Someone is planting fake stories in the media about the FBI Kavanaugh investigation

| 1:57 pm EDT October 3, 2018
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On Sunday night, multiple major media outlets said they were hearing that the FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh would be complete as soon as Monday morning. This rang false at the time, and sure enough, it turned out to be. Then last night, several major media outlets said they were hearing that the probe could be finished within an hour or two. That obviously didn’t happen either. So what’s going on here, and why does it matter?

Someone has obviously been planting these fake stories, and for a reason. The FBI wouldn’t leak this kind of thing even if it were true, and it clearly wasn’t true. Besides, the FBI knows it’ll look bad in the eyes of mainstream Americans if it doesn’t use all of its allotted time to do the best it can under the circumstances.

No one outside the FBI would be in position to know when the probe might end – but there are a few people who stand to benefit from these fake stories. Let’s call them Ronald Grump and Ditch McDonnell. By putting it out there that the FBI probe is hours away from ending, they could be hoping to demotivate the Resistance members who have been using public pressure to push people like Jeff Flake and Susan Collins into calling for a larger investigation. After all, if the media has just told you that you’re about to lose the battle, you may be tempted to stop fighting.

In any case, the media should know better by now. Yet this morning the media reported that the FBI probe could be finished as soon as this afternoon. That could end up being true, but at this point there’s no reason to believe it. What may be more important here is that our friends Grump and McDonnell are afraid enough of this process that they’re resorting to misinformation.