FBI contacts 2nd Kavanaugh accuser in investigation
Yale classmate who alleges sexual misconduct agrees to co-operate
WASHINGTON— The FBI has begun contacting people as part of an additional background investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, including a second woman who alleges that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her.
The bureau has contacted Deborah Ramirez, a Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh’s, who alleges that he shoved his genitals in her face at a party where she had been drinking and become disoriented, her attorney said Saturday.
“She has agreed to co-operate with their investigation,” Ramirez attorney John Clune said in a statement. “Out of respect for the integrity of the process, we will have no further comment at this time.”
President Donald Trump ordered the new background investigation of his nominee on Friday under pressure from key members of his party.
Late Saturday, Trump said the FBI investigation “will be a blessing in disguise. It will be a good thing.”
In brief remarks to reporters before leaving for a rally in West Virginia, the president said he continues to believe Kavanaugh didn’t do anything wrong.
“He’s a good man. He’s a great judge. A great judge. Highly respected for many many years,” Trump said.
The FBI also is following up on allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, who testified to the Senate last week that Kava- naugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when they were in high school in suburban Washington, D.C.
Trump said the FBI is “all over talking to everybody ... They have free rein, they can do whatever they have to do, whatever it is that they do. They’ll be doing things we have never even thought of.”
But Michael Avenatti, an attorney for Julie Swetnick, who alleged that Kavanaugh and another boy got teenage girls drunk at parties, where the girls were sexually assaulted, sometimes by groups of boys, said Saturday that Swetnick has not been contacted by the bureau.
Swetnick said in a sworn statement this past week that she knew Kavanaugh in high school and was raped by such a group at a party where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were present. She has not accused Kavanaugh of raping her.
Swetnick described Kavanaugh as a “mean drunk” in high school who was physically and verbally aggressive with girls.
“We have not heard anything from the FBI, and with each passing hour, I’m growing increasingly concerned that this is a sham of an investigation,” Avenatti said.
He noted that Swetnick has had multiple security clearances and said that lying in a sworn declaration would be disastrous to her career.