WASHINGTON – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, published an op-ed in The Washington Post on the FBI investigation into the allegations against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. 

The Washington Post: Here’s what the FBI investigation into the Kavanaugh allegations should look like

By Chris Coons

Over recent weeks, as the Senate and our nation have wrestled with the serious allegations of sexual assault made against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, I’ve been reminded of the famous words from Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan: “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.” 

Last week, the country witnessed a difficult, emotional hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee during which both Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, and Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court nominee, testified that they were each 100 percent certain of the facts they presented regarding an alleged sexual assault more than 30 years ago — facts that cannot easily be reconciled.

As a result, senators on the committee were divided not only by our passionately clashing opinions but also by different sets of facts altogether that have torn the committee apart. That’s why Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and I worked to strike a compromise to delay the Senate’s final vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation by one week to allow the FBI to investigate all credible current allegations before the committee and, hopefully, to give senators one set of facts to work from.

Make no mistake: The FBI is up to the task of making real progress in investigating these thorny allegations within a week. But it can do so only if FBI agents are given the resources and authority to pursue parallel investigations and to follow up on leads promptly so that they can, as President Trump recently said, “interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion” and take all logical investigatory steps in pursuing the allegations before the committee.

To read the full column, click here. 

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