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WASHINGTON — The FBI has not returned calls from lawyers for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford — and she’s not included in the bureau’s current list of potential witnesses to interview, two sources told NBC News.
The White House believes Ford’s public testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was sufficient and the FBI would be wasting its time speaking to her again about allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said a source familiar with the Trump administration’s thinking.
The FBI declined to comment.
Ford has accused Kavanaugh of attempting to remove her clothes and stifling her screams at a party when they were both in high school in the early 1980s.
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Ford’s attorneys sent a sharply-worded letter to the FBI Tuesday afternoon expressing dismay over the reports that the agency wasn’t planning to interview their client.
The lawyers, Michael Bromwich and Debra Katz, wrote that they’ve heard nothing from the FBI after sending a “series of emails and letters in which we identified witnesses and evidence that would likely assist” the investigation.
“It is inconceivable that the FBI could conduct a thorough investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations without interviewing her, Judge Kavanaugh, or the witnesses we have identified in our letters to you,” the lawyers added in the letter.
Legal and law enforcement experts say there is much to be learned from interviewing a witness in a private setting by professional investigators who have had the opportunity to ask other witnesses about the allegations.
Rachel Mitchell, the prosecutor hired by Senate Republicans to question Ford in front of the committee last week, told Ford that the format for interviewing her in “five-minute increments” was not the best way to interview her.
“Did you know that the best way to do it is to have a trained interviewer talk to you one-on-one in a private setting and to let you do the talking, just let you do a narrative?” Mitchell said to Ford during her testimony.
Critics, including Senate Democrats, have accused the White House of hampering the FBI’s probe of the sexual assault allegation and additional sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh in order to push through his confirmation.
“If the FBI is permitted to do a thorough, serious, and professional investigation — as it is certainly capable of doing — and if agents discover additional facts as a result of that investigation, those facts could help confirm or refute statements made by Dr. Ford or Judge Kavanaugh,” said Chuck Rosenberg, former FBI legal counsel and an NBC News analyst.
“Those facts would also be helpful if either is interviewed by the FBI, because additional information can help refresh memories or demonstrate inconsistencies. The more facts, the better, because more facts move you closer to the truth.”