Why the FBI's Kavanaugh Investigation Is So Troubling
United States senators are taking turns reading the FBI’s updated background investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But the report is unaccountably incomplete. The FBI interviewed only one of Kavanaugh’s three accusers. And investigators failed to interview key witnesses who could have helped corroborate allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh, or exposed lies he appears to have told the Senate while under oath. Most striking, the FBI did not interview Kavanaugh, himself.
Nor did the FBI interview Kavanaugh’s first accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, nor any of the people Ford confided in about her alleged assault, including her husband and nearly half a dozen friends. Investigators also did not speak to the former FBI agent who conducted the polygraph test that Ford passed. In a scathing letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Ford’s lawyers write: “The ‘investigation’ conducted over the past five days is a stain on the process, on the FBI, and on our American ideal of justice.”
The FBI did interview Deborah Ramirez, the Yale classmate who accuses Kavanaugh of drunkenly exposing himself to her. But investigators did not interview Yale contemporaries who could corroborate Ramirez’s recollection, or call into question other under-oath testimony by Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh has repeatedly testified that his alleged indecent exposure to Ramirez could not have happened because it would have been “the talk of campus.” The New Yorker quotes Yale classmate Kenneth Appold, now a professor at Princeton’s theological seminary, saying it was indeed talked about. Appold told reporters Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow that he heard about the incident within days, saying he’s “100 percent certain” he was told Kavanaugh exposed himself to Ramirez: “I can corroborate Debbie’s account,” Appold said. “I believe her because it matches the same story I heard thirty-five years ago, although the two of us have never talked.” Appold reportedly offered to speak to the FBI but never heard back.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/fbi-kavanaugh-investigation-findings-733118/
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