Watching the way D's are approaching the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh, & it feels like they are making some of the same mistakes they made during the Clinton email investigation & as Rosenstein has ceded ground to the WH at various times in the Russia probe.
Comes back to the asymmetric way the two parties treat DOJ/FBI, where the GOP continuously pressures it to do inappropriate things while D's just ask it to follow the normal process. Guess which one the FBI responds to?
Consider who is in charge of the FBI investigation: Chris Wray, who (like Kavanaugh) was in the Federalist Society at Yale and who served with him in the Bush admin - in jobs where they would've worked closely together.
Supervising Wray is Rod Rosenstein, who goes back to Ken Starr with Kavanaugh, and who personally attended his confirmation hearing.
What do we think R's would be doing in this situation? Consider that they have spent years accusing lifelong Republican Jim Comey of orchestrating a coverup for Hillary Clinton and you get some idea.
It's true that the WH calls the shots in this investigation, but there is a lot the FBI can do to make sure it was complete if they wanted to. For example, a memo to the WH (preserved for posterity) that says the current scope of the investigation will not find the truth.
But absent pressure from D's, they're more likely to just execute the orders the WH gives them. So what should D's be doing? Here are some ideas:
Jerry Nadler, who the FBI knows is likely to be Judiciary Chairman come January, could make clear that he will subpoena every document from this investigation, interview FBI officials, and hold public hearings next year.
They could be demanding Wray and Rosenstein recuse themselves, given their longstanding connections to Kavanaugh.
They could demand the FBI 302s be released publicly. That would be unprecedented and not great for the long-term process. But same was true about FBI releasing Clinton 302s in Sep. 2016, which they did in response to GOP pressure.
I very much get the arguments (and have made them often myself) about not politicizing law enforcement. But 1. it's clear the investigation being conducted here is a sham. And everyone involved needs to answer for their role in that sham, & whether they helped perpetrate it.
And 2. D's can't continue to play by rules the R's long ago abandoned. At least not if they ever want to be in power. END.
