GOP fears poll fallout over Kavanaugh
CAMPAIGN AGENTS ADMIT THIS IS NOT THE FIGHT THEY WANTED SIX WEEKS BEFORE ELECTION DAY
Whether or not Republicans ultimately confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, some on the front lines of the GOP’s midterm battlefield fear the party may have already lost.
In the days after a divided nation watched Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford deliver conflicting stories about what happened when they were teenagers, Republican campaign operatives acknowledged this is not the fight they wanted six weeks before Election Day.
In swing state New Hampshire, former Republican Party chair Jennifer Horn said Republicans are “grossly underestimating the damage that would be done” at the ballot box in the short and long term should they confirm Kavanaugh. “Republicans have to ask themselves if they’re willing not only to sell the soul of the party, but sell their own souls to get this particular conservative on the Supreme Court,” Horn said.
Another wing of the party was just as convinced that Republicans would trigger Election Day doom should they fail to confirm Trump’s Supreme Court pick. “If Republicans do not get this vote taken and Kavanaugh confirmed, you can kiss the midterms goodbye,” conservative icon Rush Limbaugh said, a message that Trump echoed on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the FBI has begun contacting people as part of an additional background investigation of Kavanaugh, including a second woman Deborah Ramirez, his Yale University classmate who alleges he sexually assaulted her.
Should they approve Kavanaugh, Republicans risk enraging the women they need to preserve their House majority. Vote him down, they risk enraging the party’s defiant political base.
The renewed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) background check of Judge Brett Kavanaugh over allegations of sexual assault will be relatively limited, relying on voluntary interviews and document production.
Former prosecutors said that because it is not a criminal investigation, FBI agents will not be able to get search warrants or grand jury subpoenas compelling witnesses to testify or hand over documents. Witnesses and others can refuse to cooperate, although talking to an FBI agent is often a powerful motivator to tell the truth.
At a Senate hearing last Thursday, Kavanaugh forcefully denied accusations of sexual misconduct. One of his accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, told senators that he drunkenly pinned her on a bed during a party on a summer night in 1982, tried to take off her bathing suit and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming.
Republicans have said for days that an additional FBI background check was unnecessary, but reversed course on Friday after Senator Jeff Flake (Republican, from Arizona) said he would not vote to confirm Kavanaugh without one. With a closely divided Senate, Republicans had little choice, and President Donald Trump
Brett’s assault on me drastically altered my life. For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone these details.”
Christine Blasey Ford | One of the accusers
Your coordinated and well-funded effort to destroy my good name and to destroy my family will not drive me out.”
Brett Kavanaugh | Nominee to be an associate judge in US Supreme Court
ordered the background check. This is familiar territory for the FBI. As part of a routine background check, agents examined domestic abuse allegations against Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary, and provided the information to the White House. Porter, who has denied the accusations, was forced to resign this year.
Here is what you need to know.
What has the FBI already examined about Kavanaugh?
In Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh pointed to “six separate FBI background investigations over 26 years”. For background checks of federal judicial nominees, agents typically focus on their professional lives. According to former FBI officials, agents must interview a minimum of 30 people with whom nominees worked, including judges, lawyers and law-enforcement officials. Agents would also talk to anyone else whom those people suggested they interview.
What could agents examine about Blasey’s allegation?
The FBI can follow several leads. They can interview Mark Judge, Leland Keyser and P.J. Smyth, high school friends of either Blasey or Kavanaugh. Blasey has said they were at the party. The judge said on Friday that he would be willing to talk to law enforcement officials.
Agents could also investigate several details that could corroborate Blasey’s story. Weeks after she was assaulted, Blasey said, she saw Kavanaugh at a local Safeway grocery store. In his book, Wasted, Kavanaugh wrote that he worked as a bag boy in a local supermarket. The FBI could ask either Safeway or Kavanaugh for employment records. Agents could also study Kavanaugh’s calendars from the summer of 1982.
What about investigating the allegations of other women?
In addition to investigating Blasey’s claims, the bureau is looking into accusations against Kavanaugh by at least one other woman — Deborah Ramirez — who said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a night of drinking when they were both freshmen at Yale.
A third woman, Julie Swetnick, has said that Kavanaugh attended multiple parties in high school where he plied women with alcohol to try
to take advantage of them. FBI agents could interview a broader circle of alumni from Kavanaugh’s and Swetnick’s high schools in suburban Washington.
Will FBI figure out the truth?
That will be difficult. The allegations are decades old and the key witness to Blasey’s account, Kavanaugh, has also denied it. Memories have faded and documents or other information might not exist anymore. And not everyone tells the FBI the truth.
But Robert Cromwell, a former agent who oversaw these types of investigations, said he would expect the FBI to follow every lead. “They will report what the results are — whether they are exculpatory or not,” he said. “The results will stand on their own.”
Can the FBI finish investigating in a week?
It’s not impossible. The FBI has plenty of experience mounting large investigations and getting results quickly. In the days and weeks after terrorism attacks or mass shootings, the FBI has completed hundreds of interviews and processed mountains of evidence, like video footage or the contents of computers and phones.
In this case, the FBI is likely to make the investigation a top priority, instructing agents across America to conduct interviews. “The FBI investigation can easily be done in a week,” said Lauren Anderson, a former top FBI official.
Will anyone believe the FBI?
The bureau has been the target of Trump’s fury since before he became president, claiming without evidence that a cabal of FBI officials was against him. He has called the investigation into whether any of his associates conspired with Russia’s interference with the US presidential election in 2016 a witch hunt and a hoax.
Republicans and Democrats alike are all but certain to seize on the FBI’s findings to bolster their cases, and some current and former agents fear that politics will drown out any truth uncovered by the investigation. Nonetheless, James A. Gagliano, a former agent, said on Twitter, the background check is the “right path forward”.