Despite the FBI investigation chaos, Donald Trump’s hand with Brett Kavanaugh has gotten even weaker
As always tends to be the case when Donald Trump is involved, the FBI investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh has quickly dissolved into total chaos. The White House got caught placing secret restrictions on the probe. Trump then officially removed those restrictions with a tweet. Now the FBI supposedly can’t follow Trump’s order because Trump doesn’t have the authority to override Don McGahn’s orders, or something along those lines. Despite this chaos, the Kavanaugh nomination is in more trouble than ever.
The restrictions placed on the FBI investigation – if those restrictions even exist, or ever existed – are reportedly focused on two things. The first is aimed at preventing the FBI from getting to the bottom of Julie Swetnick’s allegation that Brett Kavanaugh attended and/or participated in a series of gang rape parties. The second is aimed at preventing the FBI from proving that Kavanaugh was lying to the Senate about his history of drinking.
Let’s stop and think about why these two things are (supposedly) off limits. If the Swetnick allegations are true and provable, Kavanaugh could be looking at serious prison time. Her attorney Michael Avenatti says there are eyewitnesses who can back Swetnick up. And if it can be proven that Kavanaugh was an out-of-control heavy drinker during his youth, it’ll mean he committed several counts of felony perjury during his testimony this past week.
In other words, these restrictions all about trying to protect Brett Kavanaugh from going to prison. That makes sense, considering these restrictions repeatedly came from Don McGahn, whose job is to protect the Trump administration from a legal standpoint. But if Kavanaugh has done the things that people like Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez have alleged, then nothing in these (supposed) restrictions is going to prevent the FBI from coming back with a scathing report which exposes Kavanaugh as an abhorrent monster.
As Palmer Report pointed out quite awhile back, by remaining the nominee even as the felony accusations against him are investigated, Brett Kavanaugh’s real risk is going to prison. He’s accused of multiple sexual assaults which may or may not be legally provable, and he’s committed several provable counts of felony perjury as well. According to a Washington Post report, the FBI does have the right to criminally pursue Kavanaugh if it can prove he committed perjury while testifying to the Senate.
It appears the Trump White House is trying to, if nothing else, prevent Brett Kavanaugh from being indicted and arrested as a result of this FBI investigation. That alone shows how weak Donald Trump’s hand is with the Kavanaugh nomination. The more you have to worry about keeping your nominee out of prison, the less you can put into trying to get him confirmed. For all the chaos tonight about the scope of the investigation, none of it even appears aimed at keeping his nomination intact; the bar is set far lower than that.
