Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) has questions about the authenticity of the FBI’s background probe of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. In a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland last Thursday, the Democratic lawmaker alleged that the 2018 investigation into the sexual-assault allegations against Kavanaugh “appears to have been a politically-constrained and perhaps fake.” Whitehouse now wants Garland to conduct “proper oversight” into the investigation where he said, “the shutters were closed, the bridge [was] drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI.” He also alleged the FBI refused to hear testimony from witnesses regarding Kavanaugh and ignored lawmakers who inquired on behalf of those witnesses.

“This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster,” Whitehouse wrote. “If standard procedures were violated, and the Bureau conducted a fake investigation rather than a sincere, thorough and professional one, that in my view merits congressional oversight to understand how, why, and at whose behest and with whose knowledge or connivance, this was done.”