Oh all right if you insist
The White House has authorized the F.B.I. to expand its abbreviated investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh by interviewing anyone it deems necessary as long the review is finished by the end of the week, two people briefed on the matter said on Monday.
The new directive came in the past 24 hours after a backlash from Democrats, who criticized the White House for limiting the scope of the bureau’s investigation into President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. The F.B.I. has already completed interviews with the four witnesses its agents were originally asked to talk to, the people said.
I don’t know if this is more of the same bullshit we’ve been getting since Friday.
The revised White House instruction amounted to a risky bet that the F.B.I. will not find anything new in the next four days that could change the public view of the allegations. Republicans have resisted an open-ended investigation that could head in unpredictable directions. But the limited time frame could minimize the danger even as it heightens the likelihood that F.B.I. interviews do not resolve the conflicting accounts.
Mr. Trump said he instructed his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, over the weekend to tell the F.B.I. to carry out an open investigation, although he included the caveat that it should accommodate the desires of Senate Republicans. Mr. McGahn followed through with a call to the F.B.I., according to the people briefed on the matter.
I’m sure he’s almost completed dialing the number now.
Mr. Trump ordered the one-week F.B.I. investigation on Friday after Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a key swing vote on the nomination, insisted that the allegations be examined before he committed to voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh on the floor. But the White House and Senate Republicans gave the F.B.I. a list of just four people to question: Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth, high school friends of Judge Kavanaugh’s; Leland Keyser, a high school friend of his main accuser, Christine Blasey Ford; and Deborah Ramirez, another of the judge’s accusers.
Mr. Flake expressed concern on Monday that the inquiry not be limited and said he had pressed to make sure that happens. “It does no good to have an investigation that gives us more cover, for example,” he said in a public appearance in Boston. “We actually have [to] find out what we can find out.”
In interviews, several former senior F.B.I. officials said that they could think of no previous instance when the White House restricted the bureau’s ability to interview potential witnesses during a background check. Chuck Rosenberg, who served as chief of staff under James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, said background investigations were frequently reopened, but that the bureau decides how to pursue new allegations.
“The White House normally tells the F.B.I. what issue to examine, but would not tell the F.B.I. how to examine it, or with whom they should speak,” he said. “It’s highly unusual — in fact, as far I know, uniquely so — for the F.B.I. to be directed to speak only to a limited number of designated people.”
Unusual and a grotesque abuse of power. Next question?
This is corruption, pure and simple. An FBI investigation into the background of someone nominated for high office should not accommodate the desires of Republicans, Democrats, the president, or any Martians that happen to be hanging around taking an interest in our business. It should be determined by the needs and scope required for the investigation.
The desires of the Republicans are to find a way to allow them to vote for this candidate while still claiming to occupy the moral high ground. (Even if no one believes them, they want to feel to themselves that they can claim it). That is in direct opposition to the purpose of a background investigation.
You can conduct a comprehensive investigation, but you only get a week = You can get this car in any color you want, as long as it’s black.
Ben, it’s quite depressing to think that one half of that equation is a myth, and it’s not the half that most people would point to.
They must have known the uproar it would cause, so I wonder (with tongue only partly in cheek) if the limited investigation order was a red-herring, giving them time to spirit the most potentially damaging witnesses away until the one-week deadline is over.