Scope will be legally limited (not limited by Trump):
FBI officials will likely try to question some or all of the potential witnesses, in addition to Ford and Kavanaugh. The FBI, however, cannot force interviews in background check investigations, or in criminal investigations for that matter. While witnesses in a criminal case can be subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury, witnesses to a background investigation don't face a similar law enforcement tool to get them to talk.FBI will not draw conclusions:
In addition to the people said to be at the party, investigators may seek out witnesses who can attest to the credibility of Ford, including her parents, the former agents said. Evidence of any substance abuse problems could color a claimant's accusation, but the FBI notably does not make any conclusions about the credibility or significance of an allegation in a background investigation report. "They could interview someone who says I saw Judge Kavanaugh get beamed down from a UFO -- he's an alien. They would put that in the 302," said Chris Swecker, a former FBI assistant director, referring to the form in which agents will memorialize their interviews. "They wouldn't say 'we disproved this, they didn't disprove this.'"Could be over quickly:
While background checks typically take days of on-the-ground investigation, in a case this closely scrutinized, FBI leaders could decide to go full bore, assigning a slew of agents from multiple squads to wrap the probe in short time. "They could just about drop everything else they're doing, every other background check for generals to get the next star, and cabinet secretaries and US attorneys," said Tom Fuentes, a former FBI assistant director and senior CNN law enforcement analyst. "They could wrap everything. If they want to put 500 agents on this tomorrow they could do that."Bottom Line:
The FBI has no more authority than the Senate Judiciary committee. Like it or not, the President does not have the authority to make up a "new" manner in which the FBI would investigate something. Since there is no Federal criminal crime alleged, the only investigation the FBI can proceed with is a background check.
Since they cannot subpoena anyone, they will likely only be able to talk to those who will provide the same accounts that they previously did. However, stating something to the FBI doesn't make that statement any "more" or any "less" true. If someone states something to the FBI that has previously been stated (to the committee or the press) it does not make it "new information" nor does it make it more credible.
Lastly, in a situation like this, it is much more likely that the FBI will find possible holes in the allegations than they will find anything that corroborates these claims. There several rumors regarding possible holes out there, and by all accounts the FBI will be looking into these holes as well. Politics may allow for a situation where we allow the accuser the benefit of the doubt, but the FBI will have no such responsibility.
In other words, the FBI will likely be performing the politically incorrect job of really searching into the credibility of these accusers. We already know that the Avenatti's client is a flake who has been previously sued for false allegations (which she walked back to save herself). We may find out many things about the other two accusers that was previously undisclosed. That could end up helping (not hurting) Kavanaugh.
Remember Kavanaugh has been through several background checks. Ford and the others have not been through "any"... prior to this one.
15 comments:
Post your address and I'll send you a cookie.....LOL
Comey defends FBI's ability to investigate Kavanaugh
2 hrs ago
Former FBI Director James Comey is defending the FBI's ability to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Comey in a New York Times op-ed published Sunday stood up for the bureau's integrity, saying it is staffed by "people who just want to figure out what's true.
"It is better to give professionals seven days to find facts than have no professional investigation at all," Comey wrote. "Agents can just do their work. Find facts. Speak truth to power."
He added he believes the one-week time frame is "idiotic."
Recent reports have indicated the White House is limiting the scope of the FBI's probe. The White House is reportedly not allowing the bureau to investigate claims made by Julie Swetnick, the third woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, or Kavanaugh's history with alcohol.
While some Democrats have cast doubt on the FBI's ability to complete a thorough investigation under these circumstances, Comey in the op-ed wrote that he does not believe politics will hinder the investigation.
"Although the process is deeply flawed, and apparently designed to thwart the fact-gathering process, the FBI is up for this," Comey wrote. "It's not as hard as Republicans hope it will be."
He compared the situation into the FBI's investigation of former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's private emails.
"The FBI is back in the middle of it," he wrote. "When we were handed the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2015, the bureau's deputy director said to me, 'You know you are totally screwed, right?'
"He meant that, in a viciously polarized political environment, one side was sure to be furious with the outcome," Comey said, theorizing this situation will be equally frustrating to those on both sides of the aisle.
Comey guessed that most of the witnesses will be compliant and tell their stories to the FBI agents working on the probe.
"Yes, the alleged incident occurred 36 years ago," he wrote, referring to Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh pinned her down and assaulted her in 1982. "But FBI agents know time has very little to do with memory."
The former FBI director and author in the article wrote that Kavanaugh "lied" about the definitions of words in his high school yearbook during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday.
"[FBI agents] also know that little lies point to bigger lies," Comey wrote. "They know that obvious lies by the nominee about the meaning of words in a yearbook are a flashing signal to dig deeper.
"Although the F.B.I. won't reach conclusions, their granular factual presentation will spotlight the areas of conflict and allow decision makers to reach their own conclusions," Comey wrote.
Comey in the article doubled down on previous comments he has made criticizing the president for casting doubt on the FBI's integrity.
"We live in a world where the president routinely attacks the FBI because he fears its work," he wrote. "He calls for his enemies to be prosecuted and his friends freed."
James Comey: The F.B.I. Can Do This https://nyti.ms/2NQ6djK
The F.B.I. is back in the middle of it. When we were handed the Hillary Clinton email investigation in 2015, the bureau’s deputy director said to me, “You know you are totally screwed, right?” He meant that, in a viciously polarized political environment, one side was sure to be furious with the outcome. Sure enough, I saw a tweet declaring me “a political hack,” although the author added, tongue in cheek: “I just can’t figure out which side.”
And those were the good old days. President Trump’s decision to order a one-week investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, his Supreme Court nominee, comes in a time of almost indescribable pain and anger, lies and attacks.
We live in a world where the president routinely attacks the F.B.I. because he fears its work. He calls for his enemies to be prosecuted and his friends freed. We also live in a world where a sitting federal judge channels the president by shouting attacks at the Senate committee considering his nomination and demanding to know if a respected senator has ever passed out from drinking. We live in a world where the president is an accused serial abuser of women, who was caught on tape bragging about his ability to assault women and now likens the accusations against his nominee to the many “false” accusations against him.
Most disturbingly, we live in a world where millions of Republicans and their representatives think nearly everything in the previous paragraph is O.K.
In that world, the F.B.I. is now being asked to investigate, on a seven-day clock, sexual assaults that the president says never happened, that some senators have decried as a sham cooked up to derail a Supreme Court nominee, and that other senators believe beyond all doubt were committed by the nominee.
If truth were the only goal, there would be no clock, and the investigation wouldn’t have been sought after the Senate Judiciary Committee already endorsed the nominee. Instead, it seems that the Republican goal is to be able to say there was an investigation and it didn’t change their view, while the Democrats hope for incriminating evidence to derail the nominee.
Although the process is deeply flawed, and apparently designed to thwart the fact-gathering process, the F.B.I. is up for this. It’s not as hard as Republicans hope it will be.
F.B.I. agents are experts at interviewing people and quickly dispatching leads to their colleagues around the world to follow with additional interviews. Unless limited in some way by the Trump administration, they can speak to scores of people in a few days, if necessary.
They will confront people with testimony and other accounts, testing them and pushing them in a professional way. Agents have much better nonsense detectors than partisans, because they aren’t starting with a conclusion.
Yes, the alleged incident occurred 36 years ago. But F.B.I. agents know time has very little to do with memory. They know every married person remembers the weather on their wedding day, no matter how long ago. Significance drives memory. They also know that little lies point to bigger lies. They know that obvious lies by the nominee about the meaning of words in a yearbook are a flashing signal to dig deeper.
Once they start interviewing, every witness knows the consequences. It is one thing to have your lawyer submit a statement on your behalf. It is a very different thing to sit across from two F.B.I. special agents and answer their relentless questions. Of course, the bureau won’t have subpoena power, only the ability to knock on doors and ask questions. But most people will speak to them. Refusal to do so is its own kind of statement.
Yale Classmate Accuses Kavanaugh of ‘Blatant Mischaracterization’ of His Drinking
2 hrs ago
WASHINGTON — A Yale classmate of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s accused him on Sunday of a “blatant mischaracterization” of his drinking while in college, saying that he often saw Judge Kavanaugh “staggering from alcohol consumption.”
The classmate, Chad Ludington, who said he frequently socialized with Judge Kavanaugh as a student, said in a statement that the judge had been untruthful in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he had denied any possibility that he had ever blacked out from drinking.
Mr. Ludington said that Judge Kavanaugh had played down “the degree and frequency” of his drinking, and that the judge had often become “belligerent and aggressive” while intoxicated.
“It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges,” Mr. Ludington said, adding that he planned to “take my information to the F.B.I.”
Mr. Ludington, a professor at North Carolina State University who appears to have made small political contributions to Democratic candidates, said to The New York Times on Sunday that he had been told by the F.B.I.’s Washington, D.C., field office that he should go to the bureau’s Raleigh, N.C., office on Monday morning. He said he intended to do that, so he could “tell the full details of my story.”
It is illegal to lie to Congress. But it was unclear whether the F.B.I. would add Mr. Ludington’s accusations to the newly reopened background investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh, which has been limited in scope and time by the White House and Senate Republicans.
The White House had no immediate comment about Mr. Ludington’s accusations.
Even before Mr. Ludington’s statement, Democrats in Washington reacted with anger on Sunday as the narrow scope of the new F.B.I. background inquiry became clear, warning that it threatened to become a sham.
Senator Mazie K. Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on ABC’s “This Week” that any investigation that limits whom the F.B.I. can interview and which leads agents can follow would be a “farce.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat who is also on the committee, described what she said was micromanaging from the White House: “You can’t interview this person, you can’t look at this time period, you can only look at these people from one side of the street from when they were growing up.
“I mean, come on,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The White House agreed on Friday to order the F.B.I. to conduct a “limited” one-week supplemental background check of Judge Kavanaugh after a small number of Republicans joined Democrats in demanding an investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct.
White House officials have asked the F.B.I. to interview four witnesses, a typical request in a background check. No evidence has emerged that the White House has forbidden any investigative steps, and President Trump has said he wants agents “to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion.”
In a tweet on Sunday, Mr. Trump accused Democrats of playing politics and said they would never be satisfied with any inquiry.
“Wow! Just starting to hear the Democrats, who are only thinking Obstruct and Delay, are starting to put out the word that the ‘time’ and ‘scope’ of FBI looking into Judge Kavanaugh and witnesses is not enough,” he wrote. “Hello! For them, it will never be enough.”
Democrats have cast the initial list of those to be interviewed as falling short of a full examination of the allegations. The four witnesses are Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth, high school friends of Judge Kavanaugh’s; Leland Keyser, a high school friend of one of Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers, Christine Blasey Ford; and Deborah Ramirez, another of the judge’s accusers.
A lawyer for Dr. Blasey, who riveted the nation on Thursday as she recounted before the Judiciary Committee what she said was a rape attempt by a drunken Judge Kavanaugh when they were in high school, said on Sunday that she had not been contacted by the F.B.I.
“We have not heard from the F.B.I. despite repeated efforts to speak with them,” Debra S. Katz, the lawyer, said in a brief telephone interview Sunday morning.
Dr. Blasey testified last week that she was willing to cooperate with the authorities. Judge Kavanaugh has strenuously denied the accusations by Dr. Blasey and other accusers.
The inquiry set in motion last week is aimed at resolving the fierce national debate over Judge Kavanaugh’s fitness to sit on the Supreme Court. But its abbreviated nature appears likely to disappoint his critics, who have insisted on a wide-ranging examination of his drinking and sexual habits as a high school and college student. Even Democratic senators who had acknowledged that the background check would be limited said on Sunday that they were disappointed.
Officials said F.B.I. agents were not making the kind of broad efforts that journalists have engaged in over the past several weeks to talk to anyone who might have information about Judge Kavanaugh’s sexual conduct or drinking habits as a young man.
Instead, they said, the inquiry had been designed to examine the allegations of Dr. Blasey, a California university professor, and the assertion by Ms. Ramirez, a classmate of Judge Kavanaugh’s at Yale, that he had exposed himself to her.
The process of interviewing the four witnesses could be completed by as soon as Monday. While agents are free to follow up if they find evidence of criminal activity, the rules for background checks require that agents ask the White House if they want to expand the scope of their investigation or interview other witnesses.
Left off the list for interviews are former classmates of Judge Kavanaugh’s who have publicly disputed his testimony about his drinking and partying while a high school student at Georgetown Preparatory School, an all-boys Catholic school in suburban Maryland, and later at Yale.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, denied on Sunday that the White House was playing any improper role in the process, saying that Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, had “allowed the Senate to dictate” the terms of the investigation, and that Mr. Trump would stay out of it.
People familiar with the investigation said Republican senators had developed the list of four potential witnesses for the F.B.I. to interview, and shared it with the White House.
“The Senate is dictating the terms,” Ms. Sanders said on “Fox News Sunday.” “They laid out the request, and we’ve opened it up. And as you heard the president say, do what you need to do, the F.B.I., this is what they do and we are out of the way and letting them do exactly that.”
In a tweet late Saturday night, Mr. Trump insisted that he had not put any limits on the witnesses the F.B.I. could interview. While he did not dispute the small number of initial interviews, he appeared to suggest that the White House would not stop the F.B.I. from pursuing leads on the two allegations of misconduct.
Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Maine Republican whose vote could determine Judge Kavanaugh’s fate, said on Sunday that “I am confident that the F.B.I. will follow up on any leads that result from the interviews.”
But as Democrats tried to sound alarms that the White House may be constraining the F.B.I.’s work, one key member of the party indicated that if the Democrats won control of the House in November and Judge Kavanaugh made it through the Senate, he would have no choice but to more fully investigate the claims against him.
“If he is on the Supreme Court and the Senate hasn’t investigated, the House will have to,” the lawmaker, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said on “This Week.” “We would have to investigate any credible allegations, certainly of perjury and other things that haven’t been properly looked into before.”
The Judiciary Committee is the body where impeachment inquiries for judges and other officials begin, and with the Democrats favorites to retake the House in November, Mr. Nadler could well be the panel’s chairman come January.
“We can’t have a justice on the Supreme Court for the next several decades who will be deciding questions of liberty, and life and death, and all kinds of things for the entire American people who has been credibly accused of sexual assaults, who has been credibly accused of various other things that — wrong things, including perjury,” Mr. Nadler said.
As acrimony among Republicans and Democrats seemed to only grow on Capitol Hill, a Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said his party should open an investigation of its own.
Mr. Graham, whose highly charged defense of Judge Kavanaugh turned heads last week, dismissed the need to question witnesses about Judge Kavanaugh’s youthful drinking. Instead, he called for an inquiry into Senate Democrats’ interactions with Dr. Blasey, accusing lawmakers across the aisle of betraying her trust by recommending that she hire a particular lawyer, leaking the existence of a letter she had written and disclosing the existence of an additional unrelated anonymous accusation against Judge Kavanaugh.
“I think you’re trying to portray him as a stumbling, bumbling drunk gang rapist who during high school and college was Bill Cosby,” Mr. Graham said on “This Week.” “Six F.B.I. background checks over the years would have uncovered this.”
Once again, Liberals show they cannot think for themselves....
Once again, liberals show they prefer amassed facts over slanted speculations.
Feinstein calls on White House, FBI to release scope of Kavanaugh investigation
1 hr ago
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is calling for the White House and the FBI to release the written directive President Trump sent launching the investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Feinstein sent a letter to White House counsel Don McGahn and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Sunday requesting that a copy of Trump's written directive be released to the committee.
"Given the seriousness of the allegations before the Senate, I am writing to request that you provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with a copy of the written directive by the White House to the FBI," Feinstein wrote.
She also requested that the bureau release the names of any additional witnesses or evidence that is included if FBI agents expand the original investigation.
"Once again, Liberals show they cannot think for themselves...." CHT
Parrot Jane VS Parrot Alky
Blogger Roger Amick said...
James Comey: The F.B.I. Can Do This
LOL. if there was ever a man - in this case the dirtiest of dirty cops - who should probably sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, it's james comey. he has standing to lecture absolutely no one on anything.
good one rapist alky.
"Given the seriousness of the allegations before the Senate, I am writing to request that you provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with a copy of the written directive by the White House to the FBI," Feinstein wrote.
if i'm trump i'm sending her a two word signed reply. on white house stationary of course...
"YOU'RE NEXT"
Sincerely,
Donald J Trump
"The U.S., Mexico, and Canada came to a late-hours agreement Sunday to create a trilateral trade deal to replace NAFTA that is being deemed the USMCA, U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Senior Trump administration officials briefed reporters late Sunday night on the new deal, just one hour before the deadline set to send a U.S.-Mexico deal to Congress"
Wwwwhhhaattt?
The socialist party said it could not be done.
What they meant is the ONE could not get it done.
😂😂😂😂
No wait, she is being serious???
"Given the seriousness of the allegations before the Senate, I am writing to request that you provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with a copy of the written directive by the White House to the FBI," Feinstein wrote."
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