The White House authorized the new directive after a Democratic outcry. But the bureau must finish its investigation by Friday.
WASHINGTON — The White House has authorized the F. B. I. to expand its abbreviated investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh by interviewing anyone it deems necessary as long the review is finished by the end of the week, two people briefed on the matter said on Monday.
The new directive came in the past 24 hours after a backlash from Democrats, who criticized the White House for limiting the scope of the bureau’s investigation into President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court. The F. B. I. has already completed interviews with the four witnesses its agents were originally asked to talk to, the people said.
Mr. Trump said on Monday that he favored a “comprehensive” F. B. I. investigation and had no problem if the bureau wanted to question Judge Kavanaugh or even a third accuser who was left off the initial witness list if she seemed credible. His only concerns he said, were that the investigation be wrapped up quickly and that it take direction from the Senate Republicans who will determine whether Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed.
“The F. B. I. should interview anybody that they want within reason, but you have to say within reason,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Rose Garden after an event celebrating a new trade deal with Canada and Mexico. “But they should also be guided, and I’m being guided, by what the senators are looking for.”
The revised White House instruction amounted to a risky bet that the F. B. I. will not find anything new in the next four days that could change the public view of the allegations. Republicans have resisted an open-ended investigation that could head in unpredictable directions. But the limited time frame could minimize the danger even as it heightens the likelihood that F. B. I. interviews do not resolve the conflicting accounts.
Mr. Trump said he instructed his White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, over the weekend to tell the F. B. I. to carry out an open investigation, although he included the caveat that it should accommodate the desires of Senate Republicans. Mr. McGahn followed through with a call to the F. B. I., according to the people briefed on the matter.
“I want them to do a very comprehensive investigation, whatever that means, according to the senators and the Republicans and the Republican majority,” Mr. Trump said. “I want them to do that. I want it to be comprehensive. I think it’s actually a good thing for Judge Kavanaugh.”
Asked if the F. B. I. should question Judge Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump said, “I think so. I think it’s fine if they do. That’s up to them.”
As for Julie Swetnick, the third accuser who has alleged that Judge Kavanaugh attended parties during high school where girls were gang raped, Mr. Trump said he would not object to her being interviewed. “It woudn’t bother me at all. Now I don’t know all three of the accusers. Certainly I imagine they’re going to interview two. The third one I don’t know much about.”
He added that he understood she had “very little credibility” but added that “if there is any credibility, interview the third one.”
Mr. Trump ordered the one-week F. B. I. investigation on Friday after Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona and a key swing vote on the nomination, insisted that the allegations be examined before he committed to voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh on the floor. But the White House and Senate Republicans gave the F. B. I. a list of just four people to question: Mark Judge and P. J. Smyth, high school friends of Judge Kavanaugh’s; Leland Keyser, a high school friend of his main accuser, Christine Blasey Ford; and Deborah Ramirez, another of the judge’s accusers.
In his comments on Monday, Mr. Trump again accepted Judge Kavanaugh’s denials and portrayed the process as deeply unfair to his nominee. But he added that he would reconsider the nomination if the F. B. I. turned up something that warranted it.
“Certainly if they find something I’m going to take that into consideration,” the president said. “Absolutely. I have a very open mind. The person that takes that position is going to be there a long time.”
Mr. Trump made clear, however, that he would not take into consideration concerns of Senate Democrats in fashioning the scope of the F. B. I. inquiry. Instead, he expressed indignation that Democrats were questioning Judge Kavanaugh’s youthful drinking and suggested some of them were being hypocritical because they themselves abuse alcohol.
“I happen to know some United States senators, one who’s on the other side who’s pretty aggressive,” he said. “I‘ve seen that person in some very bad situations,” which he called “somewhat compromising.”
He would not identify whom he meant, but he did later single out Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, a favorite target, for misleading the public for years about his military service during the Vietnam War. “This guy lied when he was the attorney general of Connecticut,” Mr. Trump said. “He lied.”
The president was referring to a 2010 article in The New York Times reporting that Mr. Blumenthal had told audiences that he had “served in Vietnam,” implying he had fought in the war, when in fact he served in the Marine Reserve in the United States at the time. Mr. Blumenthal noted that he did serve in “the Vietnam era” but said he took “full responsibility” for what he called “a few misplaced words.
The president went further, saying that Mr. Blumenthal had boasted of fighting in Da Nang. “We call him ‘Da Nang Richard,’” he said. “And now he’s up there talking like he’s holier than thou.” In fact, the Times article did not report that Mr. Blumenthal had ever claimed to fight in Da Nang or any other specific battle. Mr. Trump also said incorrectly that Mr. Blumenthal dropped out of his Senate race as a result but won anyway.
Mr. Trump’s comments came at the same time that Senate Republicans released a five-page report questioning the account of Dr. Blasey, the California university professor who also goes by her married name Ford. The report was written by Rachel Mitchell, the Arizona sex crimes prosecutor hired by Republicans to handle the questioning of Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh for them at last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
Dr. Blasey said at the hearing that a drunken Judge Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her, tried to take her clothes off and covered her mouth when she tried to scream during a high school party in the 1980s.
“A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove,” Ms. Mitchell wrote. “But this case is even weaker than that.” The report noted that the other people Dr. Blasey identified being at the gathering did not remember anything like what she described and it pointed out other inconsistencies that it suggested undercut her credibility.
“I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the committee,” Ms.
