US holds breath for a week as Trump, GOP agree to limited FBI probe on charges against SC nominee

WASHINGTON: A week is a long time in politics, British Prime Minister Harold Wilson once said, and millions of Americans are going to find out how valid the observation is over the next seven days. The confirmation to the Supreme Court of conservative judge

Brett Kavanaugh

was dramatically withheld by lawmakers at the last minute on Friday pending a new, limited, time-bound FBI investigation into charges of sexual misconduct against him.


The Republican-majority Senate Judiciary Committee was forced to accede to demand FBI probe by Senate Democrats, moderate Republicans, and female victims of sexual misconduct who hectored GOP Senator Jeff Flake in an elevator and persuaded him to withhold his confirmation vote subject to the investigation. Flake’s term ends this year and he is not running for re-election to the Senate, and therefore he appeared to summon the nerve to defy Trump and the Republican leadership.

Still, Republican bosses attempted to constrain the probe into charges of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh, saying the ''supplemental FBI background investigation would be limited to current credible allegations against the nominee and must be completed no later than one week from today.'' That left in doubt whether the FBI would entertain any new allegations that might surface, or whether it can look into allegations the GOP leadership and President Trump find ludicrous – such as the one that portrays him as a gang rapist.

Trump himself appeared to prejudge the outcome of the probe, announcing on Twitter, ''Just started, tonight, our 7th FBI investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh,'' while asserting, ''He will someday be recognized as a truly great Justice of The United States Supreme Court!''

But questions remained as to what happens if there are new allegations from new victims beyond those currently known, and also beyond the sexual misconduct charges, what happens if Kavanaugh has lied under oath.

For instance, yet another Kavanaugh classmate from Yale (besides Debbie Ramirez, who alleges a drunken Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party and sexually harassed her) surfaced on Friday to challenge his narrative that he was a god-fearing, churchgoing, academically-inclined teen, to reveal that he was a heavy drinker.

''Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling,'' Liz Swisher, who was with Kavanaugh at Yale, told CNN. ''There’s no medical way I can say that he was blacked out. . . . But it’s not credible for him to say that he has had no memory lapses in the nights that he drank to excess.''

Another classmate, Lynne Brookes, has questioned Kavanaugh painting himself as a choir boy, saying, ''You can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with that statement out, he’s gone too far. It’s about the integrity of that institution.''

These accounts square with that of Kavanaugh’s close friend and classmate Mark Judge, whose 1997 memoir “Wasted,” describes their alcohol-fueled years in school. Judge was in hiding till recently but after being outed by journalists he has now agreed to talk to the FBI. Christine Blassey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, has said Judge was party to the incident, but he has denied something like that ever took place.

The Liberal/Democrat argument is that Kavanaugh’s lying and grandstanding, rather than his drinking itself is sufficient grounds to reject his nomination. Some other critics have excoriated his abrasive temperament and partisanship, which they say was openly on display during Thursday’s hearing.

Beyond the prospect of perjury and new allegation, Kavanaugh also faces other challenges such as victims filing complaints against him in jurisdictions that have no statute of limitations. Since some of the alleged assault and misconduct took place in Bethesda and Chevy Chase in Maryland, a heavily Democratic state adjoining Washington, local authorizes said on Friday said they were prepared to conduct a state-level criminal investigation -- provided that a victim comes forward.

Some experts though maintained prosecution were unlikely in Maryland because authorities would have to apply the law that existed at the time of the offence, not the law that exists now. In 1982, assault and attempted rape were both misdemeanours and subject to a one-year statute of limitations.