The FBI Finished Its Kavanaugh Investigation and Republicans Are Ready to Ram Through His Confirmation

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The FBI completed its investigation into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and now Republicans are ready to rush the fuck through his confirmation.

The White House released a statement at 2:30 a.m., boasting of the FBI’s exhaustive review and assurance that, with the additional information about Kavanaugh, the Trump administration is “confident the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”

Politico reports that late Wednesday night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set the first round of voting to Friday—a vote to end debate and actually hold a vote—with the second vote to officially confirm Kavanaugh on Saturday evening. Senators will be given hour-long blocks of time throughout Thursday to review the FBI’s findings.

The investigation, according to multiple reports, was a sham. The Washington Post reports that the FBI did not interview Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers in the 1980s. Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee one week ago, providing them with details of the alleged assault—that Kavanaugh drunkenly attempted to remove her clothing, that he covered her mouth when she tried to scream—while admitting some details—the location, how she got there, how she got home—were fuzzy. The FBI also did not interview Kavanaugh, who dedicated his testiomony before the Senate Judiciary Committee to calling the whole ordeal a “political hit” by the Democrats and aggressively denying everything from his involvement in the assault, to his knowledge of sexually explicit language he used to describe women, to his purported tendency to black out from excessive drinking.

The FBI also did not interview several people who knew Kavanaugh in high school and college and believe he lied under oath about his drinking and sexual proclivities.

This includes James Roche, one of Kavanaugh’s freshman year roommates at Yale. Roche wrote an op-ed for Slate on Wednesday in which he publicly supports the claims made against Kavanaugh by Deborah Ramirez. Ramirez was also a student at Yale when she says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party. The FBI interviewed Ramirez, but according to her lawyers did not interview the more than 20 people Ramirez said may be able to corroborate her claim.

Roche also told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that Kavanaugh spoke regularly of “devil’s triangles” and “boofing,” apparent references to sex that Kavanaugh said had different meanings—a drinking game and farting, respectively—during his testimony last week.

With the FBI’s findings of a laughably limited scope completed, expect the undecided senators to make ham handed defenses of their support for Kavanaugh. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin already got a head start. The conservative Democrat told Al Jazeera that he is still unsure of whether he’ll confirm Kavanaugh, but expressed disdain over the “circus” this the process had become.

“I am looking at the gentleman as an adult from 22 to 53, thirty-one years of professional service,” said Manchin. “I am looking at him as a father. As a person in a community, how he interacts with his community. I am trying to put the human side to it.”

That sure sounds like a “yes” vote.

 
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