USA TODAY

Republican Senate leaders and White House officials said Thursday that an FBI investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh revealed no evidence of wrongdoing, while Democrats said the agency could not conduct a thorough investigation.

FBI investigation fails Women, our democracy

In my adult life, I’ve not seen women as transfixed and consumed by anything as we are by the fight to stop the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The public hearings of Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh have set off an explosive chain reaction of women all over the country reliving their own trauma, sharing stories with new audiences, and vowing to turn this moment into a watershed for change.

President Donald Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley had an opportunity to demonstrate true leadership. They had a chance to not only gain the trust of a nation, but also send a message to women about how we can expect to be treated against the backdrop of a promise of equality and justice. They rejected that opportunity.

Women desperately wanted the FBI investigation into these allegations to be thorough and reveal the truth. Yet, since the moment it was announced, it did anything but.

The scope of the investigation was limited from the start. Witnesses had to beg to be interviewed. Some weren’t and, desperate to be heard, took their stories public via the news media. Neither Ford nor Kavanaugh was interviewed by the FBI, and the investigation was barely underway when Trump stood on a stage in Mississippi holding the largest megaphone in the world and mocked Ford to a jeering audience. We, once again, were left to believe that this investigation was just one more design to protect the rich, the powerful, the men. It’s a deeply depressing and yet familiar feeling for many of us.

Related column:Decades of research don't lie: Ford is more credible

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We’re left to assume that Kavanaugh was not interviewed so he’d be protected from further perjuring himself when responding to new charges since the investigation surfaced. This process was rushed. Senators were rushed in perusing the single copy made available to them and the public will never set it, despite the fact that we are the ones who will live with the results. It’s quite possible that a credible and thorough FBI investigation would still result in a confirmation of Kavanaugh to the bench, but we’ll never know because we never got that.

This sham investigation occurred against a backdrop of women collectively reliving trauma and believing that this moment could be a watershed in pledging to do things a different way. On that, Trump and the GOP failed a crucial test of leadership and, in doing so, they failed women, the truth and our democracy. If they had any regard for women and for the public faith in the integrity of the institutions that are the backbone of our democracy, they would withdraw Kavanaugh and hit the restart button.

Ilyse Hogue is the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. You can follow her on Twitter: @ilyseh.

What our readers are saying

So if Judge Brett Kavanaugh's name is cleared, can we expect a "yes" vote from some Democrats? Of course not. President Donald Trump could nominate Abraham Lincoln or Jesus Christ and they'd vote no. Now watch them move the goal post again and say they need more investigations. Senate Judiciary Committee Charles Grassley and Republicans have been very generous and bending over backwards for the Democrats. It's time to vote.

— Benjamin Berlinsky

A sham and a cover-up. A full investigation would have cleared the air for good on this and for all sides. This just makes us all think there was a fix from the start.

— Wayne Gregersen

Let's hope the entire Senate has the guts to see through all the lies and innuendo and confirm Kavanaugh! It's time for the circus to leave town.

— Steve Duesler

None of this is about beer drinking and his bad behavior; this is about the fact he blatantly lied under oath. The biggest lie was that he has great respect for women. He proved against that in his written words in his yearbook — not to mention his stance on women's rights as a judge.

— Judy Snowden

What others are saying

Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post: "Republicans, too, could win this fight for the swing Supreme Court seat, but they cannot bestow legitimacy upon Brett Kavanaugh or erase their record of weaponized misogyny. Progressives will seek his recusal in every case of political significance. Every 5-4 decision in which Kavanaugh is the deciding vote will be denounced as illegitimate, the work of a partisan judge elevated to the court by nefarious means. The decision will be respected legally in the short term, but in the future, it will be argued, the decision should carry zero precedential weight. Those he once accused of participating in a left-wing cabal will seek to vacate cases they lose in which Kavanaugh was the deciding vote."

Karl Rove, The Wall Street Journal: "It would have been better for Christine Blasey Ford, Judge Kavanaugh and the country if regular order had been followed. But Democrats refused. Now America will have to live with the ugly consequences, which will only be made worse if a good man is kept from the bench by an uncorroborated charge promoted by a party that specializes in last-minute character assassination."

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