Print

Ash writes: "Jeff Flake's mildly courageous acquiescence to demands by protesters and Democrats to slow down the Kavanaugh march induced euphoria on the left on Friday. It may have been premature."

Judge Brett Kavanaugh turns contentious during a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing to hear evidence that he sexually assaulted then Christine Blasey in 1982. (photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Judge Brett Kavanaugh turns contentious during a Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing to hear evidence that he sexually assaulted then Christine Blasey in 1982. (photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)


The FBI Kavanaugh "Investigation" Is a Joke and the Democrats Know It

By Marc Ash, Reader Supported News

01 October 18

 

eff Flake’s mildly courageous acquiescence to demands by protesters and Democrats to slow down the Kavanaugh march induced euphoria on the left on Friday. It may have been premature.

Flake has forced an expanded FBI background check of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, but the scope is so limited that it’s hard to imagine a result different in substance or effect from the report the FBI produced for George H.W. Bush and the Senate Judiciary Committee at the height of Anita Hill’s challenge to Clarence Thomas.

The report had no effect then and it’s not likely to have any effect now because the probe the FBI is conducting is not a real criminal investigation, the fact that real crimes have been reported notwithstanding.

In a real criminal investigation, the investigators go where the evidence takes them. There is no “limitation” to the scope per se. The simplest analogy for a real criminal investigation is the police officer who pulls over the motorist for speeding and observes contraband inside the vehicle. The contraband is fair game, and criminal charges may result. The investigation goes where the evidence takes it.

How limited is the scope of the FBI’s Kavanaugh probe? So limited, in fact, that they will not even interview Julie Swetnick regarding her allegations of criminal conduct by Brett Kavanaugh and others, or any of the several witnesses that corroborate her account. In fact, the probe is constrained to four witnesses, including Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. That’s not an investigation designed to uncover facts. It’s a sanitization and a whitewash.

Swetnick will not be the only accuser ignored by the FBI’s “one week only” probe. The mother of a fourth woman wrote a letter to Colorado senator Cory Gardner, a Republican, describing a sexual assault that her daughter and at least three other women witnessed. The incident, according to the letter, happened outside a Washington DC bar and involved Kavanaugh aggressively and non-consensually forcing himself against one of the women in the group while heavily intoxicated.

The letter writer opted to remain anonymous, but if the FBI were allowed to conduct a real investigation, which they are well capable of, the author, the victim, and all of the witnesses could be identified and interviewed. But none will be.

Breaking News: Donald Trump is lying.

When Donald Trump says the FBI will have “free reign” to conduct a full and thorough investigation, his words, unsurprisingly, stand in stark contrast to his actions. In fact according to The New York Times:

The White House will decide the breadth of the inquiry … The White House can order investigators to further examine the allegations if their findings from the four witness interviews open new avenues of inquiry … Investigators will interview one of the witnesses, a high school friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s named Mark Judge, about Ms. Swetnick’s accusations … The inquiry, which will last no more than a week, is a limited background check of Judge Kavanaugh, not a full-fledged criminal investigation.

So it’s readily apparent, Donald Trump holds all the cards, and he wants Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, as do the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Democrats, for their part, are well aware of all this. Sure, it’s great to see the Democrats celebrate the restoration of a modicum of regular order. But the silence from the Democrats on the reality of this toothless process is deafening. Right now this has Anita Hill redux written all over it. Where’s the outrage?

Email This Page

Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.

Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.


e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page