Brett Kavanaugh
Senate Democrats have referred a confidential informant's letter about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the FBI for investigation, according to reports today from multiple news sites. The Intercept is reporting that the letter appears to involve an alleged #MeToo incident involving Kavanaugh and a California woman.CNN is reporting that a committee vote on the Kavanaugh confirmation has been delayed until next week. It's not clear if the delay is related to new information from a confidential informant. From a report at Alternet:
The Intercept and Buzzfeed News are reporting that Democrats in the U.S. Senate have referred a letter concerning Judge Brett Kavanaugh—President Trump’s second nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court—to the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice for investigation. Last week, the Senate held confirmation hearings on Trump’s nominee, with some of the most California’s Kamala Harris and New Jersey’s Cory Booker.
According to The Intercept, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked to see a Kavanaugh-related letter that California Sen. Dianne Feinstein has in her possession. But so far, Feinstein—who is the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee—has declined to share the letter with her colleagues.
Exactly what’s in the letter remains unclear. But according to The Intercept, the letter was written by someone associated with Stanford University and may describe an incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman that occurred when they were in high school. The Stanford associate gave the letter to Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents the Northern California district where Stanford is located and passed the letter along to Feinstein.
On September 13, BuzzFeed reported that it had contacted the woman believed to be the subject of the letter, but she declined to comment. However, Democratic Sen. Dick Durban of Illinois did speak to BuzzFeed on September 13, saying, “This matter has been referred to the FBI for investigation.”
BuzzFeed also contacted Eshoo’s office, which declined to comment on the contents of the letter, noting, “Our office does not discuss casework.”
Feinstein’s office, as of 1 p.m. EST on September 13, had declined to give BuzzFeed or any other news outlet a comment. But Feinstein said that an official statement about the letter would be forthcoming later in the day.
From a report at The Intercept, which conjures up memories of Anita Hill's testimony in the hearing on Clarence Thomas' confirmation:
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have privately requested to view a Brett Kavanaugh-related document in possession of the panel’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, but the senior California senator has so far refused, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.
The specific content of the document, which is a letter from a California constituent, is unclear, but Feinstein’s refusal to share the letter has created tension on the committee, particularly after Feinstein largely took a back seat to her more junior colleagues last week, as they took over Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings with protests around access to documents.The letter took a circuitous route to Feinstein, the top-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. It purportedly describes an incident that was relayed to someone affiliated with Stanford University, who authored the letter and sent it to Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represents the area.
Different sources provided different accounts of the contents of the letter, and some of the sources said they themselves had heard different versions, but the one consistent theme was that it describes an incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman while they were in high school. Kept hidden, the letter is beginning to take on a life of its own.
Eshoo passed the letter to her fellow Californian, Feinstein. Word began leaking out on the Hill about it, and Feinstein was approached by Democrats on the committee, but she rebuffed them, Democratic sources said. Feinstein’s fellow senators want their own opportunity to gauge whether or not the letter should be made public, rather than leaving it to Feinstein to make that call unilaterally. The sources were not authorized to speak on the record, and said that no senators on the committee, other than Feinstein, have so far been able to view the letter.