I’m glad this is getting some attention. Let me quickly walk you through it.
As I noted here, Senate Republicans are pursuing a fairly clear strategy now: bluff Professor Blasey Ford into not appearing on Monday, thus allowing them to move on to a vote and rapid confirmation. But last night Mike Davis, chief counsel to Senate Judiciary Committee – in practice, Chuck Grassley’s chief confirmation process lawyer – got a little too aggressive on Twitter and made the strategy a bit too explicit Read More
“We have no power to commandeer an Executive Branch agency into conducting our due diligence,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote in a letter, explaining why he couldn’t fulfill Christine Blasey Ford’s lawyer’s request for an FBI investigation into her claims.
That’s technically true, Tierney Sneed writes, but glosses over the leverage Senate Committees have in asking the White House to order FBI follow up investigations. “Grassley was among the more aggressive users of that privilege,” one source told her. Read her full analysis here (Prime access).
As more confirmation of what I wrote last night in my fourth installment on the Kavanaugh controversy, the strategy is to corner Blasey Ford and bluff her out of showing up at all.
One plugged-in Republican tells me that several top GOP lawmakers have told colleagues that they hope Ford declines to show up for the hearing even as they issue statements urging her to do so. https://t.co/C9vZOZO1xI
— Robert Costa (@costareports) September 19, 2018
See my whole update here (sub req).
Let’s begin with a simple point. Senate Republicans left a Supreme Court seat vacant for more than a year for simple politics. Any argument that there’s a rush to fill Anthony Kennedy’s seat, on this view, is plainly ridiculous. But I confess I’m still taken aback by the mammoth bad faith and dishonesty of Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley’s argument in this new letter defending the majority’s conduct. Read More
As I wrote last night, it’s very clear Senate Republicans feel empowered by their current stance, telling Blasey Ford it’s on her if she doesn’t accept their terms for testimony. The claim that there’s no basis for an FBI review is false. If they want the FBI to review it they will. But they’re emboldened in their ‘take it or leave it’ stance.
Our team of Tierney Sneed and Caitlin MacNeal was in the courtroom through Paul Manafort’s Virginia trial and there right through the the announcement of his unexpected cooperation agreement in court in DC on Friday. Yesterday I talked to Tierney and Caitlin about the Virginia trial, the different players involved and the new cooperation agreement. You can hear the conversation here.
Yet more evidence that Vladimir Putin has continued to ply President Trump with opposition to US intelligence and the so-called “deep state” during their conversations since President Trump entered the White House. Not surprising and yet stunning passage in this excerpt from Greg Miller’s new Trump book … Read More
Through the Russia probe and various counter-probes, we’ve seen many cases where delays of various sorts have been interpreted as trying to cover for one side or the other. Such claims have been taken very seriously and even became central to the DOJ Inspector General’s report that made such a splash a few months ago. Now it turns out, according to ABC, that the the Steele Dossier sat in the FBI’s New York field office for weeks with no action. After arriving in New York in July, it didn’t make it to DC until September. It was supposedly sent to the “wrong person” and “took a long period of time for the New York field office to see it and realize what it was.” Read More
President Trump made a series of statements about the Blasey Ford/Kavanaugh controversy this morning before boarding Marine One. Video after the jump … Read More