The FBI has begun contacting people as part of an additional background investigation of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, including a second woman who alleges that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted her, according to people familiar with the unfolding investigation.
The bureau has reached out to Deborah Ramirez, a Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh’s who alleges that he shoved his genitals in her face at a party where she had been drinking and become disoriented. It was not clear that agents had yet interviewed Ramirez. But the FBI is moving quickly to contact people as part of the new background investigation, which President Trump ordered on Friday under pressure from key members of his party.
The FBI also is following up on allegations by Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychologist, who testified to the Senate this week that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when they were in high school in suburban Washington, D.C.
Ford recounted in detail how Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge allegedly attacked her in a bedroom during a small gathering at a house when the teen boys were both drunk. Ford said the alleged attack had caused her lasting trauma, and she was visibly anguished as she recalled the events Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Following Ford’s testimony, Kavanaugh vigorously denied the allegations before the committee and accused Democrats of launching a last-minute attempt to derail his nomination. He decried the confirmation process as a “circus.”
On Friday, Republicans on the committee voted to proceed to a full Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, but a series of back-room negotiations led to a surprise twist in what has already been a wrenching confirmation process for a Supreme Court nominee, among the most polarizing in recent memory.
Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a key swing vote to confirm Kavanaugh, said he would vote to proceed to a full Senate vote, but that the Senate vote should be preceded by a new, expanded FBI investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh.
Recognizing that Flake and a handful of other senators’ votes appeared contingent upon the investigation, Republican leaders and the White House relented.
Later that day, President Trump ordered the investigation and that it be limited in scope and completed by next Friday.
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SOURCE: The Washington Post, Shane Harris, Matt Zapotosky, Tom Hamburger and Seung Min Kim
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