I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember.”2 The press was predictably appalled at his off-teleprompter remarks,3 as was Senator Ben Sasse, who denounced the president on the Senate floor in an eighteen-minute speech about the #MeToo movement: “His mockery of Dr. Ford last night in Mississippi was wrong—but it doesn’t really surprise anyone. It’s who he is.” He added that he had previously urged the president to nominate someone other than Kavanaugh. “I urged the president to nominate a woman.” Nevertheless, it was clear that at this point, the president’s challenge to Ford’s credibility resonated with many Americans.
The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee had insisted that their investigators were as capable of investigating the allegations as the FBI background checkers. They had the same subpoena powers, and the penalty for lying to them was the same as the penalty for lying to the FBI. In fact, they had already referred Senator Whitehouse’s constituent for investigation by the FBI for his “rape boat” allegations. Now, as the FBI investigation began to wrap up, the Democrats realized that the Bureau had simply taken statements from witnesses and compiled them in a report, much as the Senate Judiciary Committee would have done. The report was expected Wednesday night, and McConnell set up a key procedural vote for Friday.
It was time to move the goalposts again. That night, having received the hearing they asked for, as well as an FBI inquiry, Democrats attacked the breadth of the investigation. In another New Yorker article, Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow complained that the FBI had not interviewed all of Kavanaugh’s Yale classmates.4
Don McGahn, who received updates during the investigation, kept senators informed about its progress. When the investigation was completed, the report was kept in the Office of Senate Security, a secured room. The report could not be photocopied, and only senators and selected committee staff members from each party could view it.
The unusual security measures were a response to the Democrats’ handling of confidential documents in the first hearings. Cory Booker’s “Spartacus” incident changed the way the committee handled secure information and caused many senators and their staff to worry that they might not be given access to sensitive executive branch documents for future confirmations. Despite the high security, the FBI files were more readily available than they usually are in judicial vettings. The Office of Senate Security was open around the clock for senators, and any senator, not only Judiciary Committee members, could see the file.
Senators were guided in their review of the lengthy file by the Judiciary Committee staff. Time slots were divided between Republicans and Democrats, and many senators went through the documents with colleagues. Mike Lee, for instance, read from a single shared copy of the documents to a group of colleagues that included Jeff Flake, Susan Collins, and Ben Sasse. Flake and Collins returned many times to review the documents, each spending several hours looking at the supplemental information, including the notes from the “tip line,” which anybody could call to report information about the relevant parties. They were satisfied that there was no corroborating evidence to support the allegations. In fact, there was new information that cast doubt on the original accusations.
Leland Keyser reportedly told the investigators that she had felt pressure to revise her statement about the alleged incident. After Ford testified, Keyser submitted an additional statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee indicating that although she did not remember the event that Ford described—as she had previously stated—she nevertheless believed Ford. She reportedly decided to amend her original statement after communications with persons who were friends of both Keyser and Ford. One of these persons, the Wall Street Journal reported, was Monica McLean, the retired FBI agent who had been identified in the letter from Ford’s ex-boyfriend as the person Ford coached on passing a polygraph when McLean was applying for a position with the FBI.5 (McLean told ABC News that she had never received assistance of any kind in connection with a polygraph.)6 The supplemental FBI investigation reportedly included text messages from McLean to Keyser encouraging her to amend her first statement with the statement of belief in Ford’s story, a charge McLean denied.
The inclusion of Leland Keyser in the initial story caught the attention of high school friends, who remembered Keyser as a legendary and well-liked athlete. She and Ford had been good friends. If she had remembered the party, or anything approximating it, she would have said so.