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Bill Mitchell: "Collins might never have voted for Kavanaugh and given her epic speech without an FBI investigation. The FBI investigation might never have happened unless Flake demanded it. Who did Flake talk to right before demanding it? Rosenstein. Not everything is as it appears."

WASHINGTON — An exasperated President Trump picked up the phone to call the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, last Sunday. Tell the F.B.I. they can investigate anything, he told Mr. McGahn, because we need the critics to stop. Not so fast, Mr. McGahn said. Mr. McGahn, according to people familiar with the conversation, told the president that even though the White House was facing a storm of condemnation for limiting the F.B.I. background check into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, a wide-ranging inquiry like some Democrats were demanding — and Mr. Trump was suggesting —...

WASHINGTON — Two key undecided senators signaled Thursday that they are satisfied with the F.B.I.’s investigation into allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Senate Republican leaders were increasingly confident that he would be confirmed to the Supreme Court. Senators Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine did not say that they will vote for Judge Kavanaugh, President Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee. But after a closed-door briefing in which Republicans were told that no witnesses corroborated the accounts of Judge Kavanaugh’s main accusers, both made positive remarks. A yes vote from both would secure...

It’s unnecessary to begin with, and is not a criminal probe. The Delay, Delay, Delay strategy to stop Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court is taking the predictable course. Once they got Republicans to agree to the one-week delay, Democrats immediately started complaining that the time limit was arbitrary — that the FBI should have whatever time is necessary “to get the job done.” Therein lies the issue, which Democrats have obfuscated from the start. “The job” is not the FBI’s job, it is the Senate’s; and the job is not to conduct a criminal investigation, it is...

The bipartisan bonhomie occasioned by the reopening of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s background investigation dissipated quickly. By the weekend, Senate Democrats—who had demanded the investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation—were challenging its credibility, objecting to its scope and focus, and lamenting that the White House had any involvement in shaping the process. The reopened investigation, according to Sen. Lindsey Graham—reflecting the White House’s view—potentially entailed interviewing Deborah Ramirez, who claims that Judge Kavanaugh committed lewd conduct while a freshmen at Yale, and the three purported witnesses named by first accuser Christine Blasey Ford—Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth and Leland Keyser—all of...

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. moved on Sunday to quickly complete an abbreviated investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, even as Democrats demanded more information about the inquiry’s scope, warning that its apparent constraints could make it a “farce.” As agents conducted their review, which involves interviewing four potential witnesses, a college professor in North Carolina became the latest in a series of former Yale classmates of Judge Kavanaugh’s to accuse him of giving untruthful testimony by minimizing his use of alcohol when he was a student. The professor, Chad Ludington, said he frequently saw Judge...

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Saturday that the F.B.I. will have “free rein” to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, but the emerging contours of the inquiry showed its limited scope. Four witnesses will be questioned in coming days about aspects of the assault accusations against Judge Kavanaugh, according to two people familiar with the matter. Left off the list were former classmates who have contradicted Judge Kavanaugh’s congressional testimony about his drinking and partying as a student. The White House will decide the breadth of the inquiry, though presidential advisers were working in concert...

... If truth were the only goal, there would be no clock, and the investigation wouldn’t have been sought after the Senate Judiciary Committee already endorsed the nominee. Instead, it seems that the Republican goal is to be able to say there was an investigation and it didn’t change their view, while the Democrats hope for incriminating evidence to derail the nominee. Although the process is deeply flawed, and apparently designed to thwart the fact-gathering process, the F.B.I. is up for this. It’s not as hard as Republicans hope it will be. F.B.I. agents are experts at interviewing people and...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been instructed by the White House to interview two of the women who have alleged sexual misconduct by Brett Kavanaugh, according to people familiar with the matter. The parameters of the FBI probe don’t include interviewing Julie Swetnick, who said this week the Supreme Court nominee attended a party decades ago where she was gang-raped, according to one of the people. The focus on the first two accusations suggests that the White House doesn’t consider Ms. Swetnick’s accusations credible, people familiar with the instructions said, a decision that drew criticism from Ms. Swetnick’s attorney,...

The FBI will not be investigating Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) last-second attempt to smear Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. After countless hours of hearings, a number of in-depth background checks, thousands of questions asked and answered, and numerous one-on-one meetings with senators of both parties, at the very last second Feinstein dramatically released a letter (she has reportedly had in her possession for months) to the FBI.

Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is expected to be confirmed by October 1 when the court begins its next term Top Judiciary Committee Democrat has mysterious letter alleging Kavanaugh of something in high school but she won't show it to other senators Top D.C. #MeToo attorney is believed to be representing the woman at the center of whatever allegations the letter might contain Letter came from someone the woman knows and was sent to a California congresswoman, who shared it with Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein Sen. Dianne Feinstein got it over the summer but chose this week to...