The FBI conducted a sham investigation into Brett Kavanaugh. Surprised? | Moira Donegan

The bureau shamefully allowed itself to be used as a prop in political theater, orchestrated by the Trump administration

Maybe it was always obvious that the whole thing was a sham. Back in 2018, when Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and others accused then supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, the powerful testimony of Blasey Ford before the Senate judiciary committee briefly seemed like it might derail the nomination. This was the height of #MeToo, remember: at the time, many women were coming forward with their own stories of sexual violence, and the accounts were numerous enough and had sufficient moral authority that powerful people felt it necessary to pretend that they cared.

Republican Senators wanted to confirm Kavanaugh quickly: the judge, who was then seated on the DC circuit, would provide the crucial fifth vote to overturn Roe v Wade, as well as supporting efforts to enshrine various other Republican policy agendas into law. Women, however, were causing a scene: two cornered then Arizona senator Jeff Flake in an elevator and screamed at him that he should be ashamed of himself. On a livestream of the altercation that went viral on social media, it looked like he was. All this made things somewhat awkward for the Republicans: they wanted to vote for Kavanaugh, but they wanted political cover to do so. This is where the FBI came in.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist