Tag: Brett Kavanaugh

We Now Know What the FBI Did With the 4,500 Kavanaugh Tips It Collected in 2018

Slate Logo

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has spent nearly three years attempting to understand the nature of the FBI’s “supplemental investigation” of claims that emerged against Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in the summer of 2018. The senator’s attempts to get answers from either the Trump White House or the FBI were largely unsuccessful while Trump was still in office. But Whitehouse kept trying—almost as soon as Merrick Garland was sworn in as attorney general, Whitehouse asked him to help facilitate “proper oversight” by the Senate into questions about how serious the FBI supplemental investigation really was.

Whitehouse asked Garland to explain why there was no mechanism for witnesses to report their accounts to the FBI, and why, after the FBI decided to create a “tip line,” nobody was ever told how the tips were evaluated. In his March letter to Garland, Whitehouse described that tip line as “more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster.” Whitehouse asked Garland to explain “how, why, and at whose behest” the FBI conducted a “fake” investigation that violated standard procedures. Whitehouse also asked Garland to probe into the tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt that mysteriously vanished from Kavanaugh’s life in 2016.

And it seems he has finally gotten at least some answers. On Wednesday morning, Whitehouse’s office released a June 30 letter from FBI Assistant Director Jill C. Tyson. The letter is a response to an even older request sent by Whitehouse (and Sen. Chris Coons) asking similar questions about the supplemental background investigation—this one, sent to the FBI in August 2019. Among other revelations, Tyson’s letter indicates that the FBI’s supplemental investigation happened at the direction of the White House, that the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips the agency received were referred back to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, and that in the days of the follow-up investigation, 10 people were interviewed (it doesn’t say this, but other reporting has confirmed that neither Christine Blasey Ford nor Kavanaugh were among these 10 people). The letter clarifies that this was a supplemental background check, not a criminal investigation because that is what was sought by the White House counsel’s office. Continue reading.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse says FBI’s Brett Kavanaugh investigation may have been ‘fake’

Yahoo News Logo

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) accused the FBI of launching a “politically constrained and perhaps fake” investigation into accusations of sexual assault and misconduct made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process.

After former President Donald Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July 2018, multiple women came forward with allegations of sexual assault and misconduct, notably Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that while they were teenagers, Kavanaugh held her down on a bed, put his hand over her mouth, and attempted to take off her clothes. Kavanaugh denied all of the accusations.

Trump authorized the FBI to investigate Ford’s claim, but the bureau never interviewed Kavanaugh, Ford, or other witnesses who offered to testify, and its report was never made public. In a letter sent last week to Attorney General Merrick Garland, Whitehouse said the Senate Judiciary Committee is reviewing the FBI’s handling of the accusations, and would like the Justice Department to provide support. Continue reading.

‘Facts Matter’: Vermont Urges Kavanaugh To Correct Major Error In Voting Rights Opinion

On Wednesday, Vermont Secretary of State Jim Condos took an extraordinary step to set the Supreme Court straight with a letter asking Justice Brett Kavanaugh to correct a recent opinion.

In a court decision on Monday that ruled against allowing ballots to be counted in Wisconsin after Election Day, Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion that incorrectly claimed Vermont had not changed its election rules for the unprecedented challenges facing the 2020 election, despite obvious evidence to the contrary.

“We have formally requested that #SCOTUS correct the erroneous claim by Justice Brett Kavanaugh that #VT has not changed voting procedures for the #2020Elections due to #COVID19. When it comes to issuing decisions on the voting rights of American citizens, facts matter,” The Vermont Secretary of State’s Office tweeted out Wednesday afternoon alongside a copy of the letter. Continue reading.

Justice Kavanaugh’s ‘sloppy’ opinion is an embarrassing mess riddled with errors

AlterNet logo

Late Monday night, the Supreme Court issued a ruling blocking a lower court’s decision to force Wisconsin election officials to extend the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots, as long as they were post-marked by Election Day. This decision to limit ballot access was unsurprising given the conservative majority on the court, but as I noted, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion disturbed many readers because of the views it seemed to express about voting and elections.

But there’s a related aspect of Kavanaugh’s opinion that has attracted significant attention in addition to its ideological bent. It was, many commentators noted, extraordinarily sloppy for a Supreme Court ruling. The opinion was riddled with errors, embarrassingly so, and some of which even relate to the substance of his argument.

To be sure, in light of the pandemic, some state legislatures have exercised their Article I, §4, authority over elections and have changed their election rules for the November 2020 election. Of particular relevance here, a few States such as Mississippi no longer require that absentee ballots be received before election day. See, e.g., Miss. Code Ann. §23–15–637 (2020). Other States such as Vermont, by contrast, have decided not to make changes to their ordinary election rules, including to the election-day deadline for receipt of absentee ballots. [emphasis added] Continue reading.

Fallout from Kavanaugh confirmation felt in Washington one year later

The Hill logoIt’s been a full year since Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court but the fallout from that day — and the acrimonious weeks preceding the vote — looms large over Washington.

Senators who voted for him are finding themselves in some of the toughest reelection campaigns of their careers. Activists, seeing a raft of anti-abortion laws weaving their way through the courts, worry how Kavanaugh’s presence will swing the Supreme Court’s view of Roe v. Wade.

Democrats, perhaps even more than before, fear losing a progressive justice on the bench before regaining control of the White House.

View the complete October 6 article by Rebecca Klar on The Hill website here.

Brett Kavanaugh: A Representation of the Damaged U.S. Judiciary

Center for American Progress logoOn October 6, 2018, the U.S. Senate voted 50-48 to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite credible, powerful allegations of sexual assault. The vote came on the heels of a partisan display by Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings in which he put forward conspiracy theories that echoed his long career in conservative politics. His appearance drew more than 80 serious ethics complaints that were dismissed only because lower court judges do not have the legal authority to discipline Supreme Court justices. Recently, new information has come to light strongly indicating that little to no meaningful investigation by the Senate or the FBI into Kavanaugh’s past occurred after the allegations were made—underscoring the troubling nature of his nomination—despite claims to the contrary from the administration and his supporters in the Senate.

But Kavanaugh is not an anomaly; rather, he embodies major issues with regard to conservative court packing and a lack of ethical oversight within the entire judiciary—issues that necessitate reforms. So, while Kavanaugh and his confirmation process should be the focus of robust oversight, policymakers must also direct their efforts to fixing accountability issues within the federal judiciary as a whole that damage the institution’s legitimacy.

Conservative court packing

For decades, conservatives have worked in concert with wealthy donors to develop a pipeline of ideologically conservative jurists prepared to assert their ideology and life experiences over the law. In recent years, the impact of this work has multiplied thanks to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) subversion of long-held procedures in order to pack the courts with ideologically conservative judges.

View the complete October 1 article by Maggie Jo Buchanan and Abbey Meller on the Center for American Progress website here.

Journalists say Brett Kavanaugh asked them to lie about him in their book

AlterNet logoU.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has been in the news a lot this week — not only because of Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrebin’s September 14 New York Times article focusing on sexual misconduct allegations by Deborah Ramirez (who knew him when they were students at Yale University during the 1980s) and some Democrats in the House of Representatives who are calling for his impeachment, but also, because of the September 17 release of Kelly and Pogrebin’s new book, “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.” And the authors, according to The Atlantic’s Garrett Epps and The Washingtonian’s Andrew Beaujon, said this week that Kavanaugh offered them background information for their book — but on the condition that they lie and not say it came from him.

On Wednesday, Epps (who is a Supreme Court correspondent for The Atlantic and a law professor at the University of Baltimore) tweeted that Kavanaugh “offered” Kelly and Pogrebin “a background interview if they would falsely say in the book that he did not speak to them.” At an event in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday promoting the book, Epps tweeted, the authors “were asked why they didn’t report this and said it happened very late in the publication process.”

That event in D.C., according to HuffPost’s Carla Herreria, was a National Press Club event.

View the complete September 19 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet website here.

The DOJ is suing Omarosa for violating the same law Brett Kavanaugh is accused of violating: Ex-White House ethics chief

AlterNet logoOn Monday, former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub noted a massive double standard at the Justice Department, pointing out that government attorneys are suing Omarosa Manigault Newman for financial disclosure violations — while giving a free pass to Brett Kavanaugh, who is accused of even more serious financial disclosure violations.

In fact, noted Shaub, not only is the DOJ not pursuing that allegation, Attorney General Bill Barr is giving the DOJ employees who helped fast-track Kavanaugh through Supreme Court confirmation hearings a prestigious award, usually reserved for prosecutors who take down terrorists and mob bosses: Continue reading “The DOJ is suing Omarosa for violating the same law Brett Kavanaugh is accused of violating: Ex-White House ethics chief”

Trump rallies to Kavanaugh’s defense after new sexual misconduct allegation surfaces

WASHINGTON — President Trump vigorously defended Brett Kavanaugh on Sunday following a new allegation of sexual misconduct during the Supreme Court justice’s college years, as some leading Democratic presidential contenders raised fresh suspicions that Kavanaugh was untruthful during last year’s Senate hearings leading to his confirmation to the high court.

In an early-morning tweet, Trump called on the Justice Department to “come to [Kavanaugh’s] rescue,” and accused critics of trying to deter the justice from rulings favorable to the administration. The president’s angry ripostes came a day after the New York Times reportedthat a male former classmate at Yale had told the FBI about witnessing an episode similar to, but separate from, an already publicized account by a female classmate, Deborah Ramirez, who said an inebriated Kavanaugh had thrust his penis in her face during a Yale party in the 1980s.

The authors of the New York Times story said Kavanaugh did not speak to them about the newly reported allegation.

View the complete September 15 article by Laura King on The Los Angeles Times website here.

Calls for Justice Kavanaugh’s impeachment are mounting. Here’s how it could work.

Washington Post logoOne year ago, a bitterly divided Senate voted to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh to a lifetime appointment on the nation’s highest court; the vote was 50 to 48.

Now, as the Oct. 8 anniversary of his confirmation nears, the New York Times reports that it has uncovered a previously unreported claim of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh and that it found the FBI interviewed none of the potential witnesses. The story, published Saturday evening, compelled several Democrats to demand a new investigation into the Supreme Court justice.

Even before the recent spate of sexual misconduct allegations, murmurs among Kavanaugh opponents fixated on whether he had lied under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Saturday’s story from the Times quickly raised new questions about whether Kavanaugh perjured himself and reignited calls for his impeachment.<

View the complete September 16 article by Deanna Paul on The Washington Post website here.