Sanders insisted on Sunday that the president wasn’t “micromanaging” the FBI. Kellyanne Conway, a White House counselor, insisted during a CNN appearance on Sunday that the administration “trust[s] the hardworking men and women of the FBI to do their jobs, and they will determine what will be included within that scope.” It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude Trump and his surrogates maybe weren’t telling us the truth about White House efforts to steer the FBI around possible potholes. It’s not as though they haven’t lied more than five thousand times.

Of course, one cannot widen something unless it was less than wide-open before, and even after it is widened, we still don’t know what’s out of bounds. Not surprisingly, the White House isn’t helping to clarify any of this.

AD

AD

President Trump said Monday he was open to a “very comprehensive investigation” but suggested at different points that the probe would be guided by the wishes of Republican senators and that the FBI could decide whom to interview so long as it was “within reason.” “I want them to do a very comprehensive investigation, whatever that means according to the senators and the Republicans and the Republican majority,” Trump said at a news conference. “I’m guided by the Senate. I want to make the Senate happy.”

Got that?

That wasn’t all. Trump famously has no filter between his mouth and whatever pops into his mind. It therefore was telling that, at the same press conference, Trump sort of threw his nominee under the bus “asserting that Kavanaugh had acknowledged he had ‘difficulty’ with alcohol,” as The Post reported. Trump seemed to suggest Kavanaugh himself was confessing to a drinking problem. “I watched him. I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he likes beer,” the president added.

Trump couldn’t seem to get off the topic of drinking, as an earlier Post report said: ” ‘I really believe he was very strong on the fact that he drank a lot,’ the president said, also asserting that there is no evidence that Kavanaugh has had trouble with alcohol during the past 25 years or so.” In other words, the president isn’t REALLY bothered that this guy — who says he didn’t drink to excess — was telling us (according to Trump) he had a drinking issue. (This is the “don’t think about pink elephants” tactic.) Yes, I know, Kavanaugh was attempting to deny he had a drinking problem.

AD

AD

With comments such as Trump’s, the swarm of critics and former friends suggesting he drank to excess and, on occasion, became aggressive hardly need to underscore that Kavanaugh’s testimony raised plenty of questions about the extent of his drinking, and therefore, about the veracity of his testimony.

Did Trump or his White House counsel try and fail to limit the FBI’s inquiry into, among other things, Kavanaugh’s drinking? Is Trump losing confidence in someone he thinks had a drinking problem? (You can see the “Saturday Night Live” skit coming with Alec Baldwin’s Trump saying “drinking” or “beer” a zillion times while a Kavanaugh character screams in the background, “I did NOT have a drinking problem!”)

As with most things concerning this White House, we have no idea whether Trump and his crowd are lying, confused, looking for an escape hatch or all of the above when it comes to the scope of the FBI investigation. We do know that if Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and other undecided Republicans think Kavanaugh lied under oath about drinking, the nomination is kaput, at least according to Flake and Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.). We also know that wherever the FBI investigation leaves off, the Democrats will pick it up from there after November’s midterms if they win the majority in one or both houses. One way or another, we’re going to learn about young Kavanaugh’s drinking and alleged belligerence under the influence. (Hey, here’s a story about a bar brawl!)

AD

AD

It does make you wonder why the White House didn’t bring in a reliever — an equally right-wing judge who didn’t have all these issues — weeks ago. Their starting judge seems to be slipping further behind each day.