During its five-day reopened background investigation, the FBI didn’t talk with more than 40 people who could potentially corroborate sexual-assault claims against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh or claim he perjured himself during his Senate confirmation hearings.
• Deborah Ramirez says that Kavanaugh forcibly exposed himself to her during a drunken dorm-room party at Yale in the ’80s. She spoke with the FBI over the weekend, and her attorneys gave the bureau a list of more than 20 people who could corroborate her story. As of Wednesday, agents hadn’t contacted anyone on the list, the Washington Post reports.
• Kavanaugh’s initial accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was not interviewed by the FBI, her attorneys said. The agency said it would consider her testimony before Congress — in which she alleged that a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during a house party in high school — to be her statement. The FBI also did not speak with Kavanaugh. “It is inconceivable they could close a real investigation without re-interviewing Kavanaugh,” says Susan Hennessey of the Brookings Institution.
• Today, Ford’s lawyers put out a list of 10 other people who could corroborate her story but have not been contacted by the FBI.
NEW:
Christine Blasey Ford’s legal team writes a new letter to the FBI, listing out around 10 specific people who have relevant information, but have *not* been contacted: pic.twitter.com/oKoWflcwU2
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 4, 2018
• A suitemate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale, Kenneth Appold, says he is “100 percent certain” he heard about the incident between Ramirez and Kavanaugh at the time. He said he would talk to the FBI but was not approached, the Post reports.
• James Roche, one of Kavanaugh’s roommates at Yale, wrote a piece for Slate in which he said that Kavanaugh lied under oath. Roche said that Kavanaugh “regularly” blacked out and lied about his use of slang. “He said that ‘boofing’ was farting and the ‘Devil’s Triangle’ was a drinking game,” wrote Roche. “‘Boofing’ and ‘Devil’s Triangle’ are sexual references. I know this because I heard Brett and his friends using these terms on multiple occasions.” Kavanaugh “has demonstrated a willingness to be untruthful under oath about easily verified information,” said Roche. He offered to tell the FBI what he knew, but there’s no sign that happened.
• Yesterday, the New Yorker reported that one of Kavanaugh’s high school classmates says he lied under oath about an inscription in his yearbook. He remembers Kavanaugh saying a girl from a nearby school was “passed around for sex” and sang a vulgar rhyme about her name. Kavanaugh and several male classmates wrote they were an “alumnus” of the girl in the yearbook; during his hearing, Kavanaugh said it was a sign of “affection.”
• NBC News reported yesterday that dozens of additional people with relevant information have not been interviewed by the FBI, and some of them have approached FBI field offices volunteering to speak, but “agents have not been permitted to talk to many of them.”
Why it matters: Senators who may be on the fence about the allegations or Kavanaugh’s truthfulness won’t get all the information they need to make a completely informed decision. And their constituents — who may vote them in or out of office because of their decision during the midterm elections — won’t have it either.
