Blasey Ford Attorneys: Kavanaugh Investigation A 'Stain' On The FBI
(CNN) -- Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford sent a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray on Thursday expressing regret that investigators did not speak with her in their review of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
"The 'investigation' conducted over the past five days is a stain on the process, on the FBI and on our American ideal of justice," read the letter from attorneys Debra Katz, Lisa Banks and Michael Bromwich.
The letter said the FBI "failed to interview" Ford, who alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her during their high school years. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation, and senators received the results of the FBI review into Kavanaugh on Thursday.
Ford appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week where she testified about her allegations against Kavanaugh after coming forward publicly earlier last month.
The attorneys said the FBI also did not interview witnesses with information relevant to Ford's allegations, and in their letter, they provided a series of suggested witnesses who they said were still available to speak with investigators.
The people in the letter include the former FBI agent who conducted Ford's polygraph in August, Ford's husband and friends of Ford's who said Ford told them of an assault.
"None were contacted nor, to our knowledge, were more than a dozen other names we provided to the FBI whose interviews would have challenged the credibility of Judge Kavanaugh's testimony before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on September 27, 2018," the letter read.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.
The attorneys said they were "heartened" when the Senate pushed for the FBI investigation last week and that it would have been feasible for the FBI to speak with the witnesses they suggested within the one-week time limit imposed on the review.
Jim Gensheimer, one of Ford's friends who her legal team asked the FBI to interview, confirmed to CNN on Thursday that the FBI did not reach out and that he would have been happy to speak to the agency if it had.
Gensheimer, 56, said in a phone interview that had the FBI interviewed him, he would have stood by Ford's character and laid out everything he knew and remembered from this summer, when he said Ford confided in him for the first time about the alleged assault.
"I found her testimony to be consistent with the limited knowledge that I had of the situation," Gensheimer said. "The character that she exhibited -- the personality that you saw during the hearing was spot on. She was genuine. She wasn't acting, I can say that."
Gensheimer said Ford first confided in him in July at a beach restaurant at Capitola Beach in California. While she did not go into great detail at the time, Gensheimer said she told him that she had known Kavanaugh back in high school, and that "he had attempted to rape her."
Ford also told him at the time that she had been speaking to the Washington Post through a tip line, but that she had "started worrying immediately" about whether her identify would be revealed, Gensheimer said. A freelance journalist who had previously worked at the Mercury News, Gensheimer says he offered her some advice on protections that news organizations can offer to sources, and also discussed with her the possibility of finding a lawyer.
Gensheimer said he would have been happy to be Ford's character witness to the FBI, had they requested his assistance.
"I've always known her to be a very caring person and compassionate towards others and helpful towards others," he said. "The character I saw at the hearing -- was pretty much spot on."
Gensheimer previously told CNN in a statement that he believed Ford's allegations against Kavanaugh, and that she had previously told him that she needs "more than one exit door in her bedroom to prevent her from being trapped."
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