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The FBI faces further scrutiny for its 2018 background check of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after a lawmaker suggested the investigation may have been “bogus.”
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who sits on the Judiciary Committee, calls on newly confirmed Attorney General Merrick Garland to help facilitate “proper scrutiny” by the Senate to consider how well the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.
The Supreme Court judge was charged with sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford and faced several other allegations of misconduct following Ford’s heartbreaking testimony about an alleged assault while she and Kavanaugh were in high school.
Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.
The FBI was called in to investigate the allegations during the Senate confirmation process, but was later accused by some Democratic senators of performing an incomplete background check. For example, two key witnesses – Ford and Kavanaugh – were never interviewed as part of the investigation.
Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone in the office who would accept their testimony and that he had not assigned any person to accept or collect evidence.
“It was a unique behavior in my experience, as the Office is generally willing to receive information and evidence; but in this case the shutters were closed, the drawbridge up, and there was no entry point through which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI, ”Whitehouse said.
He added that once the FBI decided to create an “intelligence line,” senators had received no information on how or if new allegations had been addressed and assessed. While senators’ brief review of the allegations gathered by the intelligence line showed that a “pile” of information had entered, there was no further explanation for the steps that had been taken to examine the information. Whitehouse said.
“This ‘tip line’ seems to have functioned more like a garbage chute, with everything going down the chute logged without figurative dumpster examination,” he said.
He also criticized FBI Director Chris Wray, whom Joe Biden chose to stay put, for not answering questions about the investigation.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
While it’s unclear whether the FBI would reopen an investigation into Kavanaugh, who is now one of the nine Supreme Court justices, the letter could push Garland to force the DOJ to answer questions about the Kavanaugh investigation. .
Whitehouse said he was seeking answers on “how, why, and at whose behest” the FBI conducted a “bogus” investigation into breaches of standard procedures, including standards for following up on allegations gathered through of the FBI “guidelines”.
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