are working to make sure that that happens. it does no good to have an investigation that just gives us more cover, for example. we actually need to find out what we can find out. this expanded investigation must still be completed by friday, but this is now twice president trump, a man who prides himself as a fighter, has relented on the kavanaugh confirmation process. is this just a negotiating tactic? the art of the deal, if you will? or a sign of dwindling support for the supreme court nominee? with me now, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter ken delanian. along with msnbc political an cyst susan delpersio. and lanny chen, former policy adviser to the romney campaign and now a research fellow at the hoover institution. ken, first, to you. this expanded investigation, i know you left my show to work on
confirming what the new york times had. what can you tell us about where the investigation goes now and who they are allowed to interview. as it turns out, peter alexander and jeff bennett were able to get it confirmed, katy. and there are still some mysteries about it, but at least in terms of the sexual assault allegations by christine blasey ford and debra ramirez, the fbi is now authorized to interview anybody they deem relevant. and that s actually pretty important, because as it stood before, and we were the first to report this on saturday, there was significant restrictions placed on the fbi and also on the investigative steps that they would take to corroborate these allegations. really unprecedented. nor ex for example, ramirez offered them witnesses that she said could corroborate her story, that kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a yale party, they weren t allowed to talk to those witnesses. now they are. we don t know if this issue of
mark judge should not been an expansion of the investigation, who should be interviewed, obviously, but getting brett kavanaugh back and speaking to the fbi, how important is that? i think it s extremely important. you can compare this interview with what he said in his public testimony this past week, there are certain ly things, did he le about the drinking, some of the things in the yearbook. i don t want to send everyone to urbandecisi urb urbandictionary.com, but there are certainly different phrasings than what is in his book. it points to his overall credibility. and i think that is something, as you have some republicans senators remaining on the fence, that s what they re going to look to. that is a question of credibility. if you re talking about the drinking, he says maybe sometimes he had a few too many, but he never blacked out. his behavior is being refuted by people who knew him at the time. the yearbook and those
kavanaugh s drinking, and the disputes about how he characterized his drinking in his testimony to the senate, whether the fbi will be able to examine that question, or this question of whether kavanaugh lied about certain yearbook references that many people believe were sexual but he said were not. so, and those things, some people believe are important, because they go to his credibility and particularly if he did have a drinking problem and could be blackout drunk, that could go to the issue if he sexually assaulted someone when he was drunk. we don t know if the fbi is going to investigate that, but clearly the white house has changed its tune here and it s in part about getting the 50 votes, because senator jeff flake and senator susan collins said they were involved in forcing this decision. do those small lies or misleading statements in the testimony mean he could be lying about something larger. that s a big question. in terms of the president opening this investigation eve
anybody whose feathers are being ruffled with mitch mcconnell going out and being essentially brushing off this fbi investigation, calling it, or making it sound like it s not going to result in anything that would sway anybody s vote? well, that s the party line here, katy, for republicans, is that this investigation will be like the previous six background checks that judge kavanaugh has been through and won t turn up much of anything, but they say, that are making this concession to their colleagues to make everyone a little bit more comfortable taking a vote, which, the majority leader said will happen this week, essentially come hell or high water. he drew a very hard line in his remarks, saying, regardless of the status of this investigation, regardless of whether or not it is satisfactory to the senators who asked for it, there will be a vote. republicans have made the argument that every delay that happens here is really just a tactical move by democrats who are trying to i