Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation was thrown together so politically, so offensively, and so typically Trumpian that many serious questions remain entirely unanswered, questions that could be used to bribe a judge (“Vote this way or we will release…”) or simply prove that Kavanaugh had and has no business being on the SCOTUS. While many of us have known this all along, there is an increasing amount of proof that the FBI failed to do anything more than the most cursory review of the accusations and seems to have entirely ignored a witness that could corroborate a story about Kavanaugh exposing himself to a young woman in college.

Even the foreign press is picking up on the shoddy investigation. According to the Guardian, Democratic Senators are demanding to know why Wray and his department did so little in the investigation of Kavanaugh. From the Guardian:

At the heart of the new questions that Wray will face later this week, when he testifies before the Senate judiciary committee, is a 2010 Memorandum of Understanding that the FBI has recently said constrained the agency’s ability to conduct any further investigations of allegations of misconduct.

It is not clear whether that claim is accurate, based on a close reading of the MOU, which was released in court records following a Freedom of Information Act request.

It is important to note that a memorandum of understanding should be followed in nearly all cases (or it’s useless), but it is not a law passed by Congress. It is an executive branch guideline. Given that it was born in the executive branch, it can also be bent (even ignored) by the executive branch, if warranted.

The memo becomes that much more important when used to justify not investigating the number of tips that came in regarding Kavanaugh. From Rawstory:

The FBI closed their background check after just four days, handing over all 4500 allegations against him to President Donald Trump’s White House officials. “The very person — the very office that was trying to cram Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court down America’s throat,” said [Former US Attorney Glenn Kischner]. 

The FBI knew that the White House didn’t want to hear anything about Kavanaugh and forwarding the 4500 tips effectively buried them. It is not like the White House has the staff to go through 4500 tips, nor the expertise to know what to do even if they did want to know. From Rawstory:

Kirschner explained that presumably the new administration has those 4500 accusations and could conduct an investigation into them. He went on to call for the 4500 citizen tips to be subpoenaed by Congress so that they can see the accusations that were ignored.

“Let’s start doing some damn justice,” he said, noting that women in Texas deserve it as do the rest of America.

The revelation that so many tips came in, including a man who could corroborate the Ramirez, who accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her when they were in college. The FBI has been accused of not thoroughly investigating those allegations, as well as flat-out ignoring thousands of others while doing a background check into Kavanaugh.

Wray’s excuse will be “we forwarded them along under the MOU,” to which the answer will be, “Then tell us how you see your role in all this. Congress asked you to investigate. You set up a hotline and then didn’t investigate a single accusation. You only forwarded them to the people who everyone knows wanted them buried. (We are talking about Trump’s White House).

Wray is having a bad week, having had to answer questions regarding the U.S. Women’s gymnastics team and the animal that preyed upon them, Larry Nasir, where again, the FBI ignored essential evidence needed to stop the abuse. The two scenarios seem to have a lot of overlap, both involving women suffering at the hands of a powerful man who was given a pass, at least initially.

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