Attorney: FBI hasn’t contacted witnesses
Investigators with the FBI have not contacted any of the more than 20 people Deborah Ramirez told them might have information about her account that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the 1980s, the Boulder woman’s attorney said Tuesday.
Ramirez spoke to the investigators for more than two hours Sunday, her Boulder attorney, John Clune, wrote on Twitter.
“It was a detailed and productive interview, and the agents were clearly motivated to investigate the matter in any way they were permitted,” Clune said.
Ramirez’s attorneys gave the FBI agents the names and known contact information of potential witnesses at the end of the interview, Clune said.
But Clune said Tuesday that Ramirez and her team had not heard that the FBI reached out to any of those witnesses.
“Though we appreciated the agents who responded on Sunday, we have great concern that the FBI is not conducting — or not being permitted to conduct — a serious investigation,” he said via Twitter.
Ramirez, who works for Boulder County, told the The New Yorker in an article published Sept. 23 that Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his genitalia in her face during a party in a dorm room at Yale University when they were both students in the early 1980s.
Kavanaugh, who is a federal appeals court judge, has denied the alleged inci dent ever happened.
President Donald Trump ordered the FBI on Friday to investigate claims of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The committee voted in favor of Kavanaugh’s nomination Friday after a lengthy hearing when Christine Blasey Ford, who said Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, detailed her account. Kavanaugh angrily refuted the allegations.
Democratic lawmakers have said that the president’s administration is restricting the FBI’s investigation, though the White House press secretary said that the administration is allowing the Senate to determine the scope of the inquiry. Trump said Sunday that the investigators had “free rein.”
Ford’s attorneys said Tuesday that the FBI has not interviewed her or responded to any of her letters or emails offering her cooperation in the investigation. The attorney for Julie Swetnick, the third woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, also said Tuesday that FBI agents had not contacted Swetnick.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI investigation is expected to wrap up as soon as Wednesday.