Last October, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) sent FBI Director Christopher Wray a letter stating that he had relevant information regarding the allegations of sexual assault made against President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, but the FBI appears to have ignored him, The New York Times reports.
The Times obtained a copy of this letter, which states that Coons heard from multiple people who said they had information on Kavanaugh. He told Wray that he "cannot speak to the relevance or veracity of the information that many of these individuals seek to provide, and I have encouraged them to use the FBI tip portal or contact a regional FBI field office. However, there is one individual whom I would like to specifically refer to you for appropriate follow-up."
Coons was asking the FBI to contact one of Kavanaugh's former Yale classmates, Max Stier, Coons' spokesman Sean Coit confirmed. Over the weekend, the Times reported that during Kavanaugh's freshman year, Stier saw Kavanaugh with his pants down, and his friends pushed his penis into a female student's hand. Stier notified senators and the FBI about the incident, the Times says. The incident has similarities to an allegation made by a former classmate named Deborah Ramirez, who said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a party at Yale their freshman year.
Several Democratic presidential candidates have called for Kavanaugh's impeachment, while Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Ct.) on Monday said there should be a "full, fair investigation, as was never done at the time. It was a sham, as we said then, and there should be a full inquiry now." Catherine Garcia
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was greeted by the sound of protesters booing him when he arrived in Luxembourg on Monday, and the reception he received from the country's top leaders wasn't much friendlier.
Johnson was in Luxembourg for his first face-to-face meeting with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, The Associated Press reports. With Britain scheduled to leave the European Union on Oct. 31, the two are trying to come up with a divorce agreement, but the European Commission said in a statement the meeting ended with no plan in place. Johnson has not offered any "legally operational" solutions to the so-called "backstop," which would guarantee that goods and people are able to freely cross the border between EU member Ireland and the U.K.'s Northern Ireland.
Johnson was scheduled to attend a news conference with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, but refused to attend due to the rowdy anti-Brexit protesters. Bettel met with him privately, and said Johnson needs to "stop speaking and act," adding, "You can't hold their future hostage for party political gains." A no-deal Brexit could have catastrophic economic repercussions, but Johnson is adamant that Britain will leave the EU by Halloween, with or without a deal.
An EU summit will be held in mid-October, and hopes are high that a deal will be reached then. Johnson suspended Parliament until Oct. 14, in order to give himself distance from lawmakers who are trying to block a no-deal Brexit, and on Tuesday, Britain's Supreme Court will mull whether that decision was lawful. Catherine Garcia
Some Asian Americans laughed when entrepreneur Andrew Yang's said on the debate stage Thursday night in Houston that he knew a lot of doctors because he's Asian. But others find that that the presidential candidate's supposedly self-deprecating humor — which has also included jokes about being good at math and loving to work — too often reinforces racial stereotypes, The Washington Post reports.
"I found this part galling, because here he is sort of obtusely reinforcing the model-minority myth and model-minority stereotypes," Jenn Fang, who runs the blog Reappropriate, told the Post, referring to the debate line. Fang added that, in making a comment like that, Yang also "implicitly suggests that the Asian American experience is only represented by his specific middle-to-wealthy-upper-class East Asian American experience," which in the process "completely flattens all of the other ways people are Asian American and don't have access to health care and access to higher education."
Yang, though, has defended himself. In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper over the weekend, the candidate said the "Asian American American community is very diverse, and certainly I would never claim that my individual experience would speak to the depth and breadth of our community." In fact, Yang argues, by "poking fun" at the myth surrounding Asian Americans, he's "making Americans reflect more on it."
Janelle Wong, a professor of Asian American studies at the University of Maryland, said it's "certainly dangerous" for Yang to "deploy stereotypes," but he is also "breaking stereotypes by seeking the presidential nomination." Read more at The Washington Post. Tim O'Donnell
John Bolton might be ready to drop a (thankfully metaphorical) bombshell.
President Trump fired/accepted the resignation of his national security adviser last Tuesday amid reports that Bolton was fighting with just about everyone in the White House. Bolton eerily left his position with a promise that he would "have my say in due course," and less than a week later, The Daily Beast is reporting that "due course" could be sooner than expected.
Bolton is already talking with literary agents in hopes of writing a memoir of his time working for Trump, two people with knowledge of the situation tell The Daily Beast. "He has a lot to dish," one of the sources said, though both what was on the menu and when it will be served have yet to be revealed. Bolton would join a long line of former Trumpers to give an inside scoop on their White House tenures, and judging by the rocky way Bolton went out, it wouldn't be the softball former Press Secretary Sean Spicer tossed out there.
When asked about a possible book deal, Bolton only told The Daily Beast he had "no comment." Read more at The Daily Beast. Kathryn Krawczyk
House Democrats have another investigation on their hands.
Earlier this year, reports suggested President Trump's Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao had held onto investments she was supposed to divest, and that her family's shipping company had used her ties to Trump to its benefit. So in a Monday letter, House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) requested Chao hand over documents and communication related to Chao's business and investment holdings by Sept. 30.
In the first half of the letter, Cummings discusses a June New York Times report detailing how Chao allegedly "used her connections and celebrity status in China to boost the profile" of her family's shipping business Foremost Group. Chao's DOT has reduced funding for U.S.-flagged ships, Cummings says, which could benefit her family's China-flagged company. He's asking for any of Chao's business communications with her family and Foremost, as well as any DOT employees' communications with Foremost.
Cummings then details Chao's "failure to divest" her stock in construction company Vulcan Materials Group, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal in May. Chao wrote on a financial disclosure form that she would sell her stocks in the company, but failed to do so, Cummings says. He is similarly requesting communications between Chao and Vulcan, and between DOT employees and Vulcan.
The investigation comes as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) prepares to ramp up attacks on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Democratic aides tell Axios. Chao and McConnell are married, and their political paths have reportedly overlapped in some suspicious ways during the Trump administration. Kathryn Krawczyk