The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has divulged information about how it handled thousands of tips regarding Justice Brett Kavanaugh during the judge’s nomination process three years ago.
A letter from an assistant director at the FBI - addressed to Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) - said the agency turned over the most “relevant” of the 4,5000 tips it received regarding Kavanaugh to the Trump White House.
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It is unclear, however, whether the previous administration reviewed the complaints. Moreover, the FBI itself did not disclose how deeply it investigated the tips, noting the review of Kavanaugh was a background check and not a criminal investigation.
“The authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters did not apply,” the letter said, according to the New York Times.
The FBI letter came in response to a 2019 request from Whitehouse and Coons asking specifics about how the bureau reviewed the Supreme Court nominee at the time.
Sen. Whitehouse has called the process a sham, describing the FBI’s efforts as a “fake tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.”
Whitehouse and other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the FBI letter Wednesday calling for more details about how the agency and the Trump White House handled the review.
“Your letter confirms that the FBI’s tip line was a departure from past practice and that the FBI was politically constrained by the Trump White House,” reads the letter also signed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.).
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called the Kavanaugh review “an injustice in fact orchestrated by the White House under Donald Trump, an injustice that frankly was a disservice to the FBI.”
Though former President Trump has credited himself with Kavanaugh’s confirmation, he’s since upped the ante by claiming he rescued the judge, who Trump now describes as “disappointing.”
“Where would he be without me? I saved his life. He wouldn’t even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him,” Trump said in a new book from Michael Wolff.
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