Nearly 50 Yale Law faculty members call for FBI to probe allegation against Kavanaugh

Nearly 50 members of the Yale Law School faculty are calling for the FBI to investigate sexual assault accusations brought against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. 

The faculty made the request in the form of an open letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday, writing that “allegations of sexual assault require a neutral factfinder and an investigation that can ascertain facts fairly.”

{mosads}”As the Senate Judiciary Committee debates Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, we write as faculty members of Yale Law School, from which Judge Kavanaugh graduated, to urge that the Senate conduct a fair and deliberate confirmation process,” reads the letter, which was signed by 49 faculty members. “With so much at stake for the Supreme Court and the nation, we are concerned about a rush to judgment that threatens both the integrity of the process and the public’s confidence in the Court.”

The letter adds that the FBI must have “adequate time to investigate facts” and concludes by saying that the Supreme Court confirmation process “must always be conducted, and appointments made, in a manner that gives Americans reason to trust” the court. 

Kavanaugh, who graduated from Yale and Yale Law School, is facing increased scrutiny regarding sexual assault accusations leveled against him, which he has flatly denied.

Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychologist, came forward publicly on Sunday in The Washington Post and accused Kavanaugh of groping “her over her clothes, grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off her one-piece bathing suit and the clothing she wore over it” at a party while the two were in high school in the early 1980s.

Kavanaugh has fiercely denied the accusations.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is pushing to have Kavanaugh and Ford appear before the panel next week to discuss the allegations.

Ford initially called for the FBI to investigate her claims before she would agree to testify. But her lawyers have said that she could be willing to testify next Thursday, based on an agreement to certain terms. 

Senate Republicans responded with a counteroffer on Friday, that Ford come before the committee on Wednesday and testify first, among other conditions.

The letter from Yale Law School faculty members also comes just a day after the dean of the school, Heather Gerken, responded to reports that a professor had advised students to have a “certain look” to earn a judicial clerkship for Kavanaugh.

Gerken said “the allegations being reported are of enormous concern to me and to the School” in a letter written to the law school community.