White House admits FBI did not investigate Kavanaugh's alleged excessive drinking: 'That is not what the senate is interested in'

FBI completed probe in under six days

The White House has admitted the FBI did not investigate allegations Brett Kavanaugh drank excessively at college - something he has been accused of but which he repeatedly denied when testifying under oath to senators.

Senators on Thursday started taking turns to read a single copy of the report of the FBI’s additional investigation into Mr Kavanaugh, after agents completed their checks and passed their findings to the White House late on Wednesday. They carried out the probe after the 53-year-old judge was accused of sexual assault or misconduct by at least three women. Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court has denied them all.

While the White House has said it is confident senators seeing the report will feel confident in voting to confirm Mr Kavanaugh, there have been claims the Trump administration and Republicans senators ensured the FBI investigation was limited in scope. In particular, Democrats have claimed agents failed to speak to college friends of Mr Kavanaugh who have told the media he drank excessively as a student - something he denied when being questioned but the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

Asked whether the White House had acted to limit the scope of the inquiry, deputy press secretary Raj Shah told CNN: “A background check is not a criminal probe. The senators set the scope. Any background check has to have some limited scope.”

Asked why the FBI had failed to speak to college colleagues of Mr Kavanaugh who have portrayed him as a hard-partying student, Mr Shah said that “is not what the senate is interested in or asking about”.

When it was pointed out that a number of Democrats had raised concerns about his drinking and wanted it looked into, Mr Shah said: “All the folks demanding this type of investigation in the senate are Democrats who already pledged to vote no.”

He added: “They don’t want additional information to make a decision. They want to delay this process.”

In one of the most tense interactions with senators when Mr Kavanaugh testified last week, he was asked by Democrat Amy Klobuchar if he had ever blacked out after drinking. He repeatedly sought to refuse to answer before snapping: “No I remember what happened and I think you've probably had beers, senator.”

Yet many have suggested Mr Kavanaugh often did drink to excess. James Roche, a first year roommate at Yale, said Mr Kavanaugh lied under oath about his both drinking and about the meaning of his yearbook entries.

In an op-ed for Slate, Mr Roche wrote: “Brett Kavanaugh stood up under oath and lied about his drinking and about the meaning of words in his yearbook. He did so baldly, without hesitation or reservation.”

He subsequently told CNN: “I saw him both what I would consider blackout drunk and also dealing with the repercussions of that in the morning.”

“I didn't socialise with Brett,” Roche said. “He would come home and he was incoherent, stumbling, he would sometimes be singing, he occasionally would wear this — I think it was an old leather football helmet — and he would throw up, and then in the morning would have a lot of trouble getting out of bed.”

Asked about Mr Roche’s claim, Mr Shah said: “A lot of people are coming forward about claims about his high school and college drinking which the senate hasn’t asked us about, but also more importantly, he has already admitted in his testimony that he drank in high school, drank in college, sometimes drank too much, drank underage.”

Meanwhile, the Democratic senator who helped initiate an FBI probe into Mr Kavanaugh said on Thursday investigators may not have questioned a number of vital witnesses, and that politicians needed to consider whether he was truthful in his testimony. “In the end...there's a number of vital witnesses who were not questioned,“ said Chris Coons.