Democratic lawmakers have been calling for an independent FBI investigation
from the beginning. Senate Republicans, however, say that’s not possible because “It’s not the FBI’s role to investigate a matter such as this,” as Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wrote in
a letter to Ford’s lawyers on Wednesday.
Grassley argued that the FBI’s role in the confirmation process is merely to conduct a background check of the nominee, which the Senate then takes into account when determining whether or not to confirm the individual in question.
“The job of assessing and investigating a nominee’s qualifications in order to decide whether to consent to the nomination is ours, and ours alone,” Grassley wrote.
The Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI,
also released a statementWednesday noting that “[t]he allegation does not involve any potential federal crime.”
But Senate Democrats aren’t asking for a criminal investigation. They want the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh’s background check.
Grassley has shut that avenue down too, though. On Tuesday, Grassley told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt in no uncertain terms that the “FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh is closed” and that the “FBI is not doing any further investigation.”
Grassley’s correct — the FBI’s background investigation is closed. But there’s nothing to stop the FBI from reopening or adding to it.
In fact, in 1991, the agency did just that, at the request of then-President George H.W. Bush, when Anita Hill made sexual harassment allegations against then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. The FBI investigated and wrote a report that eventually led the White House to declare that Hill’s allegations were unfounded.
Back then, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) — who was and still is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee —
called it “the very right thing to do.”