Thursday, October 4, 2018

Done and Done: FBI Turns Over Completed Kavanaugh Report To White House

Hours after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell filed a cloture vote on the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh late Wednesday, a vote that would set Democrats up for an important procedural vote on Friday and a confirmation vote Saturday, the FBI has handed in to the White House its report on SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Reuters reported.


A copy of the report has also been turned over to Capitol Hill. Senators will then have the opportunity to review a single copy of the report, which will be located in a secure room, before the vote, per Bloomberg.

"All senators will be able to review the report over the next couple of days," McConnell’s office said in a statement.

The report will only include summaries of the interviews conducted by the FBI. It won't include any conclusions as to who is or isn't telling the truth. Notably, the probe excluded several of Kavanaugh's accusers, including Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, and Julie Swetnick, per NBC News.

What will be delivered, according to aides and senators, are the "302" forms of the FBI interviews, which summarize the contents of the interviews. The FBI, which has spent only a few days on the investigation, will not be submitting a conclusion as to who's telling the truth in the case.

According to NBC News, the Senate has established a "pecking order" that will eventually allow all 100 Senators to view the report, but not their staff.

All 100 Senators will have access to the new information, but not their staffs. There also are 10 Judiciary Committee staffers who have access to the secret Kavanaugh file, which is a paper report - there are no PDF's or emails of it. And it will not be made public.

With Republicans clinging to a razor-thin 51-49 majority and five senators — including three Republicans — still waffling on their final votes, the conservative jurist’s prospects of Senate confirmation remain in doubt and could potentially depend on the files' contents.

White House Spokesman Raj Shah pushed for a speedy vote even though senators have yet to review the report.

"Senators have been given ample time to review this seventh background investigation," Shah said in a statement posted to Twitter. "This is the last addition to the most comprehensive review of a Supreme Court nominee in history, which includes extensive hearings, multiple committee interviews, over 1,200 questions for the record and over a half million pages of documents. With this additional information, the White House is fully confident the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court."

- Source, Zerohedge, read more here