Attorney: FBI “did not want to learn the truth” about Ramirez’s allegations against Kavanaugh
The FBI, or those overseeing its investigation, “did not want to learn the truth” behind Deborah Ramirez’s allegations of sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the Boulder woman’s attorney alleged in a letter to the bureau’s director.
Washington, D.C.based attorney William Pittard wrote in a twopage letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray released Thursday morning that the bureau ended its probe of the allegations against Kavanaugh in four days “without permitting its agents to investigate.”
Following the FBI’s interview of Ramirez in Boulder over the weekend, her attorneys provided a list of 20 witnesses believed to have additional information that could corroborate her account.
Ramirez’s attorneys previously have said they don’t believe the FBI contacted any of those people.
“We are deeply disappointed by this failure,” Pittard wrote. “We can only conclude that the FBI — or those controlling its investigation — did not want to learn the truth behind Ms. Ramirez’s allegations.”
Kavanaugh repeatedly has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.
Pittard attached a sworn statement by Richard Oh, a California emergency room doctor who was one of Kavanaugh’s suitemates at Yale University. Oh, who said he told the FBI he was willing to be interviewed, recalled a female student who “emotionally report ed” an incident similar to the one described by Ramirez.
Later on Thursday, Deborah Pittard sent Ramirez a second letter to Wray with another statement from a witnesses Ramirez named who wasn’t interviewed by the FBI. That person, whose name was redacted, said Ramirez in 1991 or 1992 recounted an incident that occurred at Yale involving “a male classmate (who) exposed his penis to her without her consent.”
“The information provided by Ms. Ramirez is corroborated, and your agents should have been permitted to develop that information,” Pittard wrote in the second letter. “Both Ms. Ramirez and the search for the truth have been illserved.”
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, a federal appeals court judge, has denied the alleged incident 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 at which Christine Blasey Ford, who said Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, detailed her account. Kavanaugh angrily refuted the allegations.
In addition to Ramirez, the FBI this week also interviewed Tim Gaudette, a Georgetown Prep classmate of Kavanaugh’s who now lives in Denver. Gaudette’s home was the site of a July 1, 1982, party that Kavanaugh listed on his calendar, which was provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
That new FBI background investigation was delivered to the White House around 3 a.m. Thursday.
The FBI interviews focus on allegations against Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, although his critics have also called into question his drinking habits during high school and college. Kavanaugh strongly denies the sexual accusations and says stories of bad behavior while drinking are greatly exaggerated.
Senators began reviewing the new FBI background file on Kavanaugh on Thursday morning, and will use the confidential material about the judge’s background to help decide how they’ll vote on his precarious nomination.
Even before the FBI delivered the summaries of interviews on claims that Kavanaugh sexually abused women, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell set Friday as the first vote for his polarized chamber in an electionseason battle over power and who to believe.