the git go. Neither Flake, Murkowsky or Collins had any intention of not confirming Kavanaugh. And their “satisfaction” at the rushed FBI probe only confirms this. Probe? More like the monumental shaft. Whether people believe the accusations or not (and I do), what kills me is the bluster, rage, insulting demenor and lack of jurisprudence displayed during his interview/hearing would have disqualified anyone of us from getting considered for a position, let alone hired. It appears that a SCOTUS nominee gets a free pass…
I just read “Winners Take All,” about how the modern philanthropists do everything but change the circumstances that keep people in poverty. I’ve watched that scion of remarkable privilege, Brett Kavanaugh, have a weeping, spitting meltdown on national television, because he is finally being challenged about something. I’ve read the report about how the Trump family has systematically avoided paying its fair share of taxes.
It doesn’t really take much to wreck a democracy. I think we’re there.
It is so sad that the FBI did not do an impartial investigation, which is what the public expected. I wonder how much influence the White House had in assembling the investigative team?
My post is awaiting moderation. Gee, what did I say that was so risky?
Did you say the “K” word?
I did indeed. Let’s try again without the name…
Now you know. Don’t say Kavanaugh!
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/409775-national-council-of-churches-calls-for-kavanaughs-nomination-to
The National Council,of Churches, the nation’s largest coalition of Christian Churches, came out against Kavanaugh.
The National Council of Churches, which has membership from more than 40 denominations including most major Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations in the U.S., wrote in a statement on their website that they believe Kavanaugh has “disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately.”
The statement cited a number of reasons for the demand, including Kavanaugh’s behavior during his recent testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on sexual assault allegations against him.
“Judge Kavanaugh exhibited extreme partisan bias and disrespect towards certain members of the committee and thereby demonstrated that he possesses neither the temperament nor the character essential for a member of the highest court in our nation,” the statement read.
The National Council of Churches alleged that Kavanaugh’s testimony included “several misstatements and some outright falsehoods,” including some related to Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.
The group also pointed to what they called Kavanaugh’s “troubling” judicial and political record on some civil rights issues.
“Judge Kavanaugh’s extensive judicial and political record is troubling with regard to issues of voting rights, racial and gender justice, health care, the rights of people with disabilities, and environmental protections,” they wrote. “This leads us to believe that he cannot be an impartial justice in cases that are sure to come before him at the Court.”
The group later added to their statement, saying they are “deeply disturbed” by the assault allegations against Kavanaugh and calling for “a full and unhindered investigation of these accusations,” according to Religion News Service.
The only alternatives to this whitewash is more investigative journalism and publication of the views of people who were willing to submit to FBI interrogation, and with the prospect of perjury for lying.
The President and key Republicans knew from the get-go that the FBI had been given a short list, limited time, and fake talk from Trump about doing a thorough investigation.
Then, in an act of mean and bizarre triumph the imperial Trump ridiculed Dr. Ford to a cheering crowd of his “base,” lying and dismiss her totally.
On other websites, I have noticed a lot of comments claiming that Kavanaugh “should be presumed innocent” of the charges, but this was not a criminal trial. It was an interview for a lifetime appointment to the highest court. Judicial temperament?
Kavanaugh went off the rails blaming disappointed Hillary/Democrats for questions he was being asked. He also said: “What goes around comes around” as if that was a promise and a final move to cast aside all pretense of being fair and reasonable as a judge.
It’s not just who the FBI didn’t interview but what they asked the ones they did.
If the FBI avoided asking Kavanaugh’s pals Judge and PJ under penalty of perjury to explain what the Renate Alumnus group was about and to explain all the yearbook references, they were intentionally avoiding asking any questions that would prove Kavanaugh’s perjury. That’s what you do when you are a criminal defense attorney — don’t ask questions when you know the answers make your client look like a criminals. It is not how you conduct a professional and thorough investigation. Were their hands tied?
I suspect they were directed to find any evidence to corrobate the charge of attempted rape. No one remembers, and the FBI was instructed not to interview Ford’s list of corroborating witnesses. Not people in the room, but people she told years ago.
Posting again without the “no no” word that gets it held up in moderation:
It’s not just who the FBI didn’t interview but what they asked the ones they did.
If the FBI avoided asking K’s pals Judge and PJ under penalty of perjury to explain what the Renate Alumnus group was about and to explain all the yearbook references, they were intentionally avoiding asking any questions that would prove K’s perjury. That’s what you do when you are a criminal defense attorney — don’t ask questions when you know the answers make your client look like a criminals. It is not how you conduct a professional and thorough investigation. Were their hands tied?
Do the FBI reports what those men’s reply to those questions were? We know they interviewed them and their answers under oath should be public record.
Opinion | With whitewash complete, every Republican will now line up behind K from The Washington Post
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
October 4 at 1:21 PM
It didn’t take long for it to become clear that the FBI investigation into claims against Brett M. K was going to be a whitewash. You can describe it as The Post’s reporters gently put it — “curtailed in its scope” — or as one blog headline said, “Investigation that didn’t investigate anything doesn’t find what it wasn’t looking for.”…
As the vote approaches, it has become apparent that pretty much everyone involved acted true to form. The White House rigged the process while pretending it wanted a thorough search for truth. Senators such as Collins and Flake performed their usual ritual of acting very concerned, then coming through for Trump in the end…
https://wapo.st/2O4yxPN?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.395628f6e053
Any woman who votes Republican gets what she deserves as a consequence of her vote. But, the rest of us, don’t. Today, the scumbag N.C. GOP leader used the good ole’ boy defense, Dr. Ford wasn’t attractive enough to be assaulted by K____. Devaluing women is what Republican do.
Linda,
That is disgusting. We must vote these creeps out.
It was a smoke and mirrors show from the git go. None of the Republican senators had any intention of not confirming him. And their “satisfaction” at the rushed FBI probe only confirms this. Probe? More like the monumental shaft. Whether people believe the accusations or not (and I do), what kills me is the bluster, rage, insulting demeanor and lack of jurisprudence displayed during his interview/hearing would have disqualified anyone of us from getting considered for a position, let alone hired. It appears that a SCOTUS nominee gets a free pass…
You’re right PSG. No other employer would want K____.
Are you kidding? He’s still very well connected – practically every company and law firm in the country would slobber over themselves to get him. Unfortunately for them, he has a lifetime appointment to the federal bench already, very likely to be elevated to the Supreme Court any day now.
Lock him up!
The boys’ locker rooms known as the White House and Senate Judiciary Committee have now polluted the whole nation.
Mr. Kavanaugh can lie to congress all day long and they won’t do a thing about it. But if he lies to the FBI there will be big trouble. That’s why he won’t be talking to them.
Ugly end to an ugly war, the KWAR, but the forces consolidating to fight the GOP behaved very well, an impressive ongoing assemblage just in time for the election process, but will need to keep in motion continually to weaken the tRump coalition of cronies, opportunists, creatures, and billionaires.
We are certainly in new territory here. The Republicans have held a seat open for more than a year, hoping to stack the court to weather the storm of perceived liberalism. Now they have weathered the firestorm of accusation leveled at Big K and anticipate his immediate confirmation. The firestorm was born of the Democrats wanting to demonstrate to their base just how much conservatives are against women right before the election. They knew the most they could hope for was a delay, and that was a long shot. So they went for something that would file their base. Now we shall see if that base has a memory that stretches to November.
For a long while, now, I’ve regularly struck up for myself this cheering song: Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and their reptilian ilk are the death rattle of an old era in which objectification of and disdain for women, workers, the environment, the poor, foreigners, nonwhites, and non-Christians was the norm.
Again and again I’ve said of the daily outrages from the Trump misadministration, “We’re in a phrase transition. Everything is changing. All this will be undone.”
But then there’s this Supreme Court business. There, the evil that men do lives after them.
This isn’t about 18 to 21 year old Kavanaugh, this is about 53 year old Kavanaugh who is a bald faced liar about his knowledge of 80s culture and still acts like an 18 year old from the 80s.
Bit part in hot tub time machine 2? Maybe. Supreme Court material, No.
Well said, TC. & former S.C.O.T.U.S. justice–John Paul Stevens (a staunch Republican)–agreed this evening.
Not only what this man had done, but his utter lack of restraint & good judgement (isn’t that what a judge is supposed to possess?) & lying under oath.
This awful to the nth degree S.C.O.T.U.S. candidate has everything opposite of justice.
At last, Heitcamp is using her noggin & acting like a Democrat.
Would that the others do the same, & that the Republicans act like decent human beings & put the good of the country over their obstinance.
The person I’d most like to hear from is the faculty member in charge of the Georgetown Prep yearbook in 1983. I think he could shed a lot of light. But he was obviously in the club too, so good luck getting anything out of him.
Now that I can endorse.
2,400 law professors have signed the petition against Kavanaugh confirmation.
We don’t get to vote for Supreme Court… Like it or not, that will be over.
However…
Access Hollywood… blaming victims… mocking victims at rallies…
We do get to vote on the president loyalists too scared to criticize him.
Contront them for condoning the tape, with the blaming, and the mocking (and the hundreds of racist, isolationist, ignorant statements) since they haven’s said a word against him otherwise.
Confront them – are they going to represent anyone except the president and his childish distasteful ignorant tweets?
And CONFRONT YOUR LOCAL MEDIA TO MAKE THESE CANDIDATES ANSWER!
What a fraudulent morally bankrupt party of “family values”. One effect of the seemingly inevitable appointment of BK to the SCOTUS has been a jump in republican votes for the midterms. I wonder if the U.S. is simply a more hateful, misogynist, ignorant, xenophobic and racist country than we would all like to believe.
The U.S. was built by black slaves on ground stolen from slaughtered native Indians. For much of our history minorities and women were not allowed to vote. Blacks have been lynched and women raped for the “crime” of defying white male power. Hateful, misogynistic, and racist? Check, check and check!
Callisto,
The question you posit is what has been the most difficult part of Trump’s election for us. We had thought our country was largely made up of good people. At The Atlantic, the following was written, “Trump Supporters, Cruelty is the Point”. We’ve watched in horror as Republican politicians endorsed Kavanaugh and Trump”s hatred and lies and we’ve watched them betray their country for Russia.
For those who have lost hope in economic opportunity resulting from Gates’ concentrated wealth and the Koch’s austerity, it is somewhat understandable that their deprivation led them to resent the people in the places they live, misplacing their anger from where it should be- the richest 0.1%. People like Lindsay Graham, Susan Collins, Rob Portman,…and those who fund their campaigns are indeed as evil as Gates when he used his money to defeat the re-election of judges who made decisions favorable to public education.
It says volumes that this was printed in the Wall Street Journal. What a ‘co-incidence’ that it came out now.
……………………………
K writes op-ed arguing he is an ‘independent, impartial judge’
Washington (CNN)Supreme Court nominee Brett K wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal on Thursday arguing he is an “independent, impartial judge” and conceding he “might have been too emotional” in his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.
“The Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution,” K writes in the op-ed in the Journal. “The justices do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle. They do not caucus in separate rooms.”
He adds, if confirmed to the nation’s highest court, “I would always strive to be a team player.”…
“I revere the Constitution,” K writes. “I believe that an independent and impartial judiciary is essential to our constitutional republic. If confirmed by the Senate to serve on the Supreme Court, I will keep an open mind in every case and always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law.”…
Check out this story on CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/04/politics/kavanaugh-wsj-op-ed/index.html
The gutless democrats have one last duty to perform…..democrat senators should stand shouting “Shame, Shame, Shame, non-stop all the way through the final vote roll call. Create a lasting, unforgettable scene.
I really like Trevor Noah. Too bad we don’t have decent people running this country.
…………………….
Secretive, Speedy & Sketchy: The FBI Investigation Into Brett K | The Daily Show
The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Published on Oct 4, 2018
As the FBI’s secretive, limited five-day investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett K comes to a close, the future of the Supreme Court lies in the hands of the three moderate Republican senators: Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake.
Trevor Noah has issues with how fast the FBI conducted its “sham” investigation into sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett K. But the White House doesn’t, claiming the FBI report clears the judge for confirmation because it did not corroborate Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he attacked her at a party in high school.