Oblivious

There is a serious problem oddly obscured in the current controversy over alleged sexual assaults committed by Justin Fairfax, now Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, and that of sexual assaults allegedly committed decades earlier by Brett Kavanaugh.

Once Circuit Court Judge Kavanaugh appeared on a short list of nominees for the US Supreme Court, Christine Blasey Ford wrote US Senator Dianne Feinstein, charging that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, when she was 15 and he was 17.   The information eventually became the primary controversy in the Senate Judiciary Committee considering the nomination.

Deborah Ramirez also charged Kavanaugh with sexual misconduct, which would have occurred a few years later, when both individuals were attending Yale University. Declaring loyalty to Kavanaugh, the White House labeled the accusation a "35-year-old, uncorroborated claim" which "is the latest in a coordinated smear campaign."

It wasn't coordinated- but never mind. It was, of course, uncorroborated, neither proven nor disproved.

Following an additional, cursory investigation, the Senate Judiciary Committee (possibly inaccurately) declared there was "no evidence to substantiate any of the claims" of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.

There had been six (6) investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of Brett Kavanaugh in the quarter century spanning the period of 1993 to 2018- and a partisan GOP committee did not exonerate the candidate, only claiming there was "no evidence."

After Meredith Watson, then Vanessa Tyson, recently accused Justin Fairfax of sexual assault, the Lieutenant Governor released a statement which included  “I demand a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false allegations. I will clear my good name and I have nothing to hide. I have passed two full field background checks by the FBI and run for office in two highly contested elections with nothing like this being raised before.”

Fairfax cites "two full field background checks by the FBI."  Similarly, supporters of Brett Kavanaugh had cited the "full-field investigations" conducted of Kavanaugh on several occasions.

And yet, this: all these investigations by the highly-touted Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau came up with nothing. Nothing.

That begs the question of why the Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting inadequate investigations of public figures. Even if none of the charges against either Kavanaugh or Fairfax is valid (an extremely improbable scenario), they are accusations the FBI presumably did not learn of (or alternatively, buried).

Donald Trump, and to a lesser extent, his supporters have been attacking the FBI for the better part of two years. However, they do not question the competence or efficiency of America's top law enforcement agency, but instead its over-zealousness, and that only because it has been investigating Donald Trump.

Responding to criticism of the bureau from Team Russia, Democrats have only heaped praise upon the agency.  It has been, consequently, immune from legitimate criticism. But after Donald Trump is removed, one way or the other, from office, there should be an investigation into the investigators, because the Federal Bureau of Investigation has not been living up to its hype.

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