As the US Justice Department prepares to investigate media-hound attorney Michael Avenatti and Kavanaugh "victim" Julie Swetnick for making false accusations, NBC admitted they knew Swetnick's story was falling apart weeks ago.

More than three weeks after an NBC interview where Kavanaugh accuser #3 Julie Swetnick contradicted the sworn affidavit she gave Avenatti, the network is publishing text and phone exchanges with a supporting “witness.” Recorded around the time of Swetnick's interview, the second woman appears to tell two different stories when Avenatti is around and when he isn't.

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The supposed witness signed an affidavit, made public by Avenatti on October 3, describing in no uncertain terms how she saw a young Brett Kavanaugh (now a US Supreme Court justice) spike the drinks of girls at student parties so that they could then be gang-raped. When questioned by NBC, however, she said she hadn't actually witnessed it, and Avenatti had grossly misrepresented her words in the document she had only "skimmed" before signing.

NBC then spoke to Avenatti, who had provided the second woman's contact information in the first place, to try to straighten out the stories, but the plot only thickened. The hot-tempered lawyer expressed his "disgust" with the outlet and at one point said "on background, it's not the same woman. What are you going to do with that?"

They then reached out to the "witness" again, and she backed Avenatti and the affidavit – only to insist in a phone call minutes later that she never saw Kavanaugh do anything and she wouldn't speak to Avenatti anymore.

Swetnick's own early-October interview to NBC revealed a story that markedly diverged from her written narrative. Questioned on camera, she could no longer be certain that Kavanaugh was among the boys who supposedly gang-raped her, or that he had spiked the punch at the party. It later emerged during the FBI investigation into her claims that Swetnick had a history of making false accusations of sexual misconduct.

Earlier this week, Judiciary Committee chair Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) referred Avenatti and Swetnick to the Justice Department to be investigated for conspiracy to defraud, making false statements to federal officials, and obstructing a federal investigation.