Published On: September 16th, 2019Categories: Uncategorized

By Jackie Calmes, Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — As Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh prepares for his second year on the Supreme Court, new reporting has detailed how the limits ordered by the White House and Senate Republicans last year constrained the FBI investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct when he was a college freshman.

The FBI was informed of allegations that Kavanaugh, while drunk during his freshman year at Yale, exposed himself to two heavily intoxicated female classmates on separate occasions. The bureau did not interview more than a dozen people who said they could provide information about the incidents.

One of the accounts, reported by Boulder woman Deborah Ramirez, was made public at the time of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings.

Deborah Ramirez

The other, not publicly known until this weekend, was reported by a male classmate who said he witnessed the incident. He unsuccessfully sought to get the FBI to investigate with help from a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee who asked FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to look into the allegation.

The new details are based on interviews conducted by this reporter and two reporters for The New York Times for books about the confirmation. The New York Times reported some details late Saturday from its reporters’ new book.

Wray has declined requests by this reporter to be interviewed about the bureau’s performance. Kavanaugh also declined to be interviewed.

The best-known allegation against Kavanaugh was the accusation by Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor from California, that he assaulted her when they were high school students. Kavanaugh heatedly denied her allegation when he and Ford testified before the Judiciary Committee in a televised hearing.

The committee’s Republican majority declined to give a public hearing to Ramirez, and it is unclear how many senators knew of the allegation of a second, similar incident at Yale. The committee’s chairman, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, and its senior Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, were both informed of the existence of the allegation.

Ramirez alleged that Kavanaugh exposed his penis and caused her to touch it while they were inebriated during a drinking game in a dormitory suite in late 1983 or early 1984. Kavanaugh denied her allegation.

The other allegation, previously unreported, came from Washington lawyer Max Stier, who told Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., that he witnessed Kavanaugh exposing himself to a different female classmate during their freshman year.

Both Kavanaugh and the woman were heavily intoxicated at the time, according to Stier’s account, as described by people familiar with the contacts between him and Coons and others who have spoken with Stier since Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The woman in that case, a friend of Ramirez, has denied that she was assaulted, telling friends she has no memory of such an incident. According to Stier’s account, the woman was so inebriated at the time that she could easily have no memory of it.

Coons sent Wray a letter on Oct. 2 — four days before the Senate voted on Kavanaugh — specifically naming Stier as someone he wanted the FBI director to follow up with.

The FBI never contacted Stier. The bureau also did not interview other classmates who said they had heard at the time of either the incident Stier reported or the one involving Ramirez.

Stier has declined to comment publicly on the allegation. He wanted his account to remain confidential, both for the sake of the woman, a widow with three children, and for his own professional considerations.


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