Outrage Grows As Omissions From Kavanaugh Probe Become Apparent

[DonViejo]

By Kate Riga
October 1, 2018 7:54 am

The limit on the list of people the FBI plans to talk to about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s past, as well as the difficulty many would-be witnesses are facing in their attempts to contribute their information, is raising Democratic hackles.

According to a Sunday New Yorker article, multiple people have tried to go to the FBI with pertinent information about Kavanaugh, only to be stymied by seemingly unorganized and uninterested agents.

One of these potential witnesses is Elizabeth Rasor, an ex-girlfriend of Mark Judge. Rasor says that Judge told her about an episode where he and his friends “took turns” having sex with a drunk woman, an act that seems to mirror third accuser, Julie Swetnick’s, allegation. Judge has also been accused by professor Christine Blasey Ford of being an accomplice to Kavanaugh during a separate alleged sexual assault.

Another is an unnamed Yale classmate who wanted to corroborate Deborah Ramirez’s accusation that Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her at a college party. “I thought it was going to be an investigation, but instead it seems it’s just an alibi for Republicans to vote for Kavanaugh,” the unnamed Yale classmate told the New Yorker.

Both Rasor and the unnamed Yale classmate were allegedly stonewalled by the FBI, eventually being told to leave their accounts with an 800-number tip line.

According to the New Yorker, Blasey Ford herself also has tried to cooperate with the FBI, but per her attorney has “heard nothing back.”

more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/outrage-grows-as-omissions-from-kavanaugh-probe-become-apparent

[dalton99a]

1. Kick

[TheBlackAdder]

29. 800 Tip Line -- Is that another slang term for a Rape Train Line?

[olegramps]

36. The bottom line is: Just how long are we going to tolerate this crap?

[Chiquitita]

2. Our outrage needs to be about the lying

We won't win (IMHO) if we focus on the FBI investigation. Kavanaugh lied. He's a liar. He's disqualified.

[Pachamama]

10. +100000

I completely agree

[vlyons]

43. and the coverup

[Martin Eden]

63. Kavanugh put on a display of rage, self pity, and partisanship

He's disqualified for that too.

[cyclonefence]

3. These accusations are being made public

Why isn't Kavanaugh suing for defamation? Do the accusers have any legal recourse if Kavanaugh publicly asserts they are lying? I hope every talk show on the tv dial has booked these women for interviews, and I hope they will be brave enough to speak out loud and as often as they can to demonstrate Kav's lies to Congress (and, apparently, the FBI).

[mythology]

27. Obama didn't see over birther nonsense.

Not suing didn't mean the birther stuff was true. In the other direction Roy Moore has sued some of his accusers. Doesn't mean he didn't perv on underage girls.

[NewJeffCT]

4. The fix is in

the FBI will present evidence, but draw no conclusions, even if the evidence is overwhelmingly against Brett.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. For background checks, they are not supposed to "draw conclusions"

I.e., they are not doing a formal criminal probe here although they could probably recommend one if some of the info fell within their purview and jurisdiction, as this is really more a state case (state of MD).

This is the issue that faces Democrats on the Committee because it will be up to the Committee members to use that info to draw it's own conclusions whether to vote yay or nay (and the GOP has the majority). They would need to convince the usuals among the GOP - at least 2 of them, that the gravity of any new revelations is enough to vote nay).

[Hermit-The-Prog]

50. minor correction

It's not up to the committee any more; they voted to recommend. It's up to all Senators during the floor debate and final vote.

[BumRushDaShow]

52. In this case, I mean "committee" in terms of members Flake and Coons

who are "carrying" Collins, Murkowski, and Manchin with them for potentially being "nays" without the FBI addendum investigation. Everyone else in the Senate is pretty much set on their votes. So at least those 2 are critical in terms of convincing the very few uncommitted.

[Cha]

60. FYI, BRDS.. BK's winter 2019 class @Harvard_Law has been CANCELED, after mass student opposition

Link to tweet

[Amishman]

16. The FBI focus wasn't a good tactic

As I just said in another discussion on this, the FBI angle was a misstep. This is too old to produce hard evidence, so it's all about statements. Unfortunately this doesn't help us either, as Kavanaugh is telling simple lies and Dr. Ford is telling a complex truth. It makes Kavanaugh's story easier to keep straight, where Dr. Ford will be nitpicked for every tiny instance where she said something differently between the various tellings.

This is a job interview, and Kavanaugh fails on character, which doesn't require FBI verified evidence.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Since the GOP is lockstepped to vote for him no matter what

any "evidence" that is revealed is for the benefit of the public to pressure those "holdouts" - you just need 2 - to stop this in its tracks.

It may also trigger individuals to actually file suit in MD (for a charge that isn't beyond the statue of limitations).

[llmart]

25. It also bought them one more week...

and that's one more week closer to midterms. Remember - many Americans have short attention spans.

[BumRushDaShow]

32. Yes

It's either this or maybe a Roger Stone indictment (which would be ballsy to do now ).

[llmart]

44. Icing on the cake!

[BumRushDaShow]

45. What is wild along that line of thought...

apparently Mueller is all up inside Stone's head because not a week goes by where Stone doesn't blurt out some paranoid remark about "being indicted soon".... his latest theory is that he is being "framed". I even saw that he has a legal defense fund with a website name of "whoframedrogerstone".

[pnwmom]

57. It would be a good tactic if the FBI was actually collecting witness statements

and other evidence. These could make a difference in the votes of the "maybe" Senators.

[BumRushDaShow]

61. Watching the various shows last night

it seems that witnesses have been submitting or trying to submit statements to the FBI. Will have to monitor (now that some of the confusion about scope over the weekend is hopefully resolved) how the various field offices are handling this. I heard one of the former U.S. Attorney panelists on MSNBC last night say that the optimum way to go about it is to start with a few leads and then spread out from there in a somewhat linear fashion... But since this is an abbreviated investigative time frame, there will most likely be simultaneous interviews happening to save time and thus all the info collected will need to compiled and validated across interviewees, in order to reconstruct the linear association.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. I know this is going to be an unpopular commentary on this

but as a now-retired fed, I imagine that some of the "non-response" is due to getting (consistent) communications out to the field offices nationwide (and there are quite a few of them) to track down and assign people to handle these inquiries. Because some of these witnesses are located all over the place, they are referring these folks to their local field offices, where news of this sudden request was obviously "sprung on them" out of nowhere, at the last minute, late in the afternoon on a Friday (been there done that many many many times where hysterical "HOT" assignments always happened on Fridays and weekends, and particularly holidays). Bank on it!

I expect, like the agency I used to work for, there are always folks who are "on-call" for "emergencies" during weekends and holidays, but even with that, it's a matter of higher-ups chain calling their supervisors to get their assigned direct-report staff up and running.

We would really need to monitor what happens TODAY to see how the "real" scope is being translated out to these field offices.

[turbinetree]

22. Wado------------Thank you

[DeminPennswoods]

26. Been through the end of the day and Friday afternoon fire drills, too

I'd be a little surprised if there wasn't some advance planning, but when an agent says he doesn't know what you're talking about, it stands to reason they had not gotten official word yet.

[BumRushDaShow]

30. Right

And some of these folks are in different locations. We know that Ford is living in California, there was one person mentioned who was living in North Carolina I think...

They have to get their list and then supplemental lists and then try to track down where they live and then hand it off to that location's field office.

I'm just glad that nowadays there is email and cell phones because back in the day, you had to wait for a FAX notification with the instructions. Hell, whenever regs or guidance manuals changed, we wouldn't see the final versions for months... until they finally mailed out boxes with bundles (hopefully collated and hole-punched) of photocopied inserts with the changes to put into our binders (and remove the deprecated versions).

[EffieBlack]

48. Thanks for this perspective

[getagrip_already]

6. new york times is reporting fbi is finished - may report by this morning

The scope of the interviews was so small, the fbi is already done with the interviews.

Expect a vote within a day.

[FBaggins]

9. A vote can't happen that fast

Once they close off debate with a cloture vote, there's still 30 hours of debate before a vote can be held.

[getagrip_already]

11. interesting, but not what mcconnel said....

He was going to schedule a vote within hours, not days, of the judiciary committee vote.

But ok, they will schedule it for weds. Big whoop of a difference.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. The Judiciary Committee already voted to send it to the floor

The "agreement" was that it would be "1 week" before they would schedule a vote from the full chamber, meaning that they could potentially lose Flake's vote if Coons complains they aborted the process prematurely.

[Amishman]

18. It was up to one week for an FBI investigation

Pretty sure they said it could be less. They knew with a narrow scope and no physical evidence that this would have nothing to it. Now their sock puppets can claim there was an FBI investigation and try to shut the door on all this. Mind blowing how they can be so stupid yet so diabolical at the same time.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. Here is what was said -

https://www.c-span.org/video/?452084-1/senator-flake-calls-delaying-kavanaugh-vote-fbi-background-check-reopen&start=15152

[FBaggins]

15. The vote he was talking about was the cloture vote

Which would then start the clock on a final vote a few days later.

[BumRushDaShow]

31. Yes - their initial "procedural" vote

to then move it for debate and final vote.

Before our 2014 loss of Senate control, cloture for SCOTUS would have required 41 to not advance but the GOP made that decision to change the rule to simple majority as we all know.

There have been cases where some "holdouts" would allow the vote to proceed (invoke cloture) but then vote "nay" for the final vote, so still more drama to come in any case.

[EffieBlack]

49. That's the cloture vote

FBaggins is correct - they have to leave the debate open for 30 hours.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. If you read the full article

it is all over the place with what the status "is". There is one section that has this -

Democrats were to some degree in the dark about the inquiry’s parameters. In a letter to Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, and Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee asked for a copy of the directive sent by the White House to the bureau laying out the scope of the investigation.

“If the F.B.I. requests any expansion beyond the initial directive, please provide the names of any additional witnesses or evidence,” the Democrat, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, wrote in the letter.

It is not unusual for the White House to specify the scope of a request for additional background information on a nominee. No evidence has emerged that the White House has forbidden any investigative steps, and President Trump has said he wants agents “to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/politics/fbi-kavanaugh-investigation-scope-democrats.html

The "contributors" to the article are listed way at the bottom - i.e.,

Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Robin Pogrebin from New York. Reporting was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Nicholas Fandos, Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Goldman from Washington, and Ben Protess, Steve Eder, David Enrich and Maggie Haberman from New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/30/us/politics/fbi-kavanaugh-investigation-scope-democrats.html

Keep in the back of your mind that Drumpf has been on a tirade to discredit the FBI and this narrative feeds into that.

[lunatica]

7. People should go to the press if the FBI won't interview them

He truth needs to be known.

[Duppers]

37. +100

[ooky]

53. Media needs to go to those people now and do nationally televised interviews.

[lunatica]

54. The media is going to them

Two new people have been interviewed late today. Lawrence is talking about it now.

[ooky]

55. Watching Lawrence now...

He just played the clip of Kavanaugh responding to Orin Hatch's question about when he first knew about the Rameriz allegation, and he clearly looked like he was lying when he said in "some days after the NYT story" (paraphrased).

Isn't it ironic that the lie that will bring him down was his answer to a question from Orin Hatch?!

[PaulX2]

13. I Like The Accuser Town Hall Idea

Do it on thursday. Just witnesses and media. No politicians.

[Duppers]

38. Absolutely.

👍

[efhmc]

17. God, they think we are stupid. nt

[Dave Starsky]

20. No, they know we're not stupid. They just don't care.

Even your average Republican is hip to what a perverted, demented idiot President Pilzschwanz is. They just don't care.

[luvtheGWN]

24. There is one thing that those Repubs up for re-election DO care about:

They care that they will face the very public wrath and humiliation that tRump will rain down upon them if they go against his wishes. As for Flake -- I'm sure he cares about that too, but for very different reasons. He may not be running this year, but his days in politics are definitely not over. He's looking at the bigger picture (i.e. a White-r, as in House) picture down the road.

Frankly, I would be far, far more upset with Murkowski and Collins if they betray their own sex by voting for the liar and sexual assaulter.

[Separation]

58. No way Flake will ever run.

He sealed his fate as soon as he said he wouldnt have been able to Vote no had he not been running for reelection.

[jcsg]

62. I've always wanted to be a fly on the wall

when people like Murkowski and Collins get persuaded to change their votes. I am so curious about what happens, what deals get made, how it works...

[qazplm135]

46. no, they think we are powerless

and at this moment, we are.

Whether we will be after November is pretty much up to us.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

21. Need to investigate the perjury, the $200K debt (gambling), alcoholism, too. . . . nt

[DeminPennswoods]

23. Today's GOP is the definition of stupid

They are trying to limit the new background check, but my bet is that by Friday both the WaPo and NYT release explosive and damning stories about Kavanaugh including quotes from all the people the FBI wasn't allowed to interview.

[aeromanKC]

33. They better hurry!!

Heard that the FBI is already wrapping up their investigation. They're done. And it's only Monday.

[elmac]

34. Many of the agents, much like the military

are fascists and wouldn't want to hurt their lil handed orange hitler so we got that working against the investigation also

[The Liberal Lion]

35. As far as I'm concerened it no longer matters WHAT trump does

as the truth about our current situation is apparent. Everything done now by that orange illegal occupant of the White House and the traitors in the GOP enabling and supporting him MUST without exception be nullified. It no longer pays to focus on, to protest, or beg for mercy from what madness is being produced by Washington as well as in state houses and governor mansions held by the GOP in this day. The focus should no longer be on what they do, but rather forcing them out of power. I think after the midterms it will become very clear what behaviors will be necessary from every individual in order to rid ourselves of this disease. America as a whole may not survive intact once the wheels for dislodging this orange chump and the GOP traitors begins to turn, but a fractured America will serve the world much better if the rump that remains follows a path of justice, rather than an intact America in it's current evil form.

[FakeNoose]

41. +++ So right!

The rightwing nut jobs want to do the same thing to us that they did in Chile. That poor country will never be the same, even though they've thrown out the military junta. The coupe in Chile was orchestrated by RWNJs here in the states. Now they're trying to do the same here. The idiotic TrumpHumpers have no idea how they're being used by these lying selfish assholes. I'm beginning to think we're giving Putin more credit than he deserves, it's American "libertarians" who are secretly pulling a lot of the puppet strings.

We Dems have to fight this with everything we have. It's not paranoia either, it's all really happening - now.

[rainy]

39. My concern is that Trump has conditioned

the FBI to err on his side to avoid being called the dark state in cahoots with Democrats 😒

[ananda]

40. Sue the suckers. Take it to the news and the streets!

Do not let that mf get confirmed!

[frogmarch]

42. And here we are.

[img][/img]

[libdem4life]

47. Indeed.

[AJT]

51. So much for the FBI agents being professional.

They don't seem to care the 45 has been insulting them over and over.

[George Eliot]

56. So much irony. I guess the FBI is biased after all. Another thread called Wray,Rosenstein, Kavanaugh

collegial and tight. What can you do? Makes a mockery of last two years. Strzok, McCabe and Lisa on wrong side of politics. It's all a sham.

[SuprstitionAintthWay]

59. PHYSICALLY GO TO AN FBI FIELD OFFICE AND INSIST ON REPORTING IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION ON KAV.

I sent the below to Greg Sergant at rhe Post, Gail Collins at the Times, Rachel's show, and CNN. Trump is playing word games and lying about the latitude the FBI has while he runs out the clock on his sham investigation. I wrote the below before his supposed relaxing of the restrictions Monday, but my opinion hasn't changed. I notice we still haven't seen either set of Trump's orders to the FBI. Until we do, assume Trump's lying and the background investigation is still on a severely tight leash. WaPo says the restrictions are slightly less than they were, but they don't know how or how much. And what they were was a farce: 4 people, 3 of whom were already on record as remembering nothing, and the 4th already on record as denying everything. 


I'd rather this be a new thread but I just re-joined (after a decade) and can't make it a thread yet. If someone else will copy and paste it into its own thread, please do. 

If McConnell holds a vote Friday, then 3 of the 6 days the FBI has are already gone. Witnesses against Kavanaugh need to force their statements into this outrageous "process." This is how. 


Sent: Monday, October 1, 2018 6:32 PM 
To: [e-mail] 
Subject: Fw: Publicize a way to get Kav reports into FBI records anyway 


Sent: Monday, October 1, 2018 6:01 PM 
To: [e-mail] 
Subject: Publicize a way to get Kav reports into FBI records anyway 


Hi Greg: 

I think this workaround will work; check with your Bureau sources about whether it will. 

Do your best to get the word out, FAST, that if you have relevant info on Kavanaugh or Mark Judge, to not call the FBI and wait for a call back, because that's probably been specifically prohibited by McCabe and Trump until the 7 days are up. 

Tell people to instead PHYSICALLY GO TO AN FBI OFFICE, tell them you're there to REPORT A FEDERAL CRIME, and then sit in their damn lobby and refuse to leave until a SPECIAL AGENT TAKES YOUR REPORT. 

INSIST you want to report the crime RIGHT THERE AND THEN, and don't let them put you off. Because they probably will if you let them, Christopher Wray is almost surely under presidential orders to essentially run out the clock on this background investigation (BI) extension. 

Thursday Sep. 27, 2018 Brett Kavanaugh committed maybe 100 federal crimes. He lied under oath to Congress about that many times, and everybody witnessed it. Whichever lie he told that a person has specific knowledge is false, is the federal crime to report there in the FBI field office. 

And again, you must INSIST on reporting what you know to be a federal crime, based on whatever information you have that is contrary to his lie. Be prepared for the field office agents to try to not take the report, by saying it falls under a BI that a special team of agents is doing and you'd need to report it directly to them. Well, that special BI team of agents are not going to talk to you until after Friday, if then.  

So INSIST. There has been a federal crime committed, and you insist on reporting what you know about it, right then and there. 

Stay until you do. 

Ask for a photocopy of the statement you sign. 

Take the special agent's name. I believe they're required to submit it within 24 hours of receiving the report. Ask to be emailed and mailed a copy of it. 

When you leave, immediately send all of the particulars to the Democratic senator of your choice. And to the Washington Post, New York Times, New Yorker, CNN, MSNBC, Guardian, and whatever other media of your choice. Probably the FBI will instruct you not to disclose your report to anybody... "ongoing investigation" and all that. I'd do it anyway and take my chances, because to not will probably be to have accomplished nothing. 

If everyone who knows factually about a Kavanaugh lie to Congress does this immediately, we can at least get the reports physically into the FBI somewhere. And Democratic senators, the principled media, and the American public hopefully can successfully demand that the reports be taken into account before a final vote to confirm Kavanaugh.  

I hope this works. We are in a fast-moving constitutional crisis created by a dishonest authoritarian president and his Republican senator co-conspirators. The White House is in the position to make Christopher Wray run out the clock while avoiding any new negative information about Kavanaugh in a sham of a BI. And we need to do everything can to counter this, right NOW. 

Thank you. 

[disndat]

64. Trump can fool the public

but I hope he can't fool J.Flake, Sen. Coons, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski.