Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, (D-RI), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, released a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland suggesting that the FBI background check on sexual assault claims made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in 2018 may have been “fake” and wants Garland to investigate.
“This was unique behavior in my experience,” Whitehouse wrote, “as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI.”
Whitehouse added that, once the FBI decided to create a “tip line”, senators were not given any information on how or whether new allegations were processed and evaluated. While senators’ brief review of the allegations gathered by the tip line showed a “stack” of information had come in, there was no further explanation on the steps that had been taken to review the information.
”This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster,” Whitehouse said and he wants answers about “how, why and at whose behest” the FBI conducted a “fake” investigation and whether the claims collected in the “tip line” followed the standard of other allegations gathered by tips.
“If standard procedures were violated, and the Bureau conducted a fake investigation rather than a sincere, thorough and professional one, that in my view merits congressional oversight to understand how, why, and at whose behest and with whose knowledge or connivance, this was done. The FBI “stonewall” of all questions related to this episode provides little reassurance of its propriety. If, on the other hand, the “investigation” was conducted with drawbridges up and a fake “tip line” and that was somehow “by the book,” as Director Wray claimed, that would raise serious questions about the “book” itself. It cannot and should not be the policy of the FBI to not follow up on serious allegations of misconduct during background check investigations,” Whitehouse concluded.
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