Fired FBI director James Comey says Trump-ordered limited probe of Kavanaugh is 'deeply flawed and designed to thwart the fact-gathering process'

Bureau given just seven days to carry out investigation

Ousted FBI director James Comey has criticised the “flawed” limited nature of the probe ordered by Donald Trump into his Supreme Court nominee, saying it was seemingly “designed to thwart the fact-gathering process”.

Mr Trump ordered the FBI to carry out an additional background check into Brett Kavanaugh after a Republican senator, Jeff Flake, said he would not vote to confirm him without such an investigation.

There is confusion and disagreement about who the FBI has been authorised to speak to, with Democrats saying because of this, the probe is “a farce”. Mr Trump has tweeted that he has not limited the scope of the inquiry and wants agents to “interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion”.

Mr Comey, who was fired in May 2017 in move that resulted in the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russia’s alleged interference, said the FBI – frequently the target of attacks from Mr Trump and his supporters – was up to the task of completing the additional checks in seven days.

Yet he said: “If truth were the only goal, there would be no clock, and the investigation wouldn’t have been sought after the Senate Judiciary Committee already endorsed the nominee. Instead, it seems that the Republican goal is to be able to say there was an investigation and it didn’t change their view, while the Democrats hope for incriminating evidence to derail the nominee.”

Writing in The New York Times on Monday, he added: “Although the process is deeply flawed, and apparently designed to thwart the fact-gathering process, the FBI is up for this. It’s not as hard as Republicans hope it will be.”

The comments from Mr Comey came as the FBI proceeded to question several people about the allegations levelled at Mr Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford, that he forcibly tried to remove her clothes at a high school party in Maryland in the early 1980s.

Two other women have made claims accusations about Mr Trump’s nominee. Deborah Ramirez, 53, from Boulder, Colorado, said Mr Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her and forced his penis in front of her face during a drunken dormitory party at Yale University 35 years ago.

Another woman, Julie Smetnick, sent a signed affidavit to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying she was present at 10 parties where Mr Kavanaugh and a friend, Mark Judge, drugged young women and prepared them to be gang-raped. Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Judge have also denied these allegations.

Despite Mr Trump’s claim he wanted the FBI to interview whoever it needed to, The New York Times said agents had been directed by the White House and senate Republicans to interview just four people – Mr Judge; PJ Smyth, another high school friend of Mr Kavanaugh; Leland Keyser, a high school friend of Ms Ford; and Ms Ramirez.

Democratic senator Mazie Hirono, a member of the senate committee that on Friday voted to move Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination to the senate floor, said over the weekend any limits on who the FBI can interview would be a “farce”.

Charles “Chad” Ludington, a former classmate of Mr Kavanaugh’s who is now an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, said he wanted to speak to the FBI about his former classmate’s college drinking.

“Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker. I know, because, especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer,” Mr Ludington said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Michael Avenatti, a lawyer representing Ms Smetnick, said it was very wrong that she was not being given a chance to speak to agents.

“It is outrageous that my client has not been contacted by the FBI because Trump is instructing them not to. He is trying to ram through a nomination by purposely preventing the truth from being known. This is a threat to our very democracy,” he tweeted.

“Be clear: 1. I CANNOT just walk my client into an FBI office. We tried that. They claim they don’t have jurisdiction and they refuse to take a stmt. 2. While we may file a criminal complaint, that will have no bearing on any vote due to timing. We will proceed with other options.”

In his op-ed, Mr Comey said even given the time restrains, the bureau could likely achieve a lot.

“FBI agents are experts at interviewing people and quickly dispatching leads to their colleagues around the world to follow with additional interviews. Unless limited in some way by the Trump administration, they can speak to scores of people in a few days, if necessary,” he said.

“They will confront people with testimony and other accounts, testing them and pushing them in a professional way. Agents have much better nonsense detectors than partisans, because they aren’t starting with a conclusion.”

He added: “Yes, the alleged incident occurred 36 years ago. But FBI agents know time has very little to do with memory. They know every married person remembers the weather on their wedding day, no matter how long ago.

“Significance drives memory. They also know that little lies point to bigger lies. They know that obvious lies by the nominee about the meaning of words in a yearbook are a flashing signal to dig deeper.”