September 16, 2018

Feinstein Calls for Kavanaugh Hearings To Stop While FBI Investigates Sexual Assault

The allegations “bear heavily on Judge Kavanaugh’s character,” she said.

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP

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On Sunday, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), called for the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to be halted while the FBI investigates allegations of sexual assault.

Feinstein’s statement came after The Washington Post published a detailed investigation featuring a first-hand account by California professor Christine Blasey Ford, who was speaking out for the first time since news of her confidential letter containing details of the alleged attack became public last week. Kavanaugh has denied the accusations.

Feinstein wrote that Ford’s allegations—which include being pinned down, groped, and silenced by Kavanaugh at a high school party—were “extremely serious and bear heavily on Judge Kavanaugh’s character.” 

The FBI investigation “should happen before” the continuation of the confirmation process, she wrote:

Feinstein’s call may well go unanswered. Before the Post’s report containing Ford’s account was published, three of her colleagues, Sens. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) told Sunday talkshows that new allegations should not delay proceedings. “Senator Feinstein’s had the letter since July,” Kennedy told “Fox News Sunday.” “For three months, she said nothing, nothing, zero, nada, zilch.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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