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F.B.I. to Complete Inquiry Wednesday With Vote Coming This Week F.B.I. to Complete Inquiry Wednesday With Vote Coming This Week
(about 5 hours later)
WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. is expected to complete its investigation into allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and deliver the results to the Senate as early as Wednesday, and Republican leaders said Tuesday that they expect to vote on the nomination this week. WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders pressed on Tuesday to wrap up the confirmation of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, seizing on word from the F.B.I. that it would complete its investigation into allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct as early as Wednesday.
“We’ll have an F.B.I. report this week, and we’ll have a vote this week,” Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, told reporters after the Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon on Tuesday. But Mr. McConnell would not say whether that would be a final vote, or a procedural vote allowing the Senate to begin debate. “We’ll have an F.B.I. report this week, and we’ll have a vote this week,” an emphatic Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, told reporters after the Republicans’ weekly policy luncheon.
Once the investigation is completed, the F.B.I. will send reports about its interviews to the Senate, where members will have a chance to review them. Several Republicans — including Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican — said Tuesday that they would like to see the findings made public in some form. But Mr. McConnell’s promise was as much about bluffing as it was about confidence, giving the nomination an air of inevitability even as five undecided senators will decide Judge Kavanaugh’s fate. Those five — the Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Jeff Flake of Arizona, and the Democrats Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin III of West Virginia — are refusing to tip their hands.
“People are not going to be satisfied until some public statement about what the F.B.I. supplemental background investigation shows,” Mr. Cornyn said. The push for a quick vote on Judge Kavanaugh came as the Senate and the White House waited for the F.B.I. to finish its work. President Trump, who has made stocking the federal judiciary with committed conservatives like Judge Kavanaugh a signature of his White House tenure, expressed qualified optimism on Tuesday, noting that this was the seventh time the nominee had undergone a background check.
The F.B.I. has already completed its interview of Mark Judge, the high school friend of Judge Kavanaugh whom Christine Blasey Ford said was in the room as she was assaulted, his lawyer said on Tuesday. Mr. Judge has in the past said he has no recollection of an attempted rape by Judge Kavanaugh. “I think that Judge Kavanaugh is doing pretty well — it seems to me — over the last 24 hours,” Mr. Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House. “A lot is going to depend on what comes back from the F.B.I., in terms of their additional — No. 7 — investigation.”
Barbara Van Gelder, the lawyer, said in a statement that “Mr. Judge completed his F.B.I. interview. We are not commenting on the questions the F.B.I. asked Mr. Judge.” The president also expressed concern for men, especially young men, who he said face a “very scary situation” when accused of sexual misconduct. “It’s a very scary time for young men in America, when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of,” he said.
Dr. Blasey, a California research psychologist, testified in a Senate hearing last week that Judge Kavanaugh tried unsuccessfully to rape her during a high school party while Mr. Judge watched. Judge Kavanaugh, who is President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, angrily denied the accusation. “It’s a tough thing going on,” he told reporters at the White House before leaving for a trip to Philadelphia to deliver a speech. “You can be an exemplary person for 35 years, and then somebody comes and they say you did this or that, and they give three witnesses, and the three witnesses at this point do not corroborate what she was saying. It’s a very scary situation where you’re guilty until proven innocent.”
Three Republican senators have refused to allow Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to move forward until the F.B.I. conducted an additional inquiry into Judge Kavanaugh’s behavior, including an in-person interview with Mr. Judge. Mr. Trump ordered the investigation into Judge Kavanaugh on Friday, after Mr. Flake, Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski decided they would refuse to allow Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to move forward without one. He ordered that the inquiry last no more than a week, and be limited in scope.
How the bureau is conducting the investigation — and in particular, how many witnesses will be interviewed — has been the subject of fierce debate on Capitol Hill. The White House, which has control over the scope of the investigation, initially gave the F.B.I. the names of just four witnesses. But on Monday, after a backlash from Democrats, Mr. Trump said the bureau “should interview anybody that they want within reason.”
The bureau appears to be moving quickly; on Tuesday, investigators wrapped up an interview with a crucial witness, Mark Judge, a friend and high school drinking buddy of Judge Kavanaugh who has been identified as the only witness to the alleged sexual assault of Christine Blasey Ford. Mr. Judge’s name came up frequently last week when the judge and Dr. Blasey testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But lawyers for Dr. Blasey and another woman, Deborah Ramirez, complained independently on Tuesday that the bureau was not pursuing important leads. Dr. Blasey, who testified that Judge Kavanaugh had tried to rape her at a house party when they were teenagers, has not been interviewed, nor have other “witnesses we have identified,” her lawyers wrote in a letter Tuesday to the F.B.I. director and chief counsel.
Ms. Ramirez, who did not testify, has accused Judge Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her during a drunken dormitory party at Yale. She spent more than two hours on Sunday with F.B.I. investigators, her lawyer, John Clune, said on Twitter on Tuesday.
But while Mr. Clune wrote that “the agents were clearly motivated to investigate the matter in any way they were permitted,” he expressed doubts about whether they would pursue more than 20 additional witnesses that Ms. Ramirez identified. He said he and his client “have great concern that the FBI is not conducting — or not being permitted to conduct — a serious investigation.”
In addition, five former Yale classmates of Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Ramirez said in interviews with The New York Times that they have tried to offer information to the F.B.I., without success.
One of them, Kerry Berchem, a classmate of Judge Kavanaugh, has a text stream with a close Kavanaugh friend that she believes calls into question “whether Brett Kavanaugh anticipated, perhaps as early as July, the allegations made by Debbie Ramirez, which became public on Sept. 23.” Another, Kathleen Charlton, said she had information that Judge Kavanaugh was contacting former Yale classmates before The New Yorker’s publication of an article about Ms. Ramirez to persuade them to deny it.
“Since contacting my senator’s office on Sunday morning and speaking to the FBI special agent in charge for my state — who assured me that I would hear back shortly — I have not heard anything,” Ms. Charlton wrote in an email. “I contacted the state office twice on Monday and followed up with the senator’s staff on multiple occasions. More than 72 hours have passed and the FBI has yet to take my statement.”
A third classmate, Mark Krasberg, provided a timeline indicating that he has unsuccessfully been trying to get his “important evidence regarding the Debbie Ramirez investigation” into the right hands since Sept. 28 despite “good-faith attempts.”
Once the bureau finishes its work, the results of its interviews will be shared with the Senate. Already, there is disagreement about whether and how to make them public. While Mr. McConnell said Tuesday that “only senators will be able to look at” the results, other Republicans — including Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican — said that they would like to see the results made public in some form.
“People are not going to be satisfied until some public statement about what the F.B.I. supplemental background investigation shows,” Mr. Cornyn said. He and other Republicans expressed concerns about leaks.
Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, told reporters, “I’m afraid if somehow or another we don’t make it public, each side will be very selective in what they share with y’all, even though it’s supposed to be confidential.”
While the F.B.I. is primarily examining allegations from Dr. Blasey and Ms. Ramirez, a third accuser, Julie Swetnick, has said Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge both attended parties in high school where women were gang raped. She accused the men of being severely drunk and said she saw Judge Kavanaugh be physically aggressive toward women. Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge have forcefully denied all the allegations.
Mr. Judge’s lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said in a statement Tuesday: “Mr. Judge completed his F.B.I. interview. We are not commenting on the questions the F.B.I. asked Mr. Judge.”
An author, filmmaker and journalist who has written for conservative publications, Mr. Judge was the subject of numerous questions during last week’s testimony of Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh.An author, filmmaker and journalist who has written for conservative publications, Mr. Judge was the subject of numerous questions during last week’s testimony of Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh.
Dr. Blasey said that Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge “were drunkenly laughing during the attack. They seemed to be having a very good time,” adding that “Mark seemed ambivalent, at times urging Brett on and at times telling him to stop. A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not.” Dr. Blasey said that before the attack, she was pushed into an upstairs bedroom by either Judge Kavanaugh or Mr. Judge, and that one of them turned up the music so that others would not hear. Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge “were drunkenly laughing during the attack,” she testified.
Mr. Judge has disputed her account. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said that “I do not recall the events described by Dr. Ford in her testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today. I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.” “They seemed to be having a very good time,” she said, adding: “Mark seemed ambivalent, at times urging Brett on and at times telling him to stop. A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not.”
In an earlier interview with The New York Times before Dr. Blasey’s name was publicly known, Mr. Judge said he never saw an encounter like the one she alleged. Mr. Judge has disputed her account. In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he said: “I do not recall the events described by Dr. Ford in her testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee today. I never saw Brett act in the manner Dr. Ford describes.”
In an earlier interview with The Times before Dr. Blasey’s name was publicly known, Mr. Judge said he never saw an encounter like the one she alleged.
“I never saw anything like that,” he said in the interview. “The way it was described is even bizarre, about turning up the music and all this other stuff. It’s no situation I recall ever being in.”“I never saw anything like that,” he said in the interview. “The way it was described is even bizarre, about turning up the music and all this other stuff. It’s no situation I recall ever being in.”
Mr. Judge has also been mentioned by Julie Swetnick, another of Judge Kavanaugh’s accusers. Ms. Swetnick has said Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Judge both attended parties in high school where women were gang raped. She accused the men of being severely drunk and said she saw Judge Kavanaugh be physically aggressive toward women.
Mr. Judge and Judge Kavanaugh have both forcefully denied Ms. Swetnick’s allegations.