Senator: FBI's Kavanaugh Investigation Was a Joke

The Brett Kavanaugh controversy might not be over just yet. Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says the FBI's inquiry into sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in 2018 was a joke, and the senator is calling on the attorney general to take a look. Whitehouse wrote a letter to Merrick Garland in which he accused the agency of conducting a "politically constrained and perhaps fake" inquiry, reports the Guardian. Whitehouse cited a tip line set up by the agency as an example. "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 wrote, per the Hill.

Kavanaugh was accused of assault by Christine Blasey Ford while they were in high school, and other women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct. He denied any wrongdoing. Whitehouse says the agency—led by Christopher Wray, who has stayed on under President Biden—made it difficult for potential witnesses to share their concerns with the agency because no point person was designated. Senators who tried to intervene ran into the same problem, he alleges. "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," Whitehouse wrote. Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has yet responded to the letter. (More Brett Kavanaugh stories.)