HANDCUFFED FOR TIME, FBIBEGINS NEW PROBE
Ex-agents expect bureau to throw resources at pivotal investigation
FBI agents will hit the ground running today on a one-week investigation into sexual assault allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh that retired G-men say must be focused and fast or the probe will fail.
“The American public will be watching, so they must craft a plan and execute it,” said James Wedick, an FBI agent for 35 years who helped in the background check of former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“Agents love challenges. They know they are on display now and they’ll put in the resources to get the job done,” added Wedick, who ran the Sacramento, Calif., bureau’s corruption desk. “The investigation will be a moving line and getting it done in one week’s time will depend on how innovative they want to be.”
President Trump last night approved a “limited” FBI probe into allegations Kavanaugh engaged in drunken and sexually abusive behavior in high school and college. That investigation must be “completed in less than one week,” the president said through a tweet posted by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Some former FBI agents reached by the Herald yesterday said the time limit will handcuff investigators and possibly produce a weak report.
“You can ask a million questions, but what if all the witnesses say the same things? I think we might end up right where we are today,” said retired agent Chris Quick, whose speciality was white-collar crime. “Will the ball move? I doubt it.
“What this lesson shows is if you’ve been sexually
assaulted, you’ve got to come forward as soon as it happens,” Quick, of South Carolina, added. “People forget things; memory fades with any crime. Also, why did the Democrats hold onto this for so long?
“It could be done in a week,” he said, “but the problem with this case is how do you go beyond the known witnesses?”
Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s high school friend, will cooperate with the FBI, Maine U.S. Sen. Susan Collins tweeted yesterday.
Judge, said Christine Blasey Ford, was with Kavanaugh in 1982 at a summer party in suburban Maryland where she was allegedly groped and feared for her life while the three of them were locked in a room. Blasey Ford is now a psychology professor in California.
Retired FBI agent Myron Fuller, now of Utah and a 30-year veteran of the bureau, said agents will have one critical advantage this week — “United States Code, Section 1001” — that makes it a crime to lie to a federal agent.
“The power of the FBI in all of this is witnesses need to tell the truth,” said Fuller. “You can’t lie to an FBI agent. They’ll start off every interview by laying that out. You’re basically under oath.
“If they think they can lie, they better be careful,” he added. “That’s why I think this investigation can be done. It needs to be assigned out of headquarters to agents in Maryland and California.
“They’re going to need to work 24/7,” he added, “and any leads will be sent to field offices.”
All of the retired agents mentioned the heat the FBI has taken in the court of public opinion and said this probe could return some badly needed prestige to the bureau.
But they’ll need to debunk or corroborate claims Kavanaugh attempted to rape a 15-year-old Blasey Ford while they were all in high school, exposed himself at Yale University or was part of a gang rape in high school — allegations the judge called a “joke,” a “farce” and a “search and destroy” hit on his cherished reputation.