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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday, FBI Director Christopher Wray admitted to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (DR.I.) that the bureau’s 2018 investigation into sexual assault allegations against then-candidate to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, was a farce. The FBI had sent all the relevant tips (the FBI Deputy Director Jill Tyson said there were about 4,500) to Donald Trump’s White House. From there, the Trump team decided who the FBI could interview as part of its sexual misconduct investigation into Kavanaugh before he was confirmed.
According to the transcript:
WHITEHOUSE: As you know, we are entering the fourth year of a frustrating saga. […] regarding the supplemental background check on Kavanaugh, and I’d like to wrap that up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related leads were separated from other leads, they were sent to the White House counsel without investigation?
WRAY: … When it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information that we had, so when hundreds of calls started coming in, we gathered them, reviewed them, and provided them to the White House. –
WHITEHOUSE: Without investigation?
WRAY: We review them and then we deliver them to the White House.
WHITEHOUSE: You reviewed them in order to separate them from information trafficking, but you didn’t further investigate the ones related to Kavanaugh, correct?
WRAY: Right.
WHITEHOUSE: Is it also true that in that supplemental BI [background investigation]the FBI took instructions from the White House about whom the FBI would question and even what questions the FBI might ask.
WRAY: So it’s true… as far as the who. As I sit here, I’m not sure if that’s true as far as the what questions.
Basically, Trump wanted Kavanaugh confirmed, and he was able to easily ensure that no corroborating evidence surfaced for Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party when they were teenagers.
Whitehouse said earlier in June, when it was first revealed how much tips the FBI received about Kavanaugh from his tip line, that it was obvious Trump completely rigged the Kavanaugh investigation. “This long-delayed response confirms just how badly we were spun by Director Wray and the FBI in the Kavanaugh background investigation and hearing,” Whitehouse wrote on Twitter.
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“I reported that the ‘whistleblower hotline’ was actually a whistleblower dump, with all whistleblowers going straight to the dump without investigation,” he wrote in a separate tweet. “In fact, it was a tip dump where all the tips went directly to the White House counsel without investigation. Same difference.”
Now, of course, Kavanaugh has joined a majority opinion to strip women and those of childbearing potential of their reproductive rights. Kudos to us, I guess, for being stuck with this judge until he dies or retires.
Source: jezebel.com