U.S. Democratic senators say FBI ignored tips on Brett Kavanaugh
Last edited Thu Jul 22, 2021, 06:25 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Reuters
WASHINGTON, July 22 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. Democratic Senators on Thursday said that newly released materials show the FBI failed to fully investigate sexual misconduct allegations against U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh when he was nominated to the court in 2018.
The senators, including Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, said a letter they received from FBI Director Chris Wray last month shows the FBI gathered over 4,500 tips relating to Kavanaugh without any apparent further action by investigators.
"If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all," the Democratic lawmakers said in a letter to Wray sent on Wednesday night, which they released to the public on Thursday.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-democratic-senators-say-fbi-failed-investigate-tips-brett-kavanaugh-2021-07-22/
Short article no more at link.
Hat tip to riversedge below.
07.22.21
After New Details on Kavanaugh Investigation Surface, Senators Call on FBI for Answers on Handling of Tip Line
4,500 tips to FBI went uninvestigated following supplemental investigation, newly released FBI letter shows
Washington, DC Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray last evening requesting additional information on the FBIs 2018 supplemental background investigation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The senators request follows a letter from the Bureau to Whitehouse and Coons revealing new details on the Kavanaugh background investigation, including that the FBI gathered over 4,500 tips in relation to the investigation without any apparent further action by FBI investigators. The Bureau also confirmed that tips from the tip line were instead provided to the Trump White House Counsels office, where their fate is unknown.
The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information highly relevant to . . . allegations of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored, the senators write in their letter sent today. If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.
Whitehouse and Coons initially raised the lackluster supplemental background investigation in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Director Wray in July 2019. Whitehouse observed during the hearing the clear lack of process through which the public or members of Congress could relay information to the FBI after the troubling allegations against Kavanaugh made headlines nationwide. Coons likewise pressed Wray for a clear procedure. As both senators noted, the only conduit for information potentially relevant to the allegations was a tip line, the product of which was apparently never pursued by the Bureau. During the hearing, Wray echoed Republican claims that the FBI conducted the investigation by the book, while asserting that supplemental background investigations are less rigorous than criminal and counterintelligence investigations.
On August 1, 2019, Coons and Whitehouse wrote to Wray asking for a complete picture of how the FBI handled the supplemental background investigation of Kavanaugh. They asked why the FBI failed to contact witnesses whose names were provided to the FBI as possessing highly relevant information; how involved the Trump White House was in narrowing the scope of the investigation; whether the FBI had used a tip line in previous background investigations to manage incoming allegations and information regarding a nominee; and more.
Nearly two years later and after repeated follow-up requests, the FBI finally responded to Whitehouse and Coonss questions. The June 30, 2021 letter from the FBI Office of Congressional Affairs revealed new information on the Kavanaugh investigation: that Justice Kavanaughs nomination was the first time that the FBI set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation, and that tip line received over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions. The FBI apparently pursued none of these tips. Instead, by the FBIs own account, it merely provided all relevant tips to Trumps Office of White House Counsel, the very office that had constrained and directed the limited investigation.
Whitehouse, Coons, Durbin, Leahy, Blumenthal, Hirono, and Booker call on the FBI to answer a range of outstanding questions surrounding the Bureaus use of the tip line and the relevant information it yielded. The senators press the Bureau for any records and communications related to the tip line investigation, including all relevant tips described in Wrays letter that the FBI provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel.
Full text of the senators letter yesterday is available below. Also available as PDFs are:
Senators letter sent yesterday;
June 30 FBI letter to Whitehouse and Coons;
Whitehouse and Coons August 2019 letter to Wray.
July 21, 2021
The Honorable Christopher A. Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535
Dear Director Wray:
Thank you for the FBIs June 30, 2021 response to our August 1, 2019 letter regarding the supplemental background investigation of then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. Your letter confirms that the FBIs tip line was a departure from past practice and that the FBI was politically constrained by the Trump White House. It also belies the former presidents insistence that his administration did not limit the Bureaus investigation of Justice Kavanaugh, and his claim that he want[ed] the FBI to interview whoever [sic] they deem appropriate, at their discretion.[1]
According to your letter, Justice Kavanaughs nomination was the first time that the FBI set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation, and that tip line received over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions. Your letter fails to explain how the FBI reviewed and assessed these tips or whether the Bureau conducted any interviews related to information received through the tip line or otherwise pursued the tips. Indeed, your letter does not describe any FBI investigation of the tips, and only states that the FBI provided all relevant tips to the Office of White House Counsel, the very office that appears to have constrained the FBI from conducting a thorough investigation. The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information highly relevant to . . . allegations of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored.[2] If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.
There remain questions unanswered from our August 2019 letter, and your June 2021 response raises significant additional questions:
1. Your letter notes that the FBI follows the standard process established pursuant to a March 10 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Department of Justice and the White House. Please provide a copy of that MOU.
2. Your letter notes that Justice Kavanaughs nomination was the first time that the FBIs set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate Confirmation, and states that it was established at the direction of the FBIs Security Division. However, your letter does not identify or describe the policies or procedures that applied to the tip line. Therefore, please identify: (a) when the decision was made to use a tip line for Judge Kavanaughs investigation; (b) who the senior-most official authorizing the tip line was; (c) whether the tip line was set up through an already existing standard FBI open line or established as a dedicated independent tip line; (d) how the tip line was staffed (how many individuals and what level of training and experience was required); (e) how the over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions were recorded or preserved; (f) what policies or procedures governed or applied to the creation, operation, and documentation of the tip line; and (g) whether the White House Counsels instruction for any additional limited inquiry required or requested the use of a tip line.
3. Your letter notes that [t]he FBI received over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions[,] and that the FBI provided all relevant tips to the Office of White House Counsel, [3] but fails to explain how any individual tip was evaluated or categorized as relevant and how those tips were delivered to the White House. Therefore, please explain: (a) what criteria or standard applied to tips to determine relevancy; (b) how many tips the FBI deemed relevant, and how many tips the FBI provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel; (c) whether FBI Security Division personnel or any other FBI personnel sorted, vetted, verified, or investigated the tips to determine whether they were relevant; (d) what policies or procedures governed the FBI process of investigating or vetting the tips; (e) the nature and extent of review or investigation per tip before they were made available to the White House Counsel; (f) how tips were formatted and delivered to the White House Counsel; and (g) whether the FBI maintained a copy or record of each tip after provision to the Office of White House Counsel.
4. Your letter indicated that the FBI interviewed ten individuals as part of several limited inquiries, but failed to explain whether these ten interviews were conducted as a result of tips received on the tip line. Therefore, please explain: (a) whether any potential witnesses were identified as having relevant information on the basis of tips received but not interviewed by the FBI; (b) if relevant witnesses were identified by the FBI through the tip line but not interviewed, explain the policy, procedure, or instruction, from the FBI, White House Counsel, or otherwise, that directed that witnesses with relevant information not be interviewed; (c) if the failure to interview was a matter of discretion, identify the individual responsible for making that determination.
5. Was the FBI directed by the White House not to interview either Dr. Blasey Ford or then-Judge Kavanaugh as part of its limited inquiries? If yes, please describe the directive and produce any relevant communications. If no, why did the FBI fail to interview Dr. Ford and then-Judge Kavanaugh?[4]
We ask that you answer these questions no later than August 31, 2021, and to the extent not already requested above, promptly produce all records and communications related to the tip line investigation, including but not limited to: the White House-DOJ MOU referenced in your letter; all communications regarding the establishment and parameters of the tip line; all documents related to the selection and parameters of the ten interviews conducted as part of the supplemental background investigations; and all relevant tips described in your letter that the FBI provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel. In order to minimize the discovery burden of this request and advance our comprehension of the process, we ask that someone familiar with the Kavanaugh investigations provide a briefing to explain what took place and the existence and nature of documents responsive to our requests. We ask further that the Department of Justice identify someone tasked with overseeing and facilitating the responses to these requests, given the long delay we have already experienced.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
CC: Hon. Merrick Garland, Attorney General of the United States
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/after-new-details-on-kavanaugh-investigation-surface-senators-call-on-fbi-for-answers-on-handling-of-tip-linehttps://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/after-new-details-on-kavanaugh-investigation-surface-senators-call-on-fbi-for-answers-on-handling-of-tip-line
Response to herding cats (Original post)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
catrose
(5,074 posts)like for pre-employment. Then we get into who gave those instructions and why.
groundloop
(11,527 posts)herding cats
(19,568 posts)His confirmation was manipulated by the WH and this is Trump admitting that fact.
SunSeeker
(51,734 posts)UpInArms
(51,285 posts)then, kavanaugh needs to face impeachment and removal from the USSC
Polybius
(15,506 posts)67 votes needed for removal, and no Republican will vote Yes, especially under a Democratic President.
UpInArms
(51,285 posts)Yet that does not change what should happen in a decent society
Ole' public hair Thomas is still there, so no, Boofer Boy isn't going anywhere. There was a time when I actually revered the Supreme Court. Maybe I was young and naive, but now I know that no part of our government is completely honorable these days.
Also, for the past several years I no longer trust the FBI either. I know for a fact most of them hated Hillary. Here in Michigan it was reported on the local news that an FBI agent was arrested for taking part in the insurrection.
Polybius
(15,506 posts)If the lying Justice were a Democrat, no way would I vote to convict under a Republican President. That Party would pick the new Justice.
cab67
(3,010 posts)Whether a 67-vote majority was attainable, there would be high-ups among the R's that would want someone like that gone, if only to get it out of the news cycle and away from campaign speeches.
That time is long gone.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)Also highly unlikely.
cstanleytech
(26,328 posts)than the odds of me winning the MegaMillions lottery drawing tomorrow followed by me also winning the Powerball the next night.
Champp
(2,114 posts)Crowman2009
(2,499 posts)...we should kick out every god damn Trump judicial appointee.
Mr. Evil
(2,856 posts)I was going to copy and paste a 'shocked face' here but, I found this instead. And whoever came up with this for pants is a genius! Is this a win-win? Proper TFG image placement and a shocked face all in one!
cab67
(3,010 posts)Is the FBI going to conduct a proper investigation now?
Not saying it will lead to Kavanaugh's removal - just wondering how big of an asterisk will end up next to his name in history books.
Bev54
(10,074 posts)Do the senators or their staff not read or watch the news at all.
leftieNanner
(15,173 posts)Now the Senators have the documentation.
As I remember, the Dems on the Judiciary Committee were not pleased about the fake background check. Not being in control of the committee however meant that they couldn't do anything about it.
Bev54
(10,074 posts)So they should not act all surprised about it.
leftieNanner
(15,173 posts)Warpy
(111,367 posts)which certainly should have asked how six figure debts were made to vanish--twice--when he was offered Federal positions.
He really should not be there, but McConnell and whatever billionaires were backing him did not want due diligence done.
He's likely the most vulnerable, as long as Democrats avoid using his disgusting history with women. That isn't going to do it. Shady finances likely will, especially if he paid no taxes on the money to make his debts go away.
I don't even care what those debts were for--scuttlebutt says gambling but there is no proof. Their existence and sudden disappearance will be sufficient to make him disappear.
riversedge
(70,322 posts)@SenWhitehouse
·
5h
This long-delayed answer confirms how badly we were spun by Director Wray and the FBI in the Kavanaugh background investigation and hearing.
Link to tweet
?s=20
Link to tweet
?s=20
https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/release/after-new-details-on-kavanaugh-investigation-surface-senators-call-on-fbi-for-answers-on-handling-of-tip-line
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse
Home News Press Releases
07.22.21
After New Details on Kavanaugh Investigation Surface, Senators Call on FBI for Answers on Handling of Tip Line
4,500 tips to FBI went uninvestigated following supplemental investigation, newly released FBI letter shows
Washington, DC Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray last evening requesting additional information on the FBIs 2018 supplemental background investigation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The senators request follows a letter from the Bureau to Whitehouse and Coons revealing new details on the Kavanaugh background investigation, including that the FBI gathered over 4,500 tips in relation to the investigation without any apparent further action by FBI investigators. The Bureau also confirmed that tips from the tip line were instead provided to the Trump White House Counsels office, where their fate is unknown.
The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information highly relevant to . . . allegations of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored, the senators write in their letter sent today. If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.
Whitehouse and Coons initially raised the lackluster supplemental background investigation in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Director Wray in July 2019. Whitehouse observed during the hearing the clear lack of process through which the public or members of Congress could relay information to the FBI after the troubling allegations against Kavanaugh made headlines nationwide. Coons likewise pressed Wray for a clear procedure. As both senators noted, the only conduit for information potentially relevant to the allegations was a tip line, the product of which was apparently never pursued by the Bureau. During the hearing, Wray echoed Republican claims that the FBI conducted the investigation by the book, while asserting that supplemental background investigations are less rigorous than criminal and counterintelligence investigations.
On August 1, 2019, Coons and Whitehouse wrote to Wray asking for a complete picture of how the FBI handled the supplemental background investigation of Kavanaugh. They asked why the FBI failed to contact witnesses whose names were provided to the FBI as possessing highly relevant information; how involved the Trump White House was in narrowing the scope of the investigation; whether the FBI had used a tip line in previous background investigations to manage incoming allegations and information regarding a nominee; and more.
Nearly two years later and after repeated follow-up requests, the FBI finally responded to Whitehouse and Coonss questions. The June 30, 2021 letter from the FBI Office of Congressional Affairs revealed new information on the Kavanaugh investigation: that Justice Kavanaughs nomination was the first time that the FBI set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation, and that tip line received over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions. The FBI apparently pursued none of these tips. Instead, by the FBIs own account, it merely provided all relevant tips to Trumps Office of White House Counsel, the very office that had constrained and directed the limited investigation.
Whitehouse, Coons, Durbin, Leahy, Blumenthal, Hirono, and Booker call on the FBI to answer a range of outstanding questions surrounding the Bureaus use of the tip line and the relevant information it yielded. The senators press the Bureau for any records and communications related to the tip line investigation, including all relevant tips described in Wrays letter that the FBI provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel.
Full text of the senators letter yesterday is available below. Also available as PDFs are:
Senators letter sent yesterday;
June 30 FBI letter to Whitehouse and Coons;
Whitehouse and Coons August 2019 letter to Wray.
July 21, 2021
The Honorable Christopher A. Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20535
Dear Director Wray:
Thank you for the FBIs June 30, 2021 response to our August 1, 2019 letter regarding the supplemental background investigation of then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. Your letter confirms that the FBIs tip line was a departure from past practice and that the FBI was politically constrained by the Trump White House. It also belies the former presidents insistence that his administration did not limit the Bureaus investigation of Justice Kavanaugh, and his claim that he want[ed] the FBI to interview whoever [sic] they deem appropriate, at their discretion.[1]
According to your letter, Justice Kavanaughs nomination was the first time that the FBI set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation, and that tip line received over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions. Your letter fails to explain how the FBI reviewed and assessed these tips or whether the Bureau conducted any interviews related to information received through the tip line or otherwise pursued the tips. Indeed, your letter does not describe any FBI investigation of the tips, and only states that the FBI provided all relevant tips to the Office of White House Counsel, the very office that appears to have constrained the FBI from conducting a thorough investigation. The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information highly relevant to . . . allegations of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored.[2] If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.
There remain questions unanswered from our August 2019 letter, and your June 2021 response raises significant additional questions:
1. Your letter notes that the FBI follows the standard process established pursuant to a March 10 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Department of Justice and the White House. Please provide a copy of that MOU.
2. Your letter notes that Justice Kavanaughs nomination was the first time that the FBIs set-up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate Confirmation, and states that it was established at the direction of the FBIs Security Division. However, your letter does not identify or describe the policies or procedures that applied to the tip line. Therefore, please identify: (a) when the decision was made to use a tip line for Judge Kavanaughs investigation; (b) who the senior-most official authorizing the tip line was; (c) whether the tip line was set up through an already existing standard FBI open line or established as a dedicated independent tip line; (d) how the tip line was staffed (how many individuals and what level of training and experience was required); (e) how the over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions were recorded or preserved; (f) what policies or procedures governed or applied to the creation, operation, and documentation of the tip line; and (g) whether the White House Counsels instruction for any additional limited inquiry required or requested the use of a tip line.
3. Your letter notes that [t]he FBI received over 4,500 tips, including phone calls and electronic submissions[,] and that the FBI provided all relevant tips to the Office of White House Counsel, [3] but fails to explain how any individual tip was evaluated or categorized as relevant and how those tips were delivered to the White House. Therefore, please explain: (a) what criteria or standard applied to tips to determine relevancy; (b) how many tips the FBI deemed relevant, and how many tips the FBI provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel; (c) whether FBI Security Division personnel or any other FBI personnel sorted, vetted, verified, or investigated the tips to determine whether they were relevant; (d) what policies or procedures governed the FBI process of investigating or vetting the tips; (e) the nature and extent of review or investigation per tip before they were made available to the White House Counsel; (f) how tips were formatted and delivered to the White House Counsel; and (g) whether the FBI maintained a copy or record of each tip after provision to the Office of White House Counsel.
4. Your letter indicated that the FBI interviewed ten individuals as part of several limited inquiries, but failed to explain whether these ten interviews were conducted as a result of tips received on the tip line. Therefore, please explain: (a) whether any potential witnesses were identified as having relevant information on the basis of tips received but not interviewed by the FBI; (b) if relevant witnesses were identified by the FBI through the tip line but not interviewed, explain the policy, procedure, or instruction, from the FBI, White House Counsel, or otherwise, that directed that witnesses with relevant information not be interviewed; (c) if the failure to interview was a matter of discretion, identify the individual responsible for making that determination.
5. Was the FBI directed by the White House not to interview either Dr. Blasey Ford or then-Judge Kavanaugh as part of its limited inquiries? If yes, please describe the directive and produce any relevant communications. If no, why did the FBI fail to interview Dr. Ford and then-Judge Kavanaugh?[4]
We ask that you answer these questions no later than August 31, 2021, and to the extent not already requested above, promptly produce all records and communications related to the tip line investigation, including but not limited to: the White House-DOJ MOU referenced in your letter; all communications regarding the establishment and parameters of the tip line; all documents related to the selection and parameters of the ten interviews conducted as part of the supplemental background investigations; and all relevant tips described in your letter that the FBI provided . . . to the Office of White House Counsel. In order to minimize the discovery burden of this request and advance our comprehension of the process, we ask that someone familiar with the Kavanaugh investigations provide a briefing to explain what took place and the existence and nature of documents responsive to our requests. We ask further that the Department of Justice identify someone tasked with overseeing and facilitating the responses to these requests, given the long delay we have already experienced.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
CC: Hon. Merrick Garland, Attorney General of the United States