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There Was Another Sexual Misconduct Accusation About Brett Kavanaugh – The FBI Refused to Investigate

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NYT Reveals FBI Also Refused to Interview 25 Potential Witnesses in Previously Reported Allegation of Sexual Assault

The New York Times published a bombshell story Saturday night, reporting that a man had contacted the FBI during the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Brett Kavanaugh. He alleged, according to the Times, that Kavanaugh was at a drunken dorm party with his pants pulled down, and “friends pushed [Kavanaugh’s] penis into the hand of a female student.

The witness “notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate.”

The Times also took a deep dive into the public allegations made by Deborah Ramirez during the Kavanaugh hearings.

“She and some classmates had been drinking heavily when, she says, a freshman named Brett Kavanaugh pulled down his pants and thrust his penis at her, prompting her to swat it away and inadvertently touch it,” which had been previously reported.

“During his Senate testimony, Mr. Kavanaugh said that if the incident Ms. Ramirez described had occurred, it would have been ‘the talk of campus.’ Our reporting suggests that it was,” the Times reveals.

“At least seven people, including Ms. Ramirez’s mother, heard about the Yale incident long before Mr. Kavanaugh was a federal judge. Two of those people were classmates who learned of it just days after the party occurred, suggesting that it was discussed among students at the time.”

The Times reports the FBI did not investigate, despite the Kavanaugh hearings having been put on hold, supposedly to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct, including alleged sexual violence.

“Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the F.B.I. a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau — in its supplemental background investigation — interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the F.B.I. on their own,” the Times continues.

Two F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Ramirez, telling her that they found her “credible.” But the Republican-controlled Senate had imposed strict limits on the investigation. “‘We have to wait to get authorization to do anything else,’” Bill Pittard, one of Ms. Ramirez’s lawyers, recalled the agents saying. “It was almost a little apologetic.”

The Times chose to hide this reporting in its opinion pages as “news analysis.”

This bombshell reporting comes on the heels of another bombshell: Attorney General Bill Barr is giving a prestigious Dept. of Justice award, generally reserved for agents whose investigations uncover, say, attempted terrorism. This year the recipients will be those FBI agents who, as the Times reported separately, worked “to support the nomination” of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh was confirmed by a 50-48 vote in the Senate.

This is a breaking news and developing story. Details may change. This story will be updated, and NCRM will likely publish follow-up stories on this news. Stay tuned and refresh for updates.

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‘We’d Bomb Mexico’: Republican Breaks Ranks and Blasts Trump Over ‘WMDs’

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U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) delivered sharp criticism of President Donald Trump’s policy of using military force to destroy vessels the U.S. Department of Defense believes are smuggling illicit drugs, including fentanyl, to the United States.

Critics have called the strikes illegal, murder, and war crimes. Earlier this week, President Trump signed an executive order designating illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.

“The framers understood a simple truth,” Congressman Massie said on the House floor on Wednesday. “To the extent that war-making power devolves to one person, liberty dissolves. If the president believes military action against Venezuela is justified and needed, he should make the case, and Congress should vote — before American lives and treasure are spent on regime change in South America.”

The U.S. Constitution vests the power to declare war in Congress.

READ MORE: ‘Negative, Negative, Negative’: Trump Faces Bleak Midterm Prospects Says Analyst

“Let’s be honest about likely outcomes,” Massie continued, “Do we truly believe that Nicolás Maduro will be replaced by a modern-day George Washington? How did that work out? In Cuba, Libya, Iraq, or Syria?”

“Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs,” he said, referring to weapons of mass destruction, the alleged reason President George W. Bush took America to war against Iraq. “Weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.”

“Now, it’s the same playbook, except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs,” Massie explained.

“If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico, or China, or Colombia. And the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández,” he said, the former president of Honduras serving time in a U.S. prison after having been convicted of drug trafficking.

Massie also issued a warning: “This is about oil and regime change.”

READ MORE: FCC Scrubs Website After Chair’s ‘Independent Agency’ Assertion Ignites Heated Clash

 

Image via Reuters

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‘Negative, Negative, Negative’: Trump Faces Bleak Midterm Prospects Says Analyst

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Can President Donald Trump break a pattern held by several of his predecessors — rebounding into a positive net approval rating by next year’s midterm elections?

It will be challenging but not impossible, says CNN forecaster Harry Enten, who noted that if he doesn’t, it could spell trouble for congressional Republicans on the November ballot.

“I would say the report card is negative,” Enten said on Wednesday. “It’s minus. It’s no good.”

READ MORE: FCC Scrubs Website After Chair’s ‘Independent Agency’ Assertion Ignites Heated Clash

Enten then shared a critical statistic.

“Every single day since March 12th, Trump has been in the red. Negative. That is days in row, 281. He has spent more time underwater than Jacques Cousteau, for goodness’ sake.”

“The bottom line is this, the American people don’t like what Trump’s doing, and they haven’t liked what Trump’s doing for a long period of time: 281 days,” he explained, noting that his net negatives are on “all the key issues.”

“He’s underwater across the board.”

“Immigration, a key issue for him: underwater by six points. Foreign policy, which has been one of his better issues, underwater by 14 points. Trade and tariffs, of course, this has been a key component of Trump’s presidency: underwater by 15 points.”

READ MORE: Trump Bets ‘Dangling’ Cash Will Shift Voters’ Views: Report

“The economy, the reason Trump got elected to a second term, underwater by 16 points, and the Epstein case — which I think will be talking a lot about going into the latter part of this week — underwater by 29 points. Negative, negative, negative, negative, negative,” he exclaimed.

Enten noted that there are still ten and a half months until the midterms.

“But if history is any guide, it’s not a good one for you, because take a look at your term two, negative net approval ratings at this point, when positive by the midterm, well, we have three examples: Richard Nixon, he was forced out of office, of course. He never went positive. George W. Bush, he never saw positive territory again. Barack Obama earlier this century, he did not go positive by the midterm.”

And now, “It’s just negative across the board for the president of the United States. He is, again, gonna have to break history. He has done it before, but he’s really gonna have to do it if he really wants to give his Republican Party much of a chance come the 2026 midterms, because if the numbers look like this and look like this, well, this will become another X.”

READ MORE: GOP Crack-Up Continues as Another House Republican Calls It Quits

 

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FCC Scrubs Website After Chair’s ‘Independent Agency’ Assertion Ignites Heated Clash

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), established by Congress in 1934 as an independent agency to regulate a wide swath of communications, is not an independent agency, according to its Trump-appointed chairman, during a raucous debate on Capitol Hill.

The FCC has jurisdiction over radio, broadcast television, satellite, and cable communications, and oversees licensing of broadcasters, with some authority to revoke licenses for regulatory or technical violations.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly called for the licenses of outlets he has criticized to be revoked.

In a heated debate, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) challenged FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Project 2025 author, over the agency’s independence.

“Yes or no, please, yes or no?” Senator Luján asked Carr during a Commerce Committee oversight hearing on Wednesday. “Is the FCC an independent agency?”

READ MORE: Trump Bets ‘Dangling’ Cash Will Shift Voters’ Views: Report

When Carr immediately declared, “I think that…” Luján pulled him back.

“Yes or no, is all we need, sir. Yes or no, is it independent?” the New Mexico Democrat asked again.

“Well, there’s a test for this in the law, in the key portion of that test,” Carr replied.

“Yes or no, Brendan,” Luján again asked.

“So just so you know, Brendan,” the senator continued, “on your website, it just simply says, man, the FCC’s independent. This isn’t a trick question.”

“Okay, the FCC is not…” Carr began.

“Yes or no?”

After more back and forth, Carr ultimately declared, “the FCC is not an independent agency.”

The Bulwark reported that in 2021 Carr declared that the FCC is an independent agency.

The Bulwark’s Sam Stein reported early Wednesday afternoon, “FCC folks have been frantically scrubbing their website to remove reference to it being an ‘independent’ agency now that Carr this morning said it’s not.”

An archived version of the FCC’s website reads: “An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.”

READ MORE: GOP Crack-Up Continues as Another House Republican Calls It Quits

That page now calls it a “U.S. government agency overseen by Congress.”

Axios’ media correspondent Sara Fischer on social media declared, “This is INSANE. I took this screenshot of the @FCC website at 11:52 a.m. ET where it explicitly states the FCC is an independent agency. 25 minutes later, it has been removed following Carr’s comments during this hearing!”

“This, combined with SCOTUS appearing poised to uphold POTUS firing of FTC commissioners,” Fischer added, “shows how effective Trump has been in diminishing the independence of federal agencies that are supposed to regulate the media/ad/tech industries.”

READ MORE: White House Teases Out What Trump Will Say in Rare Oval Office Address

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