Just sow confusion and then run out the clock

The exact contours of the FBI’s investigation [into Brett Kavanaugh's past] weren’t clear and could potentially evolve, as Mr. Trump and senior administration officials pushed back against reports that the White House dictated who would be interviewed as part of a reopening of Judge Kavanaugh’s background investigation that lawmakers agreed to last week before the full Senate considers his nomination.

The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday that the parameters of the FBI probe, which are determined by the White House, would include interviews with the first two women who publicly accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault but not a third, Julie Swetnick. She said last week in a sworn affidavit that the nominee attended parties decades ago where she was raped and tried to get women drunk at such gatherings. Ms. Swetnick didn’t say Mr. Kavanaugh raped her. The judge has repeatedly denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.

Late Saturday evening, Mr. Trump said on Twitter he had not limited the FBI investigation to only allow interviews with certain individuals.

“Actually, I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion,” Mr. Trump said. But one person familiar with the FBI’s thinking said it was unlikely that the shape of the investigation would change without official communication from the White House that it wanted the bureau to interview other people beyond the list already provided.

The FBI has declined to comment on the Kavanaugh probe.

  WSJ

So WTF are you publishing claims from "one person familiar with the FBI's thinking?"

White House officials appearing on Sunday morning news shows rebutted reports that Mr. Trump’s team was seeking to limit the investigation but didn’t say that Ms. Swetnick would be interviewed.

“The president very much respects the independence of the FBI, and feels as he said last night that they should be looking at anything they feel is credible within this limited scope,” Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, told CNN Sunday morning.

And that's what we expect them to do.

Asked if White House counsel Don McGahn told the FBI who could and couldn’t be interviewed, Ms. Conway said she didn’t think Mr. McGahn would do that but added that she hadn’t discussed the matter with him. “But we’re not trying to interfere,” she said. “It’s the president saying, ‘Go ahead.’ ”

This confusion and no department seeming to know what another department is doing, and just generally appearing to be ignorant of facts, used to be seen as a mark of incompetence. I'm beginning to think that they found out it works for them, so now it's a feature, not a bug.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who also spoke Sunday, said, “The White House is not micromanaging this process.”

“The Senate is dictating the terms,” she said in an interview on Fox. “They laid out the request, and we’ve opened it up.”White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who also spoke Sunday, said, “The White House is not micromanaging this process.”

“The Senate is dictating the terms,” she said in an interview on Fox. “They laid out the request, and we’ve opened it up.”

Grassley's Asses? THAT Senate?

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a member of the Judiciary Committee and a close ally of the White House, said on ABC Sunday that the FBI would interview Christine Blasey Ford and the witnesses she said were present at an early 1980s teenage house party at which she alleged Mr. Kavanaugh assaulted her, as well as Deborah Ramirez, who alleged Mr. Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drunken party when they were both freshmen at Yale University.

Asked if it would also include an interview with Ms. Swetnick, Mr. Graham indicated it currently did not. Mr. Graham did say that Mark Judge, a high-school classmate of Mr. Kavanaugh’s whom Dr. Ford says was in the room at the time of her alleged attack in the early 1980s, would be interviewed. Ms. Swetnick has said Mr. Judge was “present” when she was victimized in 1982. Mr. Judge’s lawyer has denied those allegations and said he doesn’t recall the events described by Dr. Ford, who testified about them before senators last Thursday.

And that's going to be Mark Judge's story, I'm sure. I don't recall. It worked for Reagan. And Jeff Sessions.

FBI background investigations are different from criminal investigations in that they are done at the request of a “client”—in this case the White House—and investigators are unable to deploy search warrants or grand jury subpoenas. Potential witnesses are allowed to decline requests to be interviewed.

[...]

Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Hawaii Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on ABC that all three accusers should be able to speak with the FBI.

“They all came forward with credible reports,” Ms. Hirono said. “They all said they would be willing to talk to the FBI. The only person that didn’t want an FBI investigation, frankly, was Judge Kavanaugh.”

Oh, we will.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.