From the October 4 edition of MSNBC Live with Hallie Jackson:
HALLIE JACKSON (HOST): As we wait and watch that, John, talk me through what exactly is inside this report that senators are looking at right now. What kind of information? How is it laid out? Bring us inside the room.
JOHN MINDERMANN (FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT): What will be laid out within the limits of the scope and the time that the FBI had to do the investigation will be a portrait of the individual who is being investigated. That’s in any background check. The key to a background check is comprehensive running out of all available leads. Apparently in this case, those leads, which were available, were not run out by the FBI because of the limits of time and scope. That is very, very problematic because that limits the overall portrait. It’s like taking the brush out of the hand of the painter midway through the portrait session. What will be in there will be corroborating or not statements, data, information, times, dates, et cetera, that may or may not corroborate specific allegations that were brought forward.
JACKSON: We know that the FBI has spoken with nine people that have been interviewed. And we know the names of six of them. We don’t know who the other three people are. We know that they originally contacted 10 people. It’s not clear to us just yet, based on our sources, why that tenth person was not actually interviewed. You can see who we know and who we don’t know there. Dr. Ford’s attorney says because she’s not on this list – right, you don’t see Christine Blasey Ford on that screen right there – so her lawyer says this can’t be called an investigation. The FBI was not actually seeking the truth. So John, do you agree? Is this a comprehensive investigation or not?
MINDERMANN: I actually agree that really this does not fall under the definition of a real, authentic FBI investigation. It really is an investigation which is just limited in terms of targeting specific individuals, and for reasons unknown, eliminating a vast majority of people who could have provided corroborating evidence, corroborating information, positive, negative, neutral, whatever. But in an FBI investigation – and I’ve done these and I’ve supervised these – in these investigations, you encourage your agents to go out, cover all bases, run out all leads, develop that comprehensive look so that whoever is looking at this is well versed and can make that judgment call. This is a judgment call. There’s a lot of subjectivity if you don’t have factual information.
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