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Sources claiming they can corroborate Kavanaugh accusations can’t reach FBI – Metro US

Sources claiming they can corroborate Kavanaugh accusations can’t reach FBI

Brett Kavanaugh

People trying to reach the FBI with information about the sexual-assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh are finding that the bureau isn’t returning their calls or emails.

The White House reopened the Supreme Court nominee’s background check on Friday for an investigation that’s “limited in scope.” The FBI might finish as soon as tonight.

But that’s without interviewing Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before Congress that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at a high-school party in the 1980s. The agency reportedly has no plans to speak with her.

Nor have they contacted Elizabeth Rasor, the college girlfriend of Mark Judge. Ford says Judge was an eyewitness to the attack. Rasor says Judge confessed that he’d had group sex with inebriated girls at high-school parties. Her attorney told the Senate Judiciary Committee she “welcomed the opportunity” to speak with the FBI. But according to the New Yorker, the FBI hasn’t reached out to Rasor, and she hasn’t been able to reach agents directly.

Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh’s second accuser, says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken college party. She spoke with the FBI for two hours on Sunday and provided a list of more than 20 witnesses who could corroborate her story. On Tuesday, her lawyer, John Clune, said the FBI hadn’t contacted any of them. “We are not aware of the FBI affirmatively reaching out to any of those witnesses. Though we appreciated the agents who responded on Sunday, we have great concern that the FBI is not conducting—or not being permitted to conduct—a serious investigation,” he tweeted.

The New Yorker reports that others have had trouble reaching the FBI, including a Yale University alum who has “100 percent certainty” that he heard about the incident between Kavanaugh and Ramirez around the time it occurred. The FBI agent he reached told him he had no idea what he was talking about and told him to call a 1-800 tipline. He ended up leaving a message via the FBI’s website.

Also on Tuesday afternoon, Ford’s attorneys sent a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray, expressing disbelief that there were no plans to interview the woman whose allegations led to the reopened investigation. “It is inconceivable that the FBI could conduct a thorough investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations without interviewing her, Judge Kavanaugh, or the witnesses we have identified in our letters to you,” wrote her attorneys, Michael Bromwich and Debra Katz. They said they had “repeatedly asked you to identify the Supervisory Special Agent responsible for this investigation, so that we could contact him or her directly. We have received no response.”

The reopened investigation has a one-week timeframe, with a deadline of Friday. But various news outlets report the bureau could wrap things up on Tuesday night. A number of Democrats have accused the White House of presiding over a sham investigation, because White House counsel Don McGahn, who has been shepherding Kavanaugh’s nomination, provided a very narrow list of witnesses the FBI was allowed to interview. On Monday, President Trump said the FBI had been given “free rein to do whatever they have to do.” NBC News reporter Ken Dilanian called that “total disinformation,” noting the number of witnesses who haven’t been interviewed.