WASHINGTON— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (R-LA), appeared on Fox News this morning to discuss his call for the FBI’s seventh background check into Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh to include an investigation into “potential coordination between the Democrat operatives and lawyers that assisted in bringing” forth the allegations against him.
Dr. Cassidy called for Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) to be asked under oath whether she or her staff violated Dr. Ford’s confidentiality by leaking her letter to the media. Cassidy also said Dr. Ford’s therapist’s notes should be turned over to the Senate. Despite the fact that the notes were shown to the Washington Post, Dr. Ford’s lawyers have refused to show them to the Senate, leading many to question what they are hiding.
“Just like their other tactics throughout this confirmation process, Senate Democrats’ demands for an FBI investigation have never been about getting the facts or finding the truth,” Dr. Cassidy wrote on Breitbart.com. “What Senate Democrats really want is more time to smear Judge Kavanaugh, regardless of the toll it takes on his wife, his daughters, and our country.”
No matter what the FBI investigation finds, “Democrats will not suddenly require evidence to declare Judge Kavanaugh guilty of being the worst kind of criminal. They will not suddenly abandon their assumption that all accusations against Republicans are credible and to be believed,” continued Dr. Cassidy. They will never “admit they were wrong to accuse Judge Kavanaugh of being a gang rapist, or a rapist, or a sexual assaulter, or a drunk, or a perjurer, or a hothead unfit for the bench.”
A full transcript of Dr. Cassidy’s remarks on Fox News this morning are transcribed below.
CASSIDY: Clearly there will be an FBI investigation. Presumably they have seven days. This is day one. But if you will, this is part of a broader Democratic strategy to coordinate. In that coordination, to seek to delay. How many more charges can be brought out to smear this man, to create legitimate doubts in the minds of some of the American public? It’s a tactic of coordination leading to delay. There’s other things the FBI should do, but it should investigate whether indeed there is this intent to coordinate—in fact the actual coordination.
HOST: Well that’s a great point you bring out. I mean, do you believe that the FBI should investigate who leaked Dr. Ford’s letter? Your colleague Senator Cornyn calling out ranking member Dianne Feinstein about whether or not her office leaked it. But should that be looked into? Who leaked Dr. Ford’s letter?
CASSIDY: There’s at least two senators that challenged Judge Kavanaugh’s assertion that this is part of a coordinated effort—two. Now if they’re trying to cast doubts upon his judgment, I actually think he showed insight. Let’s actually investigate. Ask Dianne Feinstein under oath, did she leak it? Then ask her aide.
By the way, we should also seek to get Dr. Ford’s therapist records. It should be looked at with compassion, not released to the public. There should be somebody who knows what they are looking at when they see therapy notes, but that’s all she’s offered for corroboration. That should also be looked at to see if it truly does corroborate because that’s all that has been offered by her side.
And then look at this pattern of delay, coordination and obfuscation.
HOST: And senator, how will, if your colleagues on the other side have played politics all along as many have suggested, how would that affect this ultimate vote for Judge Kavanaugh?
CASSIDY: I think most people on the Republican side see it for what it’s worth. It is a pattern of leaks set to delay and to character assassinate. Things being released that should not be published because there’s no support for them, but because it’s released it feeds into the delay.
HOST: I just want to press you a little bit because what your colleague Senator Lindsey Graham did was to truly reach across partisan aisles, if you will, to say, look at what we’re doing, we’re better than this. If this investigation does prove that the politics are being played on the Democrat side, should we then see something out of them?
CASSIDY: Yeah, hopefully! I hope. I hope truth is more important than character assassination, than ideology. It won’t be for some but for some others I hope that it will be. And we should not set a standard that you can do character assassination, kind of a coordinated pattern of it, to bring somebody down. That is a dangerous place for our society to move into, kind of like the book 1984.
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