A Democratic senator suggested that the FBI background check on the sexual assault charges against Brett Kavanaugh, then appointed to the Supreme Court, in 2018 may have been “false” and wants newly appointed attorney general Merrick Garland to help in an investigation, according to report Tuesday.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who held Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation hearing, is asking Garland to help the Senate while questioning how thoroughly the FBI conducted the investigation, the Guardian reported.
Christine Blasey Ford came to testify that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her decades ago, when both were high school students in Maryland.
Kavanugh vehemently denied the charges and brought diaries from decades of his high school years to defend himself.
But the Democrats on the judicial panel who sought an investigation into the allegations claimed that the FBI failed to conduct a full investigation because the agents did not interview Kavanaugh or Ford.
In a letter to Garland, Whitehouse said that some witnesses wanted to speak to the FBI about their charges against Kavanaugh, but were dismissed by the agency and said their cases were never attributed to an agent and no evidence was gathered.
“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 pulled and there was no point of entry through which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI, “said Whitehouse, according to the Guardian.
He argued that, while the FBI created a “whistleblower line”, senators did not receive information on how or whether the new claims were processed or evaluated.
And while a review of the allegations that came through the “whistleblower line” indicates that the FBI has received a “pile” of new information, the senators have had no explanation as to whether additional steps have been taken to review the new data, says Whitehouse. .
“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 said he wants answers on “how, why and at the request of whom” the FBI conducted a “fake” investigation and whether the allegations collected in the “whistleblower line” followed the pattern of other allegations collected by whistleblowers.