Your support helps us to tell the story
The Trump White House put restraints on the FBI’s investigation into claims of sexual assault against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 confirmation process, according to a report from the office of a Democratic senator.
Then-President Donald Trump said the FBI would have “free rein” to investigate the allegations and that the agency was “talking to everybody.”
“I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion,” he wrote on social media at the time.
But a report from the office of Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, which was shared with The Washington Post, has revealed that Trump’s claims didn’t fit with the agency’s interpretation of events.
The report, which includes messages between the White House and the FBI, states that agency officials were ordered to do a limited investigation into the claims over the course of a week. They asked for further “guidance” from the White House following the public comments by Trump and other officials.
However, the Trump administration chose not to give the agency the authority to independently investigate the claims, which Kavanagh consistently rejected. The report outlines how the White House strictly controlled the FBI report even as Trump made his comments about the agency having “free rein” to do as they pleased.
FBI tip line messages were sent on to the White House without further investigation, the report states. The agency was reportedly instructed to speak to 10 possible witnesses and it was not given the authority to investigate any corroborating evidence.
Some senators pointed to the lack of evidence when they voted to back Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The justice was one of three appointed by Trump to the nation’s highest court which would subsequently overturn the constitutional right to abortion.
The report into Kavanaugh’s conduct was ordered after testimony by Christine Blasey Ford, who alleged that Kavanaugh had groped her and attempted to take her clothes off more than 30 years before during a Maryland high school party.
Deborah Ramirez also made allegations against Kavanaugh in a New Yorker story, stating that he had pushed his penis into her face during a Yale University dorm party.
Attorneys for Blasey Ford, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, told The Post in a statement that “the Congressional report published today confirms what we long suspected: the FBI supplemental investigation of then-nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh was, in fact, a sham effort directed by the Trump White House to silence brave victims and other witnesses who came forward and to hide the truth.”
Ramirez attorney John Clune told the paper, “It’s really disappointing since our client was so candid about something that was a pretty awful experience.”
A spokesperson for the Trump campaign told The Post that Kavanaugh was “unfairly slandered and smeared with lies.”
Back in 2018, there were widespread reports regarding some of the restrictions put on the investigation, such as the FBI not speaking to Kavanaugh or Blasey Ford. The FBI also didn’t speak to people referred by attorneys for Blasey Ford and Ramirez.
The agency told The Post that it “follows a long-standing, established, process through which the scope of the investigation is limited to what is requested.”
“The FBI does not have the independent authority to expand the scope of a supplemental background investigation outside the requesting agency’s parameters,” a spokesperson added.
Whitehouse told the paper that the delay in the report’s release came after reluctance from both the Trump and Biden administrations to share correspondence with the agency, as well as to provide access to officials and to answer questions about the probe.
“Assurances that everything was being done by the book and according to standard FBI procedures omitted the fact that for supplement background investigations, there is no book and there are no procedures,” the senator told the paper.
“You simply do what the White House tells you,” he added.
The report outlines how just a couple of days before the vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, senators were afforded about an hour to look over more than 1,600 pages of mostly information from the tip line. There was no explanation regarding if the tips had been reviewed, according to Whitehouse.
The Independent has attempted to reach Kavanaugh for comment.
