Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) released a bombshell report this week after a years-long investigation, accusing the Trump White House of blocking an FBI probe into sexual assault allegations made against Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his 2018 Supreme Court nomination process.
The latest scandal adds to a growing list of controversies amid polls showing that public faith in the nation’s highest court continues to plummet as calls for Supreme Court reforms are intensifying.
President Joe Biden's recent proposals for 18-year term limits for justices and a binding code of ethics set off a firestorm within the GOP, prompting the Rhode Island Senator to dig deeper into the events surrounding Kavanaugh's confirmation despite credible allegations of sexual assault against him from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.
“Every official in this country– local, county, state, other federal– everybody is subject to basic fact-finding if there’s an allegation made about their misconduct,” says Sen. Whitehouse. “There are only nine people in government, anywhere, who have literally no responsibility to either tell the truth about what they did, or have neutral fact-finding about what they did– and that is the nine justices of the Supreme Court.”
“In 2018, I pledged to Christine Blasey Ford that I’d keep digging, for however long it took, and not give up or move on from Senate Republicans and the Trump White House’s shameful confirmation process for Justice Kavanaugh,” Whitehouse said.
“This report shows that the supplemental background investigation was a sham, controlled by the Trump White House, to give political cover to Senate Republicans and put Justice Kavanaugh back on the political track to confirmation.”