Then-President Donald Trump’s claims in 2018 that the FBI would have full leeway to investigate sexual assault allegations about his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, appeared to confuse the agency, according to internal communications cited in a Senate Democrat’s new report.
The investigation into the allegations – which Kavanaugh has vehemently denied – was sought after an emotional hearing with his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, prompted some crucial senators to balk at confirming the nominee.
The White House, however, instructed the FBI to only interview 10 witnesses, according to the report. The FBI was also not given authority to seek out other witnesses who might have corroborating information, nor did it have permission to go beyond the specific subject areas outlined by the White House for questioning the witnesses.
The report sheds light on the tight limits the White House imposed on the FBI as it undertook a “supplemental” background investigation while Kavanaugh’s confirmation hung in the balance. Senate investigators were able to review contemporaneous internal communications between the White House and the FBI that showed how the public narrative Trump and his allies were pushing differed from the instructions the FBI had received.
Senate investigators were not able to obtain copies of key emails between the FBI and Trump White House, and instead were only allowed to view many of the emails cited in the report in camera (meaning behind closed doors, with no option for making copies), so CNN has not had access to the emails themselves.
When the FBI embarked on the so-called supplemental investigation into the Kavanaugh allegations, Trump claimed in public remarks that the agency was “talking to everybody” and had “free rein,” and even blasted an NBC News report on the investigation’s limitations on Twitter. According to the report, those Trump comments were then flagged by an FBI public affairs office in emails to others at the agency, including some top officials.
The next day, an FBI official reached out to the White House – via phone call and multiple emails – to understand whether the scope of the supplemental investigation had changed, according to the Senate report. The White House finally told the official that it would be in touch it if had additional guidance to offer on the supplemental investigation.
The report, released Tuesday by Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, accuses the FBI of slow-walking his and other Democrats’ request for information about its Kavanaugh probe – including after President Joe Biden took office. Whitehouse’s report also accused the FBI of obscuring from Congress and the public just how limited the investigation was; top officials at the Trump White House and the FBI repeatedly claimed the probe was being done “by the book,” without acknowledging there were no clear procedures for such an investigation.
Over the course of the FBI’s 2018 supplemental Kavanaugh investigation, the White House ultimately asked the agency to interview an additional half-dozen or so other witnesses, with limits on the subject matter of the interviews, according to the senator’s report. But Trump repeatedly continued to claim publicly that the FBI could interview whomever the agency saw fit, and White House officials also suggested to news outlets that the FBI was not limited in who it could interview. The FBI forwarded those articles with another request for clarity on whether the scope had expanded, the Senate report said, and received no response until the White House approved the interview of one more witness.
Kavanaugh was eventually confirmed.
The FBI declined to comment specifically on the report, but said in a statement that when the agency is asked by government entities to perform background investigations, “the FBI follows a long-standing, established process through which the scope of the investigation is limited to what is requested.”
“We have consistently followed that process for decades and did so for the Kavanaugh inquiry. The FBI does not have the independent authority to expand the scope of a supplemental background investigation outside the requesting agency’s parameters,” the statement said.
The Supreme Court did not respond to CNN’s inquiry about the senator’s findings.
With the report, Whitehouse is calling for the agency to put in place standard procedures for how such supplemental investigations should be handled.
“The FBI must create real protocols so Senators and the American people get real answers – not manufactured misdirection – the next time serious questions about a nominee emerge late in the confirmation process,” Whitehouse said.
CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz and John Fritze contributed to this report.
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