Republicans Mislead On FBI Role To Avoid Brett Kavanaugh Investigation | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

thanks to at home for joining us this our very happy to have you with us so Ronald Reagan at the very end of his presidency he lost one everybody had thought he was going to put Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court candidly had been to the White House had reportedly believed himself that he had been picked for the courts but then at the very last minute conservative staffers in the Reagan White House intervened and said no no we have a different guy we would prefer for the seat better choice somebody we like more and so this man who you see here with Reagan Douglas Ginsburg he jumped to the head of the line and he got the nomination and then it all fell apart Reagan didn't get him onto the court and immediately everybody started to trying to fit everybody started trying to figure out who they were going to blame in the Reagan White House for this political disaster President Reagan today suffered his second defeat in trying to fill a seat on the US Supreme Court when the man he nominated only nine days ago Douglas Ginsburg asked that his name be withdrawn it was an embarrassing admission of marijuana use that doomed Ginsburg White House officials knew he could never win confirmation the front-runner to become the new nominee is considered to be Judge Anthony Kennedy of California with more on the Ginsburg withdrawal NBC News White House correspondent Robin Lloyd it all happened quickly for Douglas Ginsburg less than 48 hours from the time he first disclosed that he had smoked marijuana he was at the White House calling it quits I have today asked President Reagan not to forward my nomination to the Supreme Court in a written statement the president accepted Ginsburg's decision with regret and commended him for his selflessness and clear-thinking late this afternoon attorney general ed Meese who had pushed hard for the Ginsburg nomination was dodging any blame but nobody had a candidate I didn't have one Howard Baker didn't have one this is something where we had a list of candidates that was presented to the president together we provided the information to him and he ultimately made the selection nobody in the White House is blaming anyone for the ginsburg fiasco but privately many are grumbling that the Justice Department didn't do its homework in the preliminary FBI investigate Ginsberg was never asked if he had ever used drugs only whether he had ever abused them or had an addiction problem former White House aide David Gorgon in this case the President must look to his Justice Department say why what happened fellows why didn't you do this right senior White House aides say the next nominee is likely to be California federal appeals court judge Anthony Kennedy a moderate conservative Kennedy had been the choice of chief of staff Howard Baker who felt he would be easier to confirm than Ginsburg White House aides say they hope to announce a new nominee by early next week they say there will be a preliminary FBI check done before anyone is nominated and at this time the candidate will be asked if he ever used drugs Robin Lloyd NBC News at the White House so that was the Saturday night newscast on NBC News November 7 1987 the day that Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg had to withdraw from consideration as a Supreme Court nominee now as I mentioned before they picked Ginsburg before they picked Ginsburg for that seat on the court they had previously been thinking about nominating a judge named Anthony Kennedy instead by the next day though after this newscast about Ginsburg withdrawing on November 8th by then we knew that Anthony Kennedy was already back at the White House by the by Sunday that weekend Anthony Kennedy was at the White House being subjected to a three hour long interview by a whole panel of senior officials including the Attorney General and the White House Counsel and the Republican leader in the Senate we know that we know that Kennedy was at the White House being interviewed the day after Ginsburg withdrew because of notes filed by Reagan's White House Counsel AP culvahouse which you can now get from the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library so the timeline here was on Saturday Ginsberg dropped out on Sunday the very next day according to Colville houses know it's quote three-hour interview of judge Kennedy at the White House quote the interview focused solely on personal background and integrity issues all conceivable no-holds-barred questions were asked so that was Sunday all conceivable no-holds-barred questions being asked then on Monday and Tuesday quote in excess of ten hours of FBI interviews of judge Kennedy so they were not gonna let the Douglas Ginsburg mistake happen again apparently the FBI background check on Douglas Ginsburg had asked him if you had ever had a drug problem but it had never asked him if he'd ever done drugs the interview questions for Kennedy we now know left no such wiggle room these are some of the questions personal background subsection one childhood through high school did you ever use alcohol if so how old were you how often at parties alone did you ever use drugs how about glue-sniffing specifically did you ever use your parent's prescription drugs did you attend parties where drugs were used and that type oh there was actually in the letters sorry the notes from culvahouse that's they misspelled parties then later on and their questioning they asked again from when Kennedy is in college all the same questions about alcohol but the drug questions they changed a little bit quote in college did you ever use drugs once again glue-sniffing also marijuana cocaine etc did you attend parties again misspelled where drugs were used then they asked Kennedy about Law School apparently by the time they got to got him to law school they thought glue-sniffing would no longer be an option but for his time in law school they again asked him did you ever use drugs if so marijuana cocaine etc how often did you attend parties where drugs were used when Ronald Reagan's Supreme Court nominee Douglas Ginsburg had flamed out right before Kennedy it was a big embarrassment for the Reagan White House made the cover of Newsweek magazine right it was a big political failure also just a big embarrassment for the White House and the president they decided they would blame the FBI and blame the Justice Department for not having adequately explored all elements of Douglas Ginsburg's background before that nomination was announced and when they replaced Douglas Ginsburg with a new nominee with Anthony Kennedy they made sure there would be no similar and nursing surprises that arose out of Kennedy's background the questions got very very very detailed so ultimately Anthony Kennedy gets confirmed that was Reagan's last nominee then George HW Bush was elected to be the next president first nominee he put on the Supreme Court was David Souter who was confirmed without much controversy at the time then in 1991 President Bush nominated Clarence Thomas and so by the time Thomas is nominated by that point there's a well-established expectation that the FBI has to be pretty freakin thorough when it comes to background checks for Supreme Court nominees we're not gonna have another gut Douglas Ginsburg situation here right I mean what the FBI does with these nominees it's not a criminal investigation like they would do if they were planning to potentially prosecute someone it's just a review a very comprehensive review of every little thing in the life history of that nominee to see if there's any derogatory information that might reflect badly on the character or the experience of this nominee and honestly remembering that Douglas Ginsburg Fiasco the FBI background check for nominees is also supposed to turn up information that might end up adversely affecting the prospects of confirming that nominee to the court right that's why the FBI background check on a potential nominee is handed over to the White House so the White House can then make a decision based in part on that background check whether or not they should go ahead and nominate that person for the court so when Clarence Thomas was nominated by President George HW Bush in 1991 his former assistant a lawyer named Anita Hill notified the Senate Judiciary Committee which was considering his nomination that when she had worked for Judge Thomas he had sexually harassed her now whether or not that would be considered a crime whether or not that was you know considered to be within the statute of limitations for any conceivable crime related to those charges that wasn't the point the allegation was instead relevant as a factor in his background check it was relevant to the assessment of Judge Thomas as a potential Supreme Court nominee and when the Judiciary Committee that information from Anita Hill that information got sent to the FBI the Judiciary Committee sent that information to the White House on September 23rd 1991 that same day September 23rd the White House Counsel for President Bush a man named C Boyden gray who was poppy Bush's White House Counsel for all four years that poppy Bush was president C Boyden gray that same day asked the FBI to reopen its background investigation of Judge Clarence Thomas to look into this new sexual harassment allegation made by Professor Hill that moment judiciary committee gets the information from Anita Hill they forwarded to the White House that same day the White House tells tells the FBI hey look into this that was not the stop the presses moment in the Anita Hill Clarence Thomas controversy there was not any big fight about this I mean the White House learned there were new allegations of derogatory information about Clarence Thomas since the FBI was in charge of looking into the nominee and documenting potential derogatory information about him the White House naturally asked the FBI to look into this new information - we actually spoke with see Boyd and gray today about that moment in the Clarence Thomas nomination process mr. gray confirmed for us today this basic timeline about how this went down basically confirmed the understanding that we have from looking at the historical record that this was this part of it just wasn't a pivotal moment in this controversy the FBI did reopen its background investigation of Clarence Thomas to add this matter when the White House asked them to the FBI when they received this request in the White House they went out and they interviewed Judge Thomas about it they interviewed Anita Hill about it C Boyden gray told us by phone today quote what they interviewed Anita Hill about was the basic facts I mean the FBI inquiry such as it was was very basic very quick there was any controversy about it at all as was it was too cursory it was too unimportant the very same day that White House Counsel C Boyden gray asked the FBI to go into this allegation about Judge Thomas that exact same day September 23rd is when the FBI conducted their interview with Anita Hill on that issue by two days later by September 25th they were done they didn't produce a you know conclusive report that even tried to definitively assert whether or not the sexual harassment had in fact happened they just put together this very basic report basically yeah we talked to him yeah we talked to her this is what they said that was kind of it the FBI gave that info back to the White House the White House gave it back to the committee most senators didn't even know that that had happened most senators were not terribly moved by the the addition of by this addition to the body of information they had to work with when it came to Clarence Thomas if they knew about it at all Thomas's confirmation hearings by this point we're done two days after the FBI handed over it's relatively cursory report on these allegations the committee voted on Clarence Clarence Thomas's nomination they voted 7 to 7 so that meant his nomination was headed to the floor with a sort of uncertain recommendation what actually broke this story open the whole reason any of us even know about these allegations and the controversy that ensued is because of nothing to do with the FBI has to do with Nina Totenberg Nina Totenberg legendary Supreme Court reporter today and frankly for your whole life she had been the one back in 1987 who broke the news at NPR that Douglas Ginsburg had smoked pot and she had witnesses who attested to that she's the one who blew up the Douglas Ginsburg nomination Nina Totenberg was also the one four years later in the fall of 1991 who reported that professor Anita Hill had made these very serious very detailed allegations against judge Clarence Thomas and whether or not most senators even knew about those allegations the committee had had that information and the FBI had even questioned people about those allegations at the White House's request and saw the White House knew about it too when Nina Totenberg broke the story that's when the story truly broke for the country that's when Anita Hills allegations came to light in the press and before the week was up the committee had decided okay I guess we better reopen the confirmation process for Clarence Thomas we better take public sworn testimony from both Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas and that hearing of course is still seen today as one of the worst examples of how not to treat a person who is coming forward with serious sexual harassment allegations but for all of the controversy all of the drama all of the cultural significance and pain and precedent of that unbelievably controversial Supreme Court nomination and that process the idea that the FBI would take a look the FBI would interview the principal's maybe talk to some other witnesses once that new allegation came to light that was an absolutely mundane part of the process of course the FBI had to look into that right they had done a background check on this nominee again a background check is not a criminal investigation a background check is to find out everything you can write about a nominate see if there's any allegations outstanding out there about a nominee that the White House ought to know about when putting this person forward that the Senate maybe I ought to know about when considering this person as a potential Supreme Court justice I when there's a new allegation to add to the universe of information about this nominee the background check should clearly cover that new allegation - that was not a controversial part of the Clarence Thomas Anita Hill drama again any controversy over the FBI investigation there was that it was too quick too cursory too Monday in a part of the process but for some reason with this nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to fill Anthony Kennedy's now vacated seat on the court Republicans in the Senate and apparently the White House as well they have decided they're gonna fight tooth and nail to stop that very mundane part of the process from happening this time I mean of course this allegation against Brett Kavanaugh is gonna be controversial this Supreme Court nomination was controversial even before we got to this allegation against him so you know of course with an allegation like this he's being accused of attempted rape when he was 17 years old and with an allegation of this nature at a time like this with stakes this high of course you expect there to be drama and chest pounding and self-serving arguments and theatrics and all the rest of it but fighting to make sure the FBI doesn't look into this as part of his background check it's a strange thing to fight for Orrin Hatch was on the Judiciary Committee back at the time of the Clarence Thomas Anita Hill controversy he has now gone so far as to say quote the FBI does not do investigations like this that is exactly wrong that is 100% completely wrong I mean here is senator hatch himself in 1991 in the Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill hearings expressing his delight his satisfaction that the FBI was investigating those claims as part of their background check on Clarence Thomas they immediately ordered this FBI investigation which was a very right thing to do it's the appropriate thing to do not just right very right right which is why it was done then so when orrin hatch today says the FBI doesn't do investigations like this then honestly what was he praising back in 1991 what was he so excited about then if the FBI doesn't actually do this being a hypocrite having a partisan double standard I understand that is like breathing in politics these days I get it but flat-out asserting you know this is not done it would be crazy it would be a departure from precedent to have the FBI investigate something like this when these guys themselves have been through this process before it's just it strikes me as odd it's just a weird place to have a sticking point this is not a normal kind of fight Republican Senator Chuck Grassley who now runs the Judiciary Committee he was there on the committee for its for the FBI reopening its background check process to look into the Anita Hill allegations against Clarence Thomas back in the day he was there for that he saw that happen he knows it happened he didn't have any problem with that process nobody had any problem with that process it was a mundane part of how this sort of thing is handled but now senator Grassley insists that it can't happen here it can't happen here with this allegation against Brett Kavanaugh your Senator Grassley today quote committee investigators are following up on the leads from dr. Ford allegations and news stories no other outside all-caps outside investigation is necessary for the committee to do its investigation yeah but why not have the FBI look into it since that is what they do for Supreme Court nominees and for all other nominees for which they do background checks why are you trying so hard to stop the FBI from looking at this which would again be the normal process here what's the problem with them looking into it this is also perhaps a good point to remember that when senator Grassley talks about how he only wants his staff to look into these things instead of anybody outside instead of the FBI there's no need for anybody else other than his staff to look into this one of chairman Grassley staff members who works with him on this committee on judicial nominations specifically is named Barbara Aladeen if the name Barbara Dean is familiar to you in the context of Bret Cavanaugh's nomination you might remember from his confirmation hearings that controversy over whether or not Brett Kavanaugh ever received documents when he worked in the Bush White House that had been stolen from Senate Democrats you might remember in that controversy there was a sort of smoking gun piece of evidence produced during the confirmation hearings which showed that Brett Kavanaugh had in fact received documents stolen from Democrats while he worked in the bush White House and he had to have known they were stolen despite his assertions to the contrary under oath in part because of what we could see in the document which was sent to him and which Brett Kavanaugh forwarded from his White House email account in 2003 this is the document where the subject line was literally quote spying and the first line was quote I have a friend who was a mole for us that email goes on to contain a bunch of information that was stolen from Democratic senators the person who authored that email which Brett Kavanaugh forwarded as a very interesting email the person who wrote that email was Barbara Lee Dean the same person who now works as a staffer for Chuck Grassley on the Judiciary Committee is considering the nomination of Kavanaugh to be a Supreme Court justice so when Chuck Grassley says now listen it's very important that the FBI not look into this my staff will handle it don't worry I've got all the best people on this nobody else other than my staff needs to look at it well one of the people who works for him on that committee on judicial nominations is the same person who had the mole who sent Brett Kavanaugh the spying information right which became a matter of serious contention in his confirmation hearing I mean in an alternate universe that might ultimately have somebody like Brett Kavanaugh prosecuted for perjury or potentially impeached from the judgeship that he's got now we actually asked the committee today whether chuck Grassley has Barbara ladino self police say quote following up on the leads from dr. Ford's allegations the committee told us that no Barbara ladina is not personally assigned to be one of these investigators into Cavanaugh's into this allegation against Cavanaugh but the committee also would not tell us who any of the investigators are so nobody knows why this is the hang-up again the FBI looking into new alleged derogatory information about a nominee that's the bread and butter of what the FBI does with background checks on nominees stopping the FBI from looking into this is a big break from precedent and nobody knows why the Republicans are doing it as of tonight it remains unclear as to whether or not professor Christine Blasi Ford will testify to the Judiciary Committee on Monday or at any other time since the Republicans on the committee and the White House seem to be digging in their heels and insisting that there can be no FBI investigation of her claims despite the fact that that would be standard practice for an issue like this when it comes to predicting what's gonna happen here we've got these two very interesting things playing out side by side neither of which you would expect right but both of which are now happening on the one hand we're still waiting for some sort of credible explanation from the Republicans and from the White House as to why this case is so special why they are so invested in making sure that the FBI doesn't look into this right the argue that this isn't what the FBI does is factually incorrect that's absolutely not true that can't be the reason if that's not the reason then what is the reason that they're so desperate to not have the FBI look at this so that's happening and then parallel to that when it comes to assessing the credibility of this accusation we are now in this sort of remarkable situation where the woman who has brought forth this allegation she is begging for FBI scrutiny of her claims she's made a claim against judge Cavanaugh judge Cavanaugh supporters do not want any law enforcement agency looking into it she on the other hand is begging for the nation's premier law enforcement agency to look into it she's not just inviting scrutiny of her claims she's doing everything she can to try to get independent federal law enforcement scrutiny of her claims and I don't know anything more about her claims other than what has been reported in the press but if you were making something up if you were gonna tell a high-stakes lie because you wanted to take somebody out for whatever reason would you beg the FBI to look into it I mean it's not a crime to lie to the Washington Post it's not a crime to tell a lie in a letter to your member of Congress it is definitely a crime to lie to the FBI it's a serious crime a crime that people go to prison for why would you ask for FBI scrutiny if you had any doubt about your own story and if Republicans in the Senate and and and if the White House has no doubt whatsoever in judge Cavanaugh's denials of this allegation why would they worry about the FBI looking into it apparently there is a memorandum of understanding between the White House and the Justice Department which governs the rules by which these background check arrangements are made when it comes to White House nominees and the FBI we are trying to get a hold of that memorandum of understanding as of yet we don't have it but we think we probably will get at some point at some point soon in the absence of actually seeing that written memorandum about how these things go though what we understand is that it has to be a request from the White House to the FBI if the FBI is going to look into this matter for whatever reason the White House is refusing to give that directive to the FBI I mean the White House should be governed by precedent on this right there's no reason for them to completely depart from precedent and refuse to give that directive to the FBI but that's apparently what they're trying to hold on to without ever explaining themselves about it after who else might be able to investigate this matter well it was reported today that when Senator Dianne Feinstein was first considering what to do with this allegation that she received from her constituent in California she inquired as to whether or not the committee judicial your Judiciary Committee could hire an outside independent counsel to look at this allegation to interview witnesses interview the principals look into it the senators would have some sort of factual investigative basis to proceed if they wanted to hold a hearing on this issue senator Feinstein was reportedly told that there is a process for arranging something like that but it would require going through the Rules Committee in the Senate and it would require sign-off from multiple Republicans in the Senate Feinstein decided that kind of a process would be too risky in terms of preserving the anonymity of her constituent who at that point didn't want her name to be used but now professor Christine Blasi for it has an app allowed her name to be used so could that process of obtaining some sort of outside investigation some sort of outside counsel be put in place now if the White House and Republicans in the Senate absolutely refused to let the FBI look into this is there a way that somebody else could that's next hey there I'm Chris Hayes from MSNBC thanks for watching MSNBC on YouTube if you want to keep up to date with the videos we're putting out you can click subscribe just below me or click over on this list to see lots of other great videos

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Id: z2hipiJ8kSQ

Length: 26min 8sec (1568 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 20 2018