White House Puts Limits On FBI’s Kavanaugh Investigation

The agency reportedly won’t be allowed to look into another allegation from Kavanaugh’s high school days.

 By Sara Boboltz

The FBI has contacted a second woman who alleges sexual misconduct on the part of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, multiple outlets reported Saturday. The agency, however, will reportedly leave Kavanaugh’s third accuser alone upon request from the White House.

According to reports from NBC News and The Wall Street Journal also out Saturday, White House has put tight limits on the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh’s alleged misconduct.

The constraints mean that authorities may not be able to interview all available leads, the outlets reported. According to NBC, the FBI will specifically not be able to question Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates about his drinking habits, even though alcohol plays into all three accusers’ claims about the nominee, who denies ever drinking to the point of not remembering certain events.

The FBI wasted little time reaching out to Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh thrust his exposed penis in her face at a Yale party in the 1980s. Her lawyer confirmed the agency already contacted Ramirez for an interview and that she intends to cooperate, but offered no further comment.

Ramirez came forward after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused the nominee of sexually assaulting her at a high school party in 1982.

The third accuser, Julie Swetnick, says she saw Kavanaugh and friend Mark Judge at high school parties where girls were raped by multiple teenage boys, but stopped short of explicitly accusing Kavanaugh of doing so himself. Judge also appeared in Blasey’s story as the sole witness to her assault. Blasey says she managed to escape the alleged attack by Kavanaugh after Judge jumped on top of the two of them.

A lawyer for Judge indicated his client also plans to cooperate with the FBI.

President Donald Trump told reporters on Saturday that the agency has “free rein” to do “whatever they have to do, whatever it is they do.”

“They’ll be doing things that we have never even thought of,” Trump said. “And hopefully at the conclusion everything will be fine.”

The White House formally asked the FBI to reopen its background investigation into Kavanaugh on Friday, one day after Blasey detailed her claims before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Earlier Friday, committee Republicans had shocked observers by agreeing in a last-minute move prompted by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to request a formal investigation into the claims of misconduct.

UPDATE:

Trump swears the above report is a lie and he did not limit the investigation. I'm sure we will hear more about this on the Sunday morning news programs and throughout the week. We will know when the FBI presents its findings to the committee next week.