Move it to Maryland state prosecutors

If the allegations contained in Ford’s letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) are true — that 17-year-old Kavanaugh, with the aid of a confederate, pushed a young girl into a bedroom, locked the door and played loud music to drown out her protests; physically pinned her down and groped her; and when she tried to scream covered her mouth, making it hard for her to breathe — Kavanaugh could have been charged as an adult back then with a range of offenses from assault to attempted rape.

While the FBI conducts background checks on White House nominees and can, as it has in other confirmations, interview additional witnesses to inform Senate deliberations, it is typically local law enforcement officials and prosecutors who investigate sexual assault crimes and decide what, if any, charges are appropriate.

Some of the possible alleged offenses in this case, such as false imprisonment, are misdemeanors whose statutes of limitations ran out long ago. But other potential charges are not necessarily barred, even today, because Maryland has not imposed time limits on certain felony crimes.

For example, attempting a sexual assault with the aid of another person counts as attempted first-degree rape, just as restricting a victim’s breathing to stop her from shouting for help could fairly qualify as first-degree assault. Both are felonies with no statute of limitations in Maryland. Likewise, under Maryland law, using force to move a victim a short distance, even from one room to another, can amount to kidnapping, a crime that similarly has no limitations period.

[...]

What may or may not have taken place at a Bethesda home in the early 1980s would no doubt be hard to prove at trial and might not, in the judgment of local prosecutors, justify criminal charges all these years later.

But sexual assault prosecutions are always difficult to try, and decisions about whether to bring charges are properly made after, not before, an investigation is complete. Plus, here, Ford has already named a potential witness to the alleged attack, voluntarily subjected herself to a lie detector test and, in 2012, told others who could corroborate her account of what happened.

Just as Ford deserves to have her allegations taken seriously, Kavanaugh is entitled to the presumption of innocence. But it is the responsibility of local authorities to investigate a credible criminal allegation to determine what happened.

[...]

This will be the first time in American history that a president at risk of impeachment and under criminal investigation will name a justice to the Supreme Court. Neither Bill Clinton nor Richard Nixon nor Andrew Johnson did that.

This is no time to push through a nominee without addressing the cloud of criminal uncertainty overhead.

  WaPo

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