The Daily - The F.B.I.’s Kavanaugh Investigation

Episode Date: October 4, 2018

As the F.B.I. shares the results of its investigation into Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh with the Senate, we look at what the scope of the inquiry may mean for his confirmation vote — and why Republicans are changing the way they talk about his accuser. Guests: Michael D. Shear and Peter Baker, who both cover the White House for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. As the FBI prepares to share its investigation of Brett Kavanaugh with the Senate, what the scope of the investigation may mean for his confirmation vote, and why Republicans have decided to abandon their original strategy for how to treat Kavanaugh's accusers. It's Thursday, October 4th.

It's Thursday, October 4th. Mike here. What was the original understanding of the FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh and its scope back when Senator Jeff Flake requested it at the end of last week? Right. So essentially what Senator Flake had requested was really a reopening of the background check. I can only say that I would be only comfortable moving on the floor until the FBI has done more investigation than they have already. Judge Kavanaugh had been, of course, the subject of an original background check when he was nominated to be the next justice on the Supreme Court. But Senator Flake essentially was saying to the White House and to the FBI, look, go back, take a look at these allegations, interview people that you need to interview to see if there is corroborating evidence that would suggest that, in fact, Judge Kavanaugh had

committed sexual misconduct. It would be short and limited in scope to the current allegations that have been made. Essentially, what the senators asked for was a highly focused re-examination of this singular question of had the judge been engaged in actions of sexual misconduct when he was young. And what did the FBI actually do at the start of this new phase, this reopening of the background check investigation? So the FBI's procedures and the FBI's actual involvement is not something that normally becomes public. So it's a pretty opaque process. What we do know is that in this case, the White

House is the client that's asking the FBI to reopen the background check of a White House nominee. That's the process. So even though the Senate has asked for the investigation, in a sense, the White House is the intermediary that asks for it. That's right. The Senate made the request to the White House. The White House tells the FBI, look, go back and reopen this and take another look. Got it.

Republican senators had conversations with the White House. The White House provided to the FBI four names of people that they said should be part of this sort of reopening of the investigation. And we begin tonight with breaking news in the FBI investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Authorities are now contacting possible witnesses as they probe allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against him. Those were Deborah Ramirez. A Yale classmate who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself at a dorm party. Leland Kaiser, one of the friends of Dr. Blasey Ford.

Notably, Ms. Kaiser does not refute Dr. Ford's account, and she has already told the press that she believes Dr. Ford's account. Somebody named PJ. Patrick Smith, a Georgetown prep classmate, who says, I understand that I've been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as PJ, who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to The Washington Post. I'm issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh. Also on the FBI list, high school friend Mark Judge.

Allegedly the third person in the room during the alleged assault of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. This is one of Judge Kavanaugh's best friends at the time in high school. Kavanaugh's friend Mark Judge has confirmed he will cooperate with an FBI investigation as long as it is confidential. And what's happening with the FBI investigation as these four interviews are being conducted? What happens is that as the FBI is sending their agents out to talk to these four people... This list of witnesses is only a beginning. It's not the end of what the FBI needs to do. And anything short of a full, fair investigation will be a sham. The White House comes under intense pressure to make it clear that this isn't such a constrained investigation that it would be essentially a sham.

They cannot say, oh, hey, only interview the people in their neighborhood on one side of the street or only interview people from a certain period of their life. You let the men and women of the FBI, the professionals, do their jobs. And for people, to some, especially Democrats, it's starting to feel like a sham. Right. That pressure gets to be enough that the White House finally says, and the president himself says, the FBI can investigate this however they see fit. I think the FBI should interview anybody that they want within reason. And they essentially give the green light to the FBI to go beyond just those four people.

I mean, Mike, in the time since the investigation began, the public's focus, and to some degree the Senate's focus, has turned to Kavanaugh's credibility and his honesty during that hearing. And the question of, did he misrepresent his past in a way that should be concerning for potential Supreme Court justice? Do we know if this FBI investigation

has focused at all on investigating his truthfulness? Our colleagues Kate Kelly and Robin Pogrevin told us that a lot of Kavanaugh's classmates have come forward and tried to reach the FBI to describe this behavior that they see as at odds with his testimony. We drank beer and, you know, so did I think the vast majority of people our age at the time.

But in any event, we drank beer and still do. So whatever, yeah. Especially when it comes to this drinking. And some of them said they weren't quite sure how to reach the FBI and were having trouble actually getting a hold of people at the FBI. So it seems like knowing whether the FBI has connected with them and bothered to talk to them would be telling in knowing just how much the FBI is incorporating this question of truthfulness into this investigation. Right. And I think we may not know until the reopened background check is officially completed and we see what the scope is that they've done. check is officially completed and we see what the scope is that they've done. As of now, there is definitely evidence that suggests that a lot of the people who are wanting to come forward are

struggling to feel like they're being heard. Some of them are being told to simply file reports on an online web portal, which seems one person described to me as sticking a needle back in the haystack, that whatever they're going to say isn't actually going to get to the right people. In other cases, there have been names that have been given directly to FBI agents directly involved in this inquiry, and yet the peoples whose names have been given have not yet been called by the FBI. And so we don't know for sure whether there was a directive by the FBI to specifically focus on his honesty and whether or not he misled or lied or mischaracterized himself during that testimony. However, keep in mind, all of this is intertwined. All of this is related. Questions about his

drinking could potentially affect how you decide whether or not he was truthful in denying the sexual misconduct, right? If a senator concludes, hey, he wasn't truthful about his drinking, so therefore I don't believe his denials on the sexual misconduct. You could also see a situation in which a senator might say, look, I believe his denials about the sexual misconduct. I don't think he attempted to rape a woman. I don't think he exposed himself in a dorm room. But I also think that when he sat before us for several hours in the Senate Judiciary Committee and downplayed his drinking, and now I've looked at all these interviews and I see the testimony of people saying the opposite, and I don't believe him. And just the fact that I believe

he misled the Senate committee could be enough for this particular senator or that particular senator to say, I don't think he should be on the court because regardless of whether I think he committed sexual misconduct, you want somebody on the court who's honest and I don't believe he's been. That's the kind of thought process that a senator could go through. So this is not about getting a definitive answer about whether Judge Kavanaugh assaulted Dr. Bozzi Ford or Deborah Ramirez. Right. It's about giving more information for the senators who will be making that determination.

The FBI is not going to conclude. What the FBI is going to do is summaries of the interviews in a form that is known at the FBI as the 302. That's the interview form of all of these people will be ultimately delivered to the senators who will then be able to read them and use the information as more grist in what they are going to ultimately have to do, which is to either vote yes or no on his nomination to the Supreme Court. So senators will have access to these FBI interviews, to these 302 forms. Will we as the public ever get to see them? Well, that's a good question. And we don't know the answer to that. Normally, the answer is no. The FBI 302 forms are not something that normally

becomes public. Senator McConnell, the leader of the Republicans, has said he doesn't expect them to become public. We'll get an FBI report soon. It'll be made available to each senator, and only senators will be allowed to look at it. And that's the way these reports are always handled. However, this is a remarkable moment and a unique moment. And there are senators on both sides who have said, I hope that they will make the report public. Judiciary Committee member Cornyn spoke of making the findings public. People are not going to be satisfied until some public statement about what the FBI supplemental background investigation showed.

They can't imagine that it wouldn't become public, so the public has a sense of what did the FBI find from talking to all these people. Mike, thank you very much. Sure, happy to be on the show anytime. Thank you very much. Sure. Happy to be on the show anytime. On Wednesday night, the Judiciary Committee described its plan for sharing the FBI report with the full Senate today. A single copy will be made available inside a secure room in the Capitol, where Republicans and Democrats will be given alternating hour-long time slots to review the document.

Senate Democrats immediately criticized the plan. Senator Dick Durbin, a member of the Judiciary Committee, called it, quote, bizarre, a single copy. It doesn't make any sense. We'll be right back. Hopefully, the woman will come forward, state her case. He will state his case before representatives of the United States Senate. And then they will vote. Peter Baker, in the couple of weeks since Dr. Blasey Ford came forward with her allegations,

even President Trump's aides have been surprised by how he handled it. They will look at his career. They will look at what she had to say from 36 years ago. And we will see what happens. By how measured he'd been and how much he had refrained from attacking her. I thought her testimony was very compelling, and she looks like a very fine woman to me. Very fine woman. Even after the hearing.

When did that change? Well, you really saw it Tuesday night in Mississippi when the president went before a campaign rally. Hello, Mississippi. Hello. Beautiful. Hello, Mississippi. Hello. Beautiful. And with thousands of people gathered there.

Well, I have to start by saying that 2020 is looking really easy. He began talking about Judge Kavanaugh. And a man's life is in tatters. A man's life is shattered. His wife is shattered, his daughters, who are beautiful, incredible young kids. He said some of the things he'd been saying before, which is that Judge Kavanaugh has been unfairly treated, that this is destroying a good man,

that he believed Judge Kavanaugh in effect. Shouldn't happen to him. What he's going through, 36 years ago, this happened. I had one beer, right? I had one beer. But then he began to go a little further. Well, you think it was, nope, it was one beer. Oh, good. How did you get home? I don't remember. How'd you get there? I don't remember. Where is the place? I don't remember. How many years ago was it? I don't know.

By actually directly, not only questioning Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's account, but really mocking her, mimicking her, imitating her. I don't know. What neighborhood was it in? I don't know. Where's the house? I don't know. Upstairs, downstairs, where was it? I don't know. But I had one beer. That's the only thing I remember. And remember, this is a week after, less than a week after, he said that he found her a very credible witness. That was the phrase he used, very credible. That she had very compelling testimony and that she seemed to be a very fine person.

Well, the way he described her at this rally in Mississippi did not suggest he thought she was a fine person or that she seemed very credible. And have other senators followed suit? What we see is the Republican leadership of the Judiciary Committee being more willing to directly call into question Blasey Ford's truthfulness. This all comes as Senator Chuck Grassley

is demanding answers to stunning new allegations that contradict Christine Blasey Ford's testimony. Chuck Grassley of Iowa sent a letter to her lawyers on Tuesday night, raising this letter sent to them by her ex-boyfriend. An ex-boyfriend claims Ford helped a friend prep for a polygraph test. She had been asked about that at the hearing. Did she ever give advice to anybody taking a polygraph? She said never. Now Ford's friend is denying being helped for a lie detector test.

But this letter was cited by Republicans to say, if you can't trust what she says about this polygraph, for instance, you can't trust her about anything. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is defending comments made by President Trump that seem to be mocking Christine Blasey Ford. Everything he said was factual. He's frustrated his nominee has been treated so badly. Factual is a personal degrading attack on someone who is a private citizen.

You know, here's what's personally degrading. This is what you get when you go through a trailer park with a $100 bill. See, this is not the first time this has happened. That's actually a reference to something somebody said. See, this is not the first time this has happened. That's actually a reference to something somebody said. So is it fair to say, Peter, that Republicans have moved from Dr. Blasey Ford is credible and we should hear her out, and perhaps this happened to her but someone else other than Kavanaugh did it,

to she's lying? Well, they're not openly using the L word quite yet, but they are saying, in effect, that her testimony has not been fully truthful, not fully candid. What the Republicans seem to be doing here is trying to match the Democrats in saying your witness is full of inconsistencies and factual gaps, and therefore, you know, you can't trust her account over his. But it does feel, Peter, and you are a White House reporter, you cover the president so closely, it does feel, Peter, and you are a White House reporter, you cover the president so closely, it does feel that President Trump thinks he's tapping into something in this moment, as he has often done in the past. I got boys and I got girls. And when I see what's going on right now,

it's scary for all things. I mean, I wouldn't want... Who are you scared most for, your sons or your daughters? I mean, right now, I'd say my son. This is a very, very, this is a very difficult time. I'm struck by what he said, for example, about his son's comments about men in this moment. It's a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of. Yeah, no, I think that's true. I think that nobody has been more successful on the national stage at channeling populist anger out there than President Trump. You could be somebody that was perfect your entire life and somebody could accuse you of something.

You know, in this culture war, in this big societal moment, this Me Too moment, President Trump has decided to weigh in on one side, in effect. And that's with the men, he says, are being unfairly swept up in this moment. Well, it does impact my opinion. You know why? Because I've had a lot of false charges made against me. I'm a very famous person, unfortunately. I've been a famous person for a long time. But I've had a lot of false charges made against me, really false charges.

He says he himself has been accused unfairly by the dozen or more women who have said that he sexually harassed them, so he understands. So when I see it, I view it differently than somebody sitting home watching television where they say, oh, Judge Kavanaugh, this or that. It's happened to me many times. I've had many false charges. He has definitely taken a side. He says it's a very scary time, he says, for young men because the presumption of innocence has been thrown away. It strikes me that somewhere along the way, Republicans seem to have concluded that their efforts to tiptoe around in the Me Too moment was maybe not necessary, that their base actually felt differently than they imagined. And there was a sense that men fell under attack

by what was going on at Brett Kavanaugh. And you saw this in response to the president's comments by the audience at that rally in Mississippi, that they had essentially discovered that they didn't need to be so diplomatic about all this. Well, you know, I mean, that may be their calculation, and it may be wrong. What sounds good in a rally in Mississippi

on a weeknight may not look as good in the light of day on a Senate floor when you're about to take a cloture vote. We don't know yet. So, you know, different contexts, different environments. They've been trying to destroy Judge Kavanaugh since the very first second he was announced.

It was a rallying cry for his supporters at this rally. It was something that ginned up cheers and applause. But... Are you comfortable with the president's attacks on Christine Blasey Ford? Are you comfortable with the president's attacks on Christine Blasey Ford? The president's comments were just plain wrong. Right now, there are three Republican senators on the fence, Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski. Well, there's no time and no place

for remarks like that, but to discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just kind of appalling. All three of them pretty harshly condemned the president. This just in now from number three, Lisa Murkowski, Republican, center of Alaska. Quote, I thought the president's comments yesterday mocking Dr. Ford were wholly inappropriate and, in my view, unacceptable.

That's from Senator Lisa Murkowski. She was asked whether it would affect her vote. She said, quote, I am taking everything into account. account. Is it possible that the way the president is now talking about Dr. Blasey Ford, this strategy that has changed so radically in such a short period of time, that that could actually cost him this confirmation?

Well, that's the worry about people around him, exactly. His advisors and the Republican senators who have been talking to him had advised him not to do exactly what he's done, that they thought he would inflame the situation and make things worse. Even Lindsey Graham, even the folks on Fox and Friends, some of his favorite and strongest supporters said today, this is a mistake, he shouldn't have done it because he risks losing the big prize he's after in the first place,

which is putting another conservative on the Supreme Court. Peter, thank you very much. Hey, it's great talking to you. Here's what else you need to know today. On Wednesday, President Trump responded to the findings of a year-long investigation by The Times, which found that his family had used fraudulent schemes to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. In a tweet, the president called the story a, quote, old, boring, and often told hit piece.

But the president did not offer a denial of the facts in the Times investigation. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.