September 28, 2018

The FBI Will Investigate Sexual Misconduct Accusations Against Brett Kavanaugh

President Trump gave the agency a week to look into his Supreme Court nominee.

Michael Reynolds/ZUMA

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It’s official: The FBI will reopen its background investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. President Donald Trump ordered the new investigation late Friday afternoon, giving the FBI a week to explore the allegations of sexual abuse raised against Kavanaugh in the last month.

Kavanaugh cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 11-10 party-line vote earlier Friday, but it came with a catch. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said that while he was willing to support Kavanaugh out of committee, he wanted a one-week FBI investigation into the allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh. Democrats had used much of Thursday’s nearly nine-hour questioning of Kavanaugh and one of his accusers to demand the FBI reexamine Kavanaugh’s background in light of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony detailing allegations of sexual assault committed by Kavanaugh when he was in high school.

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In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

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