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Grassley releases some details of FBI investigation into Kavanaugh; 10 were interviewed

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(RNN) – Sen. Chuck Grassley has released details of the FBI investigation into sexual assault accusations against Brett Kavanaugh.

The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee sent an executive summary of the investigation to media outlets and reporters late Thursday night.

It revealed that the FBI this week reached out to 11 people, 10 of whom were interviewed.

Six of those people were related to Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a suburban Maryland house when the two were teenagers in the 1980s.

The other four were related to Deborah Ramirez’s accusation that Kavanaugh exposed himself and pushed his genitals into her face at a party while the two were students at Yale University.

The FBI notably did not speak either to Ford or Kavanaugh, reportedly because they did not have White House approval to do so.

The agency did speak to Ramirez, according to Grassley’s executive summary, as well as a friend of hers and two eyewitnesses she named. A third eyewitness she named is the one person who did not agree to be interviewed.

However, Ramirez’s lawyer, William Pittard, wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray earlier Thursday that decried the FBI’s investigatory process regarding her allegation. He wrote she provided more than 20 names of people “likely to have relevant information” and that she “suspected that a number of those individuals could corroborate her account.”

“We can only conclude that the FBI – or those controlling its investigation – did not want to learn the truth behind Ms. Ramirez’s allegations,” Pittard wrote.

Grassley’s summary notes that the FBI interviewed the three people Ford has named as being at the gathering where she has said Kavanaugh assaulted her: Kavanaugh’s friends Mark Judge and PJ Smyth, and Ford’s friend Leland Keyser.

Two others named in Kavanaugh’s July 1, 1982 calendar entry were interviewed: Timothy Gaudette and Christopher Garrett. An attorney for one of the witnesses is the sixth person interviewed regarding Ford’s allegation.

Ford’s lawyers also sent a letter to Wray, calling the investigation a “stain on the process, on the FBI and on our American ideal of justice,” Their letter identified eight more people “whose interviews would have challenged the credibility of Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony."

Grassley’s summary concluded that the investigation “reached out to all witnesses with potential firsthand knowledge of the allegations” and showed “there is no corroboration of the allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez.”

Grassley also issued a release on Thursday that said it was now time to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination.

“I trust that the career agents of the FBI have done their work independent of political or partisan considerations. That’s exactly what senators from both sides asked for,” Grassley said. “Now it’s up to senators to fulfill their constitutional duty and make a judgment.”

Grassley said he would be voting for Kavanaugh.

A procedural vote is scheduled for Friday morning, and a full confirmation vote could be held as soon as this weekend.

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