ducky23 said:
wifeisafurd said:
ducky23 said:
wifeisafurd said:
Proviso: my wife is far more conservative than me, and works in a rather rough and tumble male dominated profession where she holds her own.
I was surprised by her view, but it just reminded me that women don't all think the same. It was basically teens do stupid things in high school, especially after drinking, and they likely have very different perspectives of what happened, both probably wrong. I tried the what if Ford was our daughter question and got the our daughter won't be at that kind of party, drinking and caught in that situation. So I stuck my tail between my leg and came back here.
BTW, I think complaining about an only 2 witness hearing is perfectly valid. Thinking your entitled to have an FBI investigation of your allegation as part of nomination process is not. My wife on the other hand thinks the whole thing is stupid and a waste of time. Then again, she thinks the time spent on BI is a waste of time (suspect a lot of wives would agree with the BI part).
Can you explain why it would be bad to do an fbi investigation first? Because of the delay? Why would delaying be such a big deal? A delay is only a problem for the GOP if Kavanaugh has to withdraw down the road. But if the GOP is that confident Kavanaugh is telling the truth, that should be a non issue.
And why should ford agree to testify under worse circumstances than Anita hill (and Anita hill was still railroaded). Ford has received death threats, has had to move her family, her life is in complete turmoil and she's supposed to testify on Monday? Ask yourself if you would be so anxious to testify in front of the world in this type of situation.
Do you honestly believe that if ford does testify, that the hearing will actually be about finding facts? Cmon, I know you're not that naive. So why wouldn't you want the fbi to actually find facts (or at least attempt to do so)?
And If I'm Kavanaugh, and I know I'm innocent, I would publically call for an fbi investigation so I can have at least some of this cloud lifted before taking the bench
What if there is no investigation and Ford doesn't testify and Kavanaugh overturns roe? I promise you, that's going to be a problem.
Okay, an actual reasonable post to respond to.
It wouldn't happen because Trump already rejected the request.
The reasons why I say no are:
1) It won't matter. Thomas got cleared and it didn't seem to matter (the FBI also didn't do a very good job). With a purported crime so long ago, there really isn't much the FBI can do. They can ask Ford a lot of questions she doesn't know the answer to (like where was the house?), Kav's brohs won't likely cooperate, Kav will just provide a general denial, and without someone filling in facts, there is not a lot to go on. Physical evidence presumably will not exist or without cooperation, they may FBI may not even have access to (e.g., if they ever determine where the party house is located, since this is not a criminal investigation, they have no authority to gain access), and the FBI will likely refuse to interview the thousand of character witnesses both sides are gathering. The Democrats will then scream about the scope of the investigation and want another investigation, and the FBI will say they don't have sufficient information to make any determination
2) It will take time. The Hill investigation took 3 days and was rather superficial. They interviewed certain Federal employees and the two principals, mistakenly ignoring those outside the agency who had been the recipients of similar conduct of Thomas. Unlike the Thomas matter, this is about physical crime and those types of investigations take time. Here the FBI will have to try to spend a lot of time trying to hunt down (perhaps in vain) the missing facts Ford doesn't know. And since they are not investigating a prosecutable crime, its not like the can compel people to help in a timely manner. In fact, every Republican just thinks the request is a delaying tactic.
3) It's not what the FBI does, and is not within their jurisdiction. When the FBI conducts a background investigation of a presidential nominee, it gathers 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 under guidelines provided by the President, that this doesn't fit. There is actually a longstanding formal memorandum of understanding between DOJ and the White House that specifies these limits. Ford has no authority to request it. Neither does the Senate.
And the in this case unlike Thomas, there's no suggestion of a federal crime, quite apart from the federal statute of limitations issue, which would mean if there was a crime, there would be no prosecution. The FBI doesn't have the jurisdiction to investigate state crimes or matters, or which are barred from prosecution. If Ford could determine where the event occurred she arguably could request locals to do the work and the FBI could consult (but probably won't - see below). But the FBI has no independent authority to open a criminal investigation. This is not to say, the FBI doesn't have expertise with sex crimes (it does), and it just has no jurisdiction over this matter. Interestingly, if the party house was in Maryland, there is no statute of limitations and Ford could ask Maryland local authorities to investigate.
4) The FBI views this as not a criminal matter, but a political one. Among FBI off the record comments to the media are:
It's totally inappropriate for someone to demand we use law enforcement resources to investigate a 35-year-old allegation when she won't go under oath and can't remember key details including when or where it happened;
We are not a toy to be used to judge the credibility or significance of any allegation.
We don't want to be a Ping-Pong ball slapped back and forth by Senators for political expediency. They have their process, use it.
FBI background checks aren't meant to dig up decades-old claims that never resulted in a police report or criminal charges. That's not really what we do The FBI is looking for any kind of current problem. What do I mean by current 7 to 10 years.
5) Why not a hearing? I think Mark Judge and Patrick Smyth should testify, but I also think that maybe the reason the Committee wants to hear in person from Ford is because she's the one leveling a career-destroying charge of rape against a sitting judge, not because she's a woman and they hate women. No one's claiming that Kav should be allowed to skip the hearing and phone in his denial, are they? I just also think that Ford should be able to have the witnesses she identifies testify. Then again, if Ford is telling the truth, why is she now so anxious about the coming attacks of a group of 11 conservative men (white men, heaven forbid) questioning her over a serious rape allegation, when she had agreed to testify earlier? If you make the allegation and have your attorney spouting it out publicly, own it.
You just went to great detail explaining why the FBI cannot initiate an investigation on its own. Which is a lovely strawman you continue to set up, but its quite irrelevant to the discussion here since no one is implying the FBI should initiate an investigation on its own.
"Its not what the FBI does" - sure. but the president could order them to do so anyways
"the FBI does not view it as a criminal matter" - sure. but the president could order them to do a background check and NOT a criminal investigation.
Ok, so can we all agree to the simple fact that the President has the power to order the FBI to do an investigation? (just like when both sides of the aisle agreed and the president went on to order a FBI investigation in the Anita Hill allegations). We can all agree to this fact, yes?
Great! then my question still stands. If the actual purpose of all of this is to find FACTS, then why would it be bad for the President to order an FBI investigation before the hearing?
Your own answer to that seems to be delay. OK, but why is delay an inherently bad thing?
I'll ask in another way (and humor me for a second while I ask in my best Daniel Kaffee voice from a Few Good Men). If (in your own words) an FBI investigation won't matter. IF they are bound to find nothing and clear Kavanaugh anyways, then why is a delay such a bad thing?
Lets say the FBI investigation takes two weeks (Anita Hill took 3 days) and lets say you're right that it was too long ago, its too hard to find evidence, no one will talk, etc and the FBI finds nothing. Why is losing those two weeks bad? There will be a completed investigation, the Senate can then vote Kavanaugh onto the bench two weeks later, and all is good.
In fact, I would argue that if the GOP is so confident that nothing will come of the FBI investigation, it is CLEARLY in their political interest to push for an FBI investigation. Not only will it lift any cloud hanging over Kavanaugh, but more importantly, come midterms, they can tell their voters 'look we did everything we could, we ordered an FBI investigation, we compiled all the facts, we were sensitive to Dr Ford's wishes, but the FBI investigation did not find any wrongdoing by Justice Kavanaugh" That's clearly a better position than looking like you are actively trying to hide the truth.
If the GOP rams the Kavanaugh confirmation thru without hearing from Dr Ford and without asking for an FBI investigation, they will clearly take some sort of hit during the midterms, we can all agree to this, yes?
So again I ask, why not just ask for the FBI investigation if its going to find nothing anyways? surely a two week delay is worth it to avoid the hit they will take in November right?
Why is the GOP in such a rush? Why does the GOP want the hearing to come down to a "he said, she said?" Why not subpeona witnesses? Why not get testimony from experts? Why not try to get as many facts as possible? WHY?
Do me a favor and don't badly restate my answer to fit your arguments.
The FBI investigation likely won't be able to come-up with anything definitive, will nor be timely, and will not be accepted. Your assumption about what the GOP thinks is your own speculation and wrong. Every comment I heard from the GOP Committee Senators is that the FBI investigation is a waste of time designed to put the nomination in limbo, and purely political. You don't even have a crime scene. Yet you now have determined that it will be a two -week investigation based on what? The speed of the Clinton or Russian investigations where the FBI actually had police powers to force documents to be turned over and witnesses to testify (unlike here)? How do you know how long a thorough investigation like this will take? The accuser has so few basic facts about what happened and it could take an entirety to track down the holes in her accusation. For all we know, the Dems would be happy to have the FBI look at every house with a narrow stairway in Maryland and Virginia, while Judge Garland stands by once again waiting.
The other point is even at some point is even if the investigation reaches a conclusion favorable to Kav (and the FBI guys leaking to the media seem to think it won't reach any conclusion based on the paucity of facts and the time that has transpired), the Thomas situation proves it doesn't matter. What good did the FBI report do for him?
The problem Ford has is she doesn't know many of the basic facts of her allegation (such as time and location) and she has huge gaps in her accusation. She has had 35 years to file a criminal complaint to obtain a police investigation or even hire a private investigator. Instead, she wants to use a nomination process for an investigation, where the process for investigation is a hearing. These were conscious decisions, probably made by her lawyer, that she now will have to live with. You can argue the hearing should be expanded in the interest of fairness and not get an argument from me. The GOP wants to insist only Kav and Ford testify, they do so at their peril.
What is the problem with the wait beside the politics of frustrating a nomination? Let's say Kav didn't do it. In the interim there is constant barrage of character assassination occurring. Just look at the crap on this site. My sense is this has very little to do with Ford, and everything to do with payback for Judge Garland, who admittedly got screwed.
Edit: apparently that FBI investigation is no longer that important to Ford. She is willing to testify as long as the hearing is fair. Must have read my post.
