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All things Kavanaugh - updates and background

To me, Kavanaugh’s sign-off to his friends is especially damning because it is yet further substantiation that he lied under oath when he claimed “FFFFF” was a reference to the way in which a friend stuttered when he was drunk. In reality, its primary meaning to this group of friends was a lewd and demeaning reference to women (which I leave readers to look up for themselves if they care to – its actual meaning is not relevant to the point I’m making here).

Suffice it to say that when you close a letter, you close it with a salutation, such as “Sincerely Yours,” or a slogan such as “Remember the Alamo,” or an endearment such as “Sealed With a Kiss” – or something like that. You might shorten your sign-off by condensing it into an acronym when the person you’re addressing is very familiar with that acronym. For example, “Sealed with a Kiss” becomes “SWAK.” What you don’t do is sign off of a letter by making a stuttering sound. So Kavanaugh’s use of “FFFFF” as a sign-off makes it obvious that it was not a stuttering sound, but an acronym whose meaning was well known among his friends – a kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge reference.

Using crude references may not be disqualifying to a position on the Supreme Court, but lying about it under oath is.

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Three former law clerks for Brett Kavanaugh who wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year expressing support for his nomination have written to clarify they are “deeply troubled” by the allegations of sexual assault against him.
There has been so many pieces of damning evidence against Kavanaugh, that three of his former judicial clerks have requested an" independent and thorough investigation."

The R’s, McGahn, T it looks like are putting the breaks on how much of an independent investigation it will be…stating that the FBI investigation will end tomorrow.

In a letter to the Judiciary panel reported by HuffPost on Tuesday, former clerks Will Dreher, Bridget Fahey and Rakim Brooks said that an expanded FBI investigation into allegations from Christine Blasey Ford and two other women is merited.

“We write to clarify that, like many Americans, we have been deeply troubled by those allegations and the events surrounding them and were encouraged by the initiation of a formal FBI investigation,” the three wrote in their letter.

We hope, for the good of everyone involved, that the investigation will be independent and thorough,” they continued.

FBI Probe of Kavanaugh Is Expected to Wrap Up Very Soon

People familiar with the process said Tuesday that the FBI investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Kavanaugh could wrap up very soon, well ahead of the end-of week deadline.

GOP aides on the Hill and another person familiar with the process said they were expecting the bureau to conclude its report as soon as late Tuesday or early Wednesday. Agents had interviewed at least four key people as of Tuesday in its background investigation of Judge Kavanaugh. The White House had given the bureau until Friday to wrap up the probe.

Senators would then be shown the FBI’s findings, but it wasn’t clear if the public would get a look as well.

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Oct 2, 2018 at 3:52 pm ET
Highlights
Letter Signed by Nearly 400 Law Professors Decries Kavanaugh’s ‘Lack of Judicial Temperament’

Brett Kavanaugh’s fiery appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week got failing marks from more than 560 law professors at nearly 100 schools in an open letter saying the Supreme Court nominee failed to demonstrate the judicial temperament required by the position he seeks.

“We regret that we feel compelled to write to you to provide our views that at the Senate hearings on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018, the Honorable Brett Kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial temperament that would be disqualifying for any court, and certainly for elevation to the highest court of this land,” the letter reads.

Martha Minow, who was dean of Harvard Law School while Judge Kavanaugh taught there, is among the prominent signatories, along with such scholars as Mark Lemley of Stanford Law School, Judith Resnik of Yale Law School and Michael Dorf of Cornell Law School, who like Judge Kavanaugh once clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy.

We have differing views about the other qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh. But we are united, as professors of law and scholars of judicial institutions, in believing that Judge Kavanaugh did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land,” the letter reads.

It organically came together, the result of a surge of law professors remarking on Judge Kavanaugh’s lack of judicial temperament at the hearings,” said one of the signers, Prof. Bernard Harcourt of Columbia Law School. The letter remains open for additional signatures through Thursday.

Jess Bravin

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Wow, just wow. Seems like Kavanaugh just burned up his career with all the anger and disdain he displayed throughout the proceedings. I guess it’s Supreme Court or bust? Who am I kidding, he could always just become a lobbyist.

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moved this to Who’s Running the Narrative…

This post moved

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like his dear old dad. :zipper_mouth_face:

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It gets worse…During the Ken Starr investigation into the Clintons, particularly the death of Vince Foster, who was closely aligned with the Clintons, Kavanaugh was part of the investigation team. Article from Ambrose Evans - Pritchard…which I have excerpted here…but explained in full via the link below.

Kavanaugh did a lot of the digging…and leaking from Grand Jury testimony. His release of photos, were startling…because there was a smear campaign going on, to suggest that Vince Foster was shot, instead of a victim of his own hand, suicide.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard is International Business Editor of The Daily Telegraph. He has covered world politics and economics for 30 years, based in Europe, the US, and Latin America. He joined the Telegraph in 1991, serving as Washington correspondent and later Europe correspondent in Brussels.

2 OCTOBER 2018 • 11:33 PM BST

Twenty-three years ago I crossed swords with a younger Brett Kavanaugh in one of the weirdest and most disturbing episodes of my career as a journalist.

What happened leaves me in no doubt that he lacks judicial character and is unfit to serve on the US Supreme Court for the next thirty years or more, whatever his political ideology.

To my surprise, the incident has suddenly become a second front in his nomination saga on Capitol Hill. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has accused him of violating secrecy laws by revealing the details of a federal grand jury.

Disclosing grand jury information is against the law,” she told Politico. She said it also showed he had misled the Senate by assuring categorically that he had never leaked grand jury material to journalists.

Sen Feinstein released a ‘smoking gun’ document from the archive files of the Starr investigation. It shows Mr Kavanaugh’s efforts to suppress a news story about his wild cross-examination of a witness, including a wayward discussion of “genitalia” that particularly worried him.

This piqued my interest since I am named in the document and the witness – Patrick Knowlton – was in a sense ‘my witness’.

Mr Kavanaugh was then a cocky 30 year-old from the affluent WASP suburbs of Northwest Washington, very much the country club boy with a high sense of his status, and Georgetown Prep and Yale Law School behind him, though only with a humdrum Cum Laude. If anybody was going to wind up my hard-scrabble, salt-of-America witness, it was this child of privilege.

This is not the place to revisit the Foster case, the electric third rail of US politics. But it is worth noting two points that touch on Mr Kavanaugh.

Few people are aware that the US federal prosecutor handling the death investigation at the outset, Miquel Rodriguez, had resigned earlier from the Starr investigation after a bitter dispute.

His resignation letter – later leaked – said he was prevented from pursuing investigative leads, that FBI witness statements did not reflect what witnesses had said, that the suicide verdict was premature, and that his grand jury probe was shut down just as he was beginning to uncover evidence. An informed source told me his work had been sabotaged by his own FBI agents.

The nub of the dispute was over compelling evidence of a wound in Foster’s neck, which contradicted the official version that Foster shot himself in the mouth and had essentially been suppressed. The key crime scene photos had vanished and the FBI labs said others were over-exposed and useless.

Mr Rodriguez, by then suspicious, slipped them to the Smithsonian Institution and had them enhanced. One showed a black stippled ring like a gunshot wound in the side of Foster’s neck. This remains secret but I have seen it.

The photo was pivotal. It confirmed what several people who handled the body had originally stated. I interviewed the first rescue worker on the scene and when I asked him about the mouth wound, he grabbed me, and said with frightening intensity: “listen to me buddy, Foster was shot right here,” jabbing his finger into my neck. He said the FBI had pressured him too into changing his story and that official narrative was a pack of lies.

Mr Kavanaugh’s reaction to the findings of his colleague can be found in the stash of released documents from the Starr inquiry. One says in his hand-written notes: “startling discovery”, “blew up portions of photo – trauma to the neck on rt side”, “appears to be bullet hole”.

Mr Kavanaugh faced a choice. He chose to go with the establishment rather than stick up for his colleague. This proved good for his career. He took over the grand jury, by then a legacy showpiece. His treatment of my witness revealed his colours.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sinister-battle-brett-kavanaugh-over-202425923.html

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What’s been done…and probably what won’t be done.
The ones who were to be interviewed were - Judge, Debbie Ramirez, as well as Chris Garrett (Squi - and who Whelan pushed as the assaulter, but was quickly denied), PJ Smyth

FBI agents have completed a first batch of interviews of four individuals closest to the alleged events, and the White House has given the bureau a green light to conduct some further interviews, according to the people familiar with the matter.

On Tuesday, the FBI moved beyond those initial four people, interviewing Tim Gaudette, a Georgetown Preparatory School classmate of Kavanaugh. Gaudette’s attorney, Kenneth Eichner, said an FBI interview took place but declined to comment further. Gaudette’s home was the site of a July 1, 1982, party that Kavanaugh references on his calendar and has become the focus of lawmakers’ concerns.

FBI agents have also interviewed Mark Judge, a key Kavanaugh high school friend who has denied any knowledge of a teenage gathering like the one described by Kavanaugh’s first accuser.

In the interview, Judge also denied recent allegations leveled by Julie Swetnick, saying he had no knowledge of anything like what she had claimed — that he, Kavanaugh or other male friends tried at house parties to get girls drunk in order to take advantage of them, according to two people familiar with the interview.

Another friend from Kavanaugh’s high school days, Chris Garrett, has also completed an FBI interview, according to Garrett’s lawyer, William M. Sullivan Jr., who declined to comment further.

The White House and FBI “are being very careful with each other,” said one person familiar with the matter, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations. “Everyone realizes that they are under a huge amount of scrutiny, and will be when it’s over, too.”

When the FBI met one of ­Kavanaugh’s accusers, Deborah Ramirez, in Boulder, Colo., this past weekend, they sent two agents, and a supervisory agent waited in an adjoining room, according to people familiar with the matter.

John Clune, an attorney for Ramirez, said Tuesday on Twitter that his client spoke with the FBI for more than two hours Sunday in a “detailed and productive interview.” The agents “were clearly motivated to investigate the matter in any way they were permitted,” he added. But he asserted that Ramirez had provided the names and contact information of more than 20 witnesses who might be able to corroborate her allegation that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when they were at Yale, and that, as far as Clune knew, the FBI had not contacted any of them as of Tuesday.

Discussions between the FBI and the White House are complicated by a number of factors — the president’s long-running distrust of the agency over its Russia probe, the intense criticism by members of Congress of the FBI’s handling of politically sensitive investigations, and the added difficulty of conducting an inquiry that could tip the scales in deciding who becomes the next member of the Supreme Court.

Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who said she was assaulted by Kavanaugh when they were teens and who testified to the Senate last week, wrote FBI Director Christopher A. Wray on Tuesday to say they were concerned the FBI had not sought an interview with her.

It is inconceivable that the FBI could conduct a thorough investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations without interviewing her, Judge Kavanaugh, or the witnesses we have identified in our letters to you,” the lawyers wrote, demanding an immediate answer to what they said were days of silence from the FBI.

The bureau declined to comment.

The Kavanaugh investigation is being led by the FBI’s Security Division, a component of the Human Resources Branch that is normally tasked with handling background checks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-navigates-political-minefield-and-deadline-in-kavanaugh-inquiry/2018/10/02/315aa59c-c67c-11e8-9b1c-a90f1daae309_story.html?utm_term=.5cfce5517c6b

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This just breaking. . .

We have one sworn statement here doubting Swetnick’s testimony, but the operative word is “doubting” – he offers no specific contradictory evidence and he has credibility issues – I’ll let you be the judge.

The other statement, which corroborates aspects of both Ford’s and Swetnick’s testimony, I feel is explosive. True, this person does not have testimony regarding the particular sexual assault crimes which Ford and Swetnick are alleging, but she does attest to the types of parties and behaviors that Kavanaugh has denied under oath. Her statement is credible eyewitness testimony establishing that Kavanaugh has perjured himself and thus is not fit to serve as a judge on the Supreme Court.

The witness’s name is currently redacted in the statement, but Avenatti says she will be identified once the FBI has contacted her for an interview.

It will be a travesity if the FBI does not question this person to asses whether or not she is being truthful. And it’s especially important that they interview her because in her closing remarks she claims to have information about additional “inappropriate conduct” by Kavanaugh which she is willing to disclose directly to the FBI.

Every point she makes is highly incriminating, but to me the most explosive is item 6: “During the years 1981-82, I witnessed firsthand Brett Kavanaugh, together with others, “spike” the “punch” at house parties I attended with Quaaludes and/or grain alcohol.”

Sidenote: The yearbook entry of one of K’s close friends references “Killer Qs and 151” (alluding to Quaaludes and 151 proof alcohol); another friend’s entry mentions the “Killer Qs club.”

Here’s Avenatti’s tweet announcing this witness’s sworn statement. It includes his cover letter to the FBI along with a copy of the statement. I’ve also included the statement below. It’s a fast read at just a page and a half – highly recommended.

Here are a couple more who were interviewed for the Kavanaugh FBI investigation…Tom Kane and Bernie McCarthy.

The odds are not with us that a LOT of new information will be garnered from this brief investigation.

Tom Kane, who was another of the attendees of the July 1, 1982, party told CNN, “I’d rather not say,” when asked about talking to the FBI. Another attendee – Bernie McCarthy – did not respond to requests for comment.

Kavanaugh provided the calendar to the Senate Judiciary Committee as evidence that he kept careful notes that summer and never listed a party similar to the one Ford described.

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I am a bit hesitant to be convinced about these allegations, in that I may just be too much of a skeptic and thinking that these are of course explosive allegations but proving them, way past the date would be pretty difficult. It would be another he said-she said type of scenario.

I believe that Michael Avenatti does do his due diligence, but am nervous to buy into such egregious allegations at this juncture. If it were to blow up, and someone was not telling the truth, then all the allegations may go that direction. (all or nothing proposition)

One of the pundits said very simply…this will come down to 5 votes who will be the final call on this.

Hard enough to realize that no extra effort went to really do the investigation beyond just the basics.

I just hope the uproar over K’s lies and his outrageous demeanor will sink him.

But I can paint the scenario of the alleged spiking of the punch bowl, etc. Kavanaugh and Mark Judge were no angels obviously. :angry:

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What will become of the FBI report if it is kept secret? It can potentially come through the various outlets if the Dems win the Senate…and/or it could be read into the record.

Why it matters

The reason this matters is that, without any kind of public release of the FBI’s findings on Kavanaugh, a spin war will erupt that threatens to leave the public as uncertain as ever. Such background checks are less about reaching conclusions than about compiling information, and in this case the additional information will be designed to assist lawmakers to better weigh the accounts from Ford, Kavanaugh and others — as well as their credibility.

Senators on both sides will of course characterize what’s in the report in ways that make one side appear more credible than the other, and the nuances will be crucial — yet those nuances could end up getting buried under layers of he-said/she-said obfuscation, particularly if the public and journalists have little or nothing to judge the spin war against. Beyond this, the report’s release would help us better understand just how comprehensive a background check the FBI ended up conducting.

Democrats should be threatening that if they regain power, they will push to release the report that McConnell is trying to keep private, and to reopen the investigation into Kavanaugh to ensure that it is done in the complete way that the White House is preventing,” Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, which is leading the charge against Kavanaugh, told me.

All this is a reminder of just how high the stakes are in this fall’s elections — as well as a reminder that if Kavanaugh is confirmed, the war over him will likely continue, with undiminshed intensity.

@JakeSherman

Jake Sherman Retweeted Greg Sargent

A Democrat could easily read it from the senate floor. And nothing would happen.

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RE: Sen Lisa Murkowski’s (R-Alaska) vote - She talks to reporters to also say she had asked the FBI to re-open the investigation, and needs to look at what has been done.

Acosta

Murkowski: "I thought the President’s comments yesterday mocking Dr. Ford were wholly inappropriate, and in my view unacceptable… I am taking everything into account.” via @jeremyherb
9:30 AM - 3 Oct 2018

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Apropos of Dr. Christine Blase Ford’s revelations about being assaulted, Connie Cheung also was sexually assaulted. Because these are harms that have been done which feel shameful, many do keep them hidden. What’s the difficulty in understanding this R’s???

Here’s her some of her article

Christine, I, too, am terrified as I reveal this publicly. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. Can you? If you can’t, I understand. I am frightened, I am scared, I can’t even cry.

Will my legacy as a television journalist for 30-plus years be relegated to a footnote? Will “She Too” be etched on my tombstone instead? I don’t want to tell the truth. I must tell the truth. As a reporter, the truth has ruled my life, my thinking. It’s what I searched for on a daily working basis.

Christine, I know the truth, as you do. Years ago, my husband read a novel by Rita Mae Brown called “Six of One.” He told me, “There’s a great line in this book. ‘The advantage of telling the truth is you don’t have to remember what you said.’

I wish I could forget this truthful event, but I cannot because it is the truth. I am writing to you because I know that exact dates, exact years are insignificant. We remember exactly what happened to us and who did it to us. We remember the truth forever.

Bravo, Christine, for telling the truth.

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We just cannot believe how ANYONE would not want all the facts out in the open BEFORE making decisions. Some are acting like rabid animals, insisting on and threatening others who question their agenda. We are in our 60’s, and NEVER have we seen ANY party so disgusting. We are no longer proud of our beloved United States due to the current administration.

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CNN is reporting on the long list of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates who feel they have relevant information regarding his testimony, but are having difficulty reporting what they know to the FBI.

Here’s the story of one classmate’s frustrating experience – it seems to me that he has very important and relevant information. It should be a simple matter for him to convey this information directly to the proper authorities and receive some kind of acknowledgement that it is being looked at, but that is not the case:

Mark Krasberg, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico who was also a classmate of Kavanaugh’s and Ramirez’s without direct knowledge of the alleged incident, had also not heard back from the FBI despite numerous attempts to reach out to lawmakers’ offices and FBI offices directly. . .

Krasberg said that he’d reached out to New Mexico Democratic Sen. Martin Heinrich’s DC office . . .

He says Heinrich’s staff forwarded his information to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which he then said was forwarded to the FBI. Krasberg also said he became increasingly concerned by news reports that the investigation would occur over just one week and felt he needed to try and contact the FBI directly. He called the Colorado office where he said he did talk to someone over the phone after a long wait, but was only able to get through “approximately 10% of the evidence” he had.

“She asked me to summarize the remaining information, and I told her that I could help identify the location of the incident, and that I knew the names of other witnesses who would contemporaneously back up Debbie Ramirez’s story,” he said.

On Sunday, he said he reached out to staff for Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a key swing vote and undecided Republican, as well as Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee and close friend to Flake, to discuss what he knew. They again forwarded his information to the Senate Judiciary Committee, but as of Tuesday night, Krasberg said he had still not heard back from the FBI.

Here’s someone who can help pinpoint the location of Ramirez’s alleged assault and has the names of witnesses who could corroborate Ramirez’s statements, yet after repeated attempts to connect with the FBI, he has been unable to pass along that information.

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(Premature) results are in…for the Kavanaugh investigation.

Timed reveals to Senators, no staff…and no discussing.

The fix IS in…OMG.

Republican senators said Wednesday that the file will be held in the Senate SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility), which is the classified area of the Capitol Visitor’s Center. The SCIF could be used so more senators can be accommodated than in the Judiciary Committee offices, which are fairly small.

According to committee aides and a document dictating how the file is to be handled, “The Security Manager shall maintain in a locked safe a log that reflects the date, time, and particular FBI background investigation report received by the Committee.”

The information in the background investigation file is not marked top secret or classified, but it is not to be leaked to even characterized. Senators are “not allowed to share any details whatsoever,” a committee aide said.

That rule will likely be tested.

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