FBI contacts Kavanaugh Yale classmate in its investigation

Brett Kavanaugh testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photo / AP

The FBI has contacted the first of two women who came forward last week with accusations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as it launches its additional background investigation following Friday's Senate hearing.

The bureau has contacted Deborah Ramirez, a Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh's who alleges he shoved his genitals in her face at a party where she had been drinking and become disoriented, her lawyer said yesterday.

Ramirez's lawyer, John Clune, said agents want to interview her and she has agreed to co-operate. Ramirez has said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the early 1980s.

On Saturday President Donald Trump ordered the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh's background investigation. Senate leaders agreed to delay a final vote on Kavanaugh's nomination to allow for the one-week FBI investigation. The Senate Judiciary Committee has said the probe should be limited to "current credible allegations" against Kavanaugh and be finished by Saturday.

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said it was his understanding that there would be an FBI investigation of "the outstanding allegations, the three of them", but Republicans have not said whether that was their understanding.

While the precise scope of the investigation remained unclear, Trump told reporters yesterday that "the FBI, as you know, is all over talking to everybody" and said "this could be a blessing in disguise". "They have free rein. They're going to do whatever they have to do, whatever it is they do. They'll be doing things that we have never even thought of," he said. "And hopefully at the conclusion everything will be fine."

White House spokesman Raj Shah said the Senate set the scope and duration of the probe and that the White House is "letting the FBI agents do what they are trained to do".

Deborah Ramirez. Photo / AP

The FBI conducts background checks for federal nominees, but the agency does not make judgments on the credibility or significance of allegations. The investigators will compile information about Kavanaugh's past and provide their findings to the White House and include the information in Kavanaugh's background file, which is available to senators.

Kavanaugh and another of his accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers, testified publicly before the Judiciary Committee on Friday.

Kavanaugh's high school friend Mark Judge, who Ford says was in the room when a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, said that he will co-operate with any law enforcement agency that will "confidentially investigate" sexual misconduct allegations against him and Kavanaugh. Judge has also denied Ford's allegations.

Lawyers for P.J. Smyth and Leland Ingham Keyser, two others who Ford said were in the house when she was attacked, have said their clients are willing to co-operate "fully" with the FBI's investigation.

A third woman, Julie Swetnick, accused Kavanaugh and Judge of excessive drinking and inappropriate treatment of women in the early 1980s, among other accusations. Kavanaugh has called her accusations a "joke" and Judge has said he "categorically" denies the allegations.

Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Photo / AP

Swetnick's attorney, Michael Avenatti, said yesterday that his client had not been contacted by the FBI but is willing to fully co-operate with investigators.

Last week, Trump tweeted that "if the attack on Dr Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed" with local police. After Ford appeared before the Judiciary Committee, Trump said her testimony was "very compelling" and that she appeared to be "certainly a very credible witness".

But yesterday, Trump turned Kavanaugh into a rallying cry for Republicans to vote in November, saying they can help reject the "ruthless and outrageous tactics" he says Democrats used against the judge.

"We see this horrible, horrible, radical group of Democrats. You see what's happening right now," Trump said at a rally with thousands of supporters in West Virginia, a state Trump in 2016 by 42 percentage points and where he remains popular. "And they're determined to take back power by any means necessary. You see the meanness, the nastiness. They don't care who they hurt, who they have to run over to get power," he said.

"We're not going to give it to them," Trump said.

Trump called Kavanaugh "one of the most accomplished legal minds of our time" and said he had suffered "the meanness, the anger" of Democrats.

After Friday's hearing at which Kavanaugh and Ford testified, the committee voted 11-10, along strict party lines, to recommend that the full Senate confirm Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. But one Republican committee member, Senator Jeff Flake, balked at voting for confirmation without the investigation. Republican leaders want Kavanaugh seated on the court before the November 7 midterm elections and could do little but agree to Flake's demand.

Flake asked for the investigation to be limited in scope and last no more than a week.

Trump agreed to an investigation after he had vigorously resisted asking the FBI - an agency he has repeatedly criticised - to look into the sexual assault and misconduct allegations. In defending Kavanaugh, Trump and other supporters noted that the allegations had never surfaced in six previous background checks during Kavanaugh's long career in the executive and judicial branches of the US Government.

- AP