FBI Reportedly Did Nothing With 4,500 Tips on Kavanaugh Before Forwarding Them to Trump

The agency said it didn't investigate the tips because officials were conducting a routine background check.

By Shannon Melero  |  July 22, 2021 | 9:45pm
Politics
FBI Reportedly Did Nothing With 4,500 Tips on Kavanaugh Before Forwarding Them to Trump
Image:Andrew Harnik (Getty Images)

Somewhere in the United States, Christine Blasey Ford is staring at her computer screen muttering to herself and anyone within earshot, “I fucking told you so.”

According to Reuters, Democratic senators have discovered that the FBI failed to “fully investigate” the sexual assault allegations against now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the bench despite Blasey Ford’s account of being assaulted by him in high school. The senators say they received a letter from the agency in June, showing the FBI had amassed more than 4,500 tips related to Kavanaugh “without any apparent further action by investigators.”

The most “relevant” tips were allegedly handed over to White House lawyers—Trump White House lawyers—who were then theoretically responsible for doing something, literally anything, with that information. The agency says it did not investigate these tips itself because officials were conducting a routine background check rather than a criminal investigation—this coming from an agency that maintains files on constitutionally protected activity.

Kavanaugh was apparently not made aware of the 4,500 complaints during the background check for his Supreme Court nomination, and the FBI only interviewed ten people in total during the process—Blasey Ford, mind you, was not among them. It is unclear how many, if any, of the tips support her accusations or the accusations of the other women who also accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

Democratic lawmakers condemned the agency in a statement on Thursday, though did not hint at taking any further action:“If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.”

It’s difficult to understand the point of telling the American people that this monstrous fuck-up happened and not include some sort of solution or plan moving forward.

 
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