The FBI is facing fresh scrutiny for its 2018 background check by Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court judge, after a lawmaker suggested the investigation may have been “false”.
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is enlisting the newly confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate the Senate’s “proper oversight” on questions about how the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during a hearing confirmation.
The Supreme Court judge was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford and faced several other charges of misconduct following Ford’s distressing testimony of an alleged assault when she and Kavanaugh were in high school.
Kavanaugh 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 conducting an incomplete background check. For example, two main 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 were unable to find anyone at the agency who would accept his testimony and that he did not designate any individual to accept or gather evidence.
“This was a unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is generally receptive to information and evidence; but in this case the shutters were closed, the drawbridge closed and there was no point of entry through which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI, ”said Whitehouse.
He added that, since the FBI decided to create a “hotline”, senators received no information about how or whether new allegations were processed and evaluated. While the senators’ brief review of allegations collected by the whistleblower line showed that a “pile” of information had arrived, there was no further explanation of the steps that were taken to review the information, Whitehouse said.
“This ‘line of tips’ seems to have functioned more like a garbage chute, with everything that went down the chute sent without revision to the figurative trash can,” he said.
He also criticized FBI director Chris Wray, who Joe Biden chose to remain in office, for not answering questions about the investigation.
The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
While it is not clear whether the FBI would reopen an investigation into Kavanaugh, who is now one of nine Supreme Court judges, the letter could pressure Garland to force the DOJ to answer questions about the Kavanaugh investigation.
Whitehouse said he is looking for answers on “how, why and at the request of whom” the FBI conducted a “false” investigation into whether standard procedures were violated, including standards for following allegations collected through FBI “lines of complaint” .