Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono on Kavanaugh

[Pete F.]

President Donald Trump has said the FBI doesn't want to investigate Christine Blasey Ford's assertion that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her, and that it's "not what they do."

In fact, the FBI could certainly investigate Ford's claim, but only if the White House asks the bureau to do so. She has no authority to request it. Neither does the Senate.

When the FBI conducts a background investigation of a presidential nominee, it vacuums up all kinds of information about the nominee, including claims from people interviewed by agents, and dumps it into the file. It does not, however, investigate whether or not derogatory information is true — unless it's asked to follow up by the White House. Several current and former Justice Department and FBI officials say this has always been the practice, and there is actually a longstanding formal memorandum of understanding between DOJ and the White House that specifies these limits.

The Senate cannot ask the FBI to investigate Ford's allegations that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a high school party more than 30 years ago, because Kavanaugh is the president's nominee, not the Senate's.

Here's another way to think about it. In doing background investigations, the FBI is acting as an agent of the White House. That's a separate role from its responsibility to investigate crimes. The Senate can always ask the FBI to investigate a potential crime that it becomes aware of, but it can't direct the FBI to investigate the background of a presidential nominee.

And in this case, even assuming Ford's allegation to be true, there's no suggestion of a federal crime, quite apart from the statute of limitations issue. So the FBI has no independent authority to open a criminal investigation. Its only role here would be to re-open the Kavanaugh background investigation.

[scottw]

democrats like to kick you in the nuts and then demand civility

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by scottw

democrats like to kick you in the nuts and then demand civility

Said the pot calling the kettle black
In these times, however, it’s a joke to focus on incivility by Democrats even as the Republican president routinely says things that are as bad as or worse than the attacks of the most irresponsible Democratic no-name precinct chair. Nor is President Donald Trump as much of an outlier as one might imagine. After all, his crusade to declare President Barack Obama a non-citizen was taken up by many Republican politicians; his repeated ethnic slur against Senator Elizabeth Warren, repeated this past weekend, was adapted from one used against her by Massachusetts Republicans.

This strain of Republican rhetoric goes back to Newt Gingrich in the 1980s and 1990s. The lawmaker from Georgia who became House speaker was not just prone to excessive rhetoric himself, but trained Republican politicians to use extreme wording.

Then there’s Republican-aligned media, a constant source of institutionalized incivility that encourages a politics of grievance by searching out any examples of Democratic rhetorical excess.


Basically, anyone who thinks the parties are even remotely equivalent on this score is treating Trump as if he doesn’t count. And anyone who thinks the parties are roughly equivalent if you remove Trump from the equation should take Kevin Drum’s advice and spend more time critically monitoring Republican-aligned media. And, as Norm Ornstein reminds us, critical monitoring is not the same as reacting to the problem of incivility with a “knee-jerk response” of trying to find equal fault on both sides. and using conservative outlets only as a source for finding examples of poor Democratic behavior.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Said the pot calling the kettle black
In these times, however, it’s a joke to focus on incivility by Democrats even as the Republican president routinely says things that are as bad as or worse than the attacks of the most irresponsible Democratic no-name precinct chair. Nor is President Donald Trump as much of an outlier as one might imagine. After all, his crusade to declare President Barack Obama a non-citizen was taken up by many Republican politicians; his repeated ethnic slur against Senator Elizabeth Warren, repeated this past weekend, was adapted from one used against her by Massachusetts Republicans.

This strain of Republican rhetoric goes back to Newt Gingrich in the 1980s and 1990s. The lawmaker from Georgia who became House speaker was not just prone to excessive rhetoric himself, but trained Republican politicians to use extreme wording.

Then there’s Republican-aligned media, a constant source of institutionalized incivility that encourages a politics of grievance by searching out any examples of Democratic rhetorical excess.


Basically, anyone who thinks the parties are even remotely equivalent on this score is treating Trump as if he doesn’t count. And anyone who thinks the parties are roughly equivalent if you remove Trump from the equation should take Kevin Drum’s advice and spend more time critically monitoring Republican-aligned media. And, as Norm Ornstein reminds us, critical monitoring is not the same as reacting to the problem of incivility with a “knee-jerk response” of trying to find equal fault on both sides. and using conservative outlets only as a source for finding examples of poor Democratic behavior.

yawn