The FBI's investigation of the sexual misconduct allegations against Brett Kavanaugh has concluded, according to a statement from the White House released at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. The New York Times reports that White House officials "are increasingly confident that the information collected would ease the path for senators to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh." That is, of course, exactly what they'd say publicly.

Then again, if a report last night from The Washington Post is anything to go on, perhaps they have good reason to be confident.

The FBI background check of Brett M. Kavanaugh appeared to remain curtailed in its scope Wednesday even as agents neared the end of their work ... The Washington Post has been able to confirm interviews with only six witnesses, five of whom have a connection to the professor or her allegation. The investigation was always unlikely to answer definitively whether Kavanaugh was guilty of sexual misconduct decades ago. But the probe’s limited scope — which was dictated by the White House, along with a Friday deadline — is likely to exacerbate the partisan tensions surrounding Kavanaugh’s nomination.

The Times reports this morning that the FBI says it contacted 10 people and interviewed nine of them.

(Also, it's worth remembering the probe was initially limited to four people before an outcry from Democrats and undecided Republican senators led Trump to authorize an expansion. Unlike a criminal investigation, FBI agents in a background check probe do not have subpoena power, and they cannot seek search warrants or even determine the scope of their investigation. In the Times' words, agents "get explicit marching orders through the White House Counsel’s Office.")

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The FBI has not publicly explained why it stopped after five more interviews. Apparently, many witnesses who said they had information to share with the FBI about Kavanaugh's behavior have been unable to get in touch with anyone at the Bureau. Some got "mired in bureaucracy." The New Yorker backed this account:

NBC News reported that dozens of people who said that they had information about Kavanaugh had contacted F.B.I. field offices, but agents had not been permitted to talk to many of them. Several people interested in speaking to the F.B.I. expressed exasperation in interviews with The New Yorker at what they perceived to be a lack of interest in their accounts...

...[Accuser Deborah] Ramirez said that she was troubled by what she perceived as a lack of willingness on the part of the Bureau to take steps to substantiate her claims. “I am very alarmed, first, that I was denied an F.B.I. investigation for five days, and then, when one was granted, that it was given on a short timeline and that the people who were key to corroborating my story have not been contacted,” Ramirez said. “I feel like I’m being silenced.”

The New Yorker found two Yale classmates of Kavanaugh and Ramirez willing to corroborate her story on the record, as they say they heard it from a direct witness at the time. One said he had "100 percent" certainty that he was told it was Kavanaugh who exposed himself to Ramirez. They have not been contacted by the FBI.

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Meanwhile, the Post zeroed in on the inevitable deceit involved here:

President Trump has insisted publicly he was not curtailing the FBI probe. But privately, the White House restricted the FBI from delving deeply into Kavanaugh’s youthful drinking and exploring whether he had lied to Congress about his alcohol use, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. Some of those involved in the case complained that the bureau did not follow leads that were offered to it.

Trump suggested at a press conference this week that there was no reason the FBI shouldn't question Kavanaugh himself. Except they didn't. They also didn't talk to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, his first accuser, which Republican senators have waived away with excuses like she already testified and said she had no more to add. This is an investigation focused almost exclusively on whether Kavanaugh did something to Ford, and the FBI hasn't spoken to either.

Meanwhile, none of this has impacted the calculus of Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans. Just as they proudly announced in advance of the Ford hearings that they were determined to force through Kavanaugh's nomination regardless of what came out of the proceedings, so is McConnell now preparing a vote before senators have even seen the FBI report.



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McConnell filed a "cloture" motion Wednesday night—before the investigation was even announced as completed—which is a procedural move that sets the gears in motion for a confirmation vote. If the cloture motion passes on the full floor of the Senate Friday—the Senate can only vote on it two days after it's filed—then they could take up a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh as soon as Saturday. Vox suggests the final vote will likely be that evening. That will give senators a couple of days to review the single copy the FBI has produced of its report, which will be kept in a secure room at the Capitol. It remains to be seen whether the report will ever see the light of day.

People were shocked when President Trump once again disgraced his office Tuesday, mocking Ford's story and enticing the Ralph Steadman figures in his rally crowd to jeer and laugh at her. It's not clear why anyone's surprised. Has any Republican even feigned taking the charges against Kavanaugh seriously apart from Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski?

Does anyone seem to care that Kavanaugh very likely lied under oath on multiple occasions while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee? Does anyone mind that 650 trial lawyers just joined the chorus saying Kavanaugh clearly lacks proper "judicial temperament"? Or that he's proven himself an obvious partisan through his career and conduct in Kenneth Starr's office and the Bush White House, a pattern that culminated in his testimony last week, in which he blamed his plight on the Clintons? Does anyone really think Brett Kavanaugh will take a case brought by a left-of-center group and, calmly and impartially, render a verdict based solely in prior case law and some consistent interpretation of the Constitution?

Of course not. But that's not what the Federalist Society put him on their list to do. Like anyone else Trump would've picked—and he would only ever have picked someone from their list—Kavanaugh is there because he will faithfully advance the goals of the conservative movement. In this respect, he's no different from Neil Gorsuch. That's a reminder Trump could have at any point replaced Kavanaugh with another Gorsuch clone—that is, a reliable right-wing judge without these allegations against him. It's worth asking why he didn't, beyond the prerogatives of power politics. The latter is what McConnell and Co. will use to force his nomination through, and they will be rewarded for it with a surge of enthusiasm from a rank-and-file increasingly primed to respond to displays of dominance. Also, they'll get a Supreme Court seat.



Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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