Christine Blasey Ford lawyers call Kavanaugh investigation a 'sham' after new details emerge

Lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct before he was confirmed in 2018 as a Supreme Court justice, said Thursday that the FBI’s investigation into her allegations was a “sham and a major institutional failure.”

The attorneys' comments came after the FBI sent a letter to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), who wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray two years ago with questions about how the investigation into Kavanaugh was conducted. On June 30, the FBI responded to the senators, revealing new information about the investigation.

Notably, the letter said that the tip line for Kavanaugh’s investigation received over 4,500 tips — and that this was the first time the bureau had set up such a line. In the letter, Assistant FBI Director Jill Tyson said the tips were provided to the Office of White House Counsel, prompting concern that those tips may have been dismissed or underinvestigated by the Trump administration as it sought to install Kavanaugh on the court.

"The letter from the Department of Justice, released by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's office today, confirms what we knew: The FBI’s investigation into Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's serious allegations about Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's sexual misconduct was a sham and a major institutional failure,” Blasey Ford’s lawyers, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, said in the Thursday statement. “Not only did the FBI refuse to interview Dr. Ford or the corroborators listed in our letter to FBI Director Wray, it failed to act on the over 4,500 tips it received about then-nominee Kavanaugh. Instead, it handed the information over to the White House, allowing those who supported Kavanaugh to falsely claim that the FBI found no wrongdoing.”

Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court in October 2018, after Blasey Ford and two other women accused him of sexual misconduct, which he denied. The Senate voted to confirm Kavanaugh on a 50-48 vote.

On Thursday, Whitehouse's office said that a group of seven Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote to Wray, asking for additional information on the FBI’s 2018 background investigation into Kavanaugh.

“The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information ‘highly relevant to ... allegations’ of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored,” the senators wrote in the letter. “If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all.”

Blasey Ford’s attorneys said in their statement that the investigation into Kavanaugh “never should have been an ordinary background check,” adding that the FBI and Trump administration “hid the ball on this” with regard to the 4,500 tips about the now-Supreme Court justice.

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the statements.