reports which the committee has reviewed on a bipartisan basis was there ever a whiff of anything related to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse. you and seven others wrote a letter saying you don t believe this to be accurate. what exactly is inaccurate? there are two issues here. the first one i think is one we ought to discuss as a committee. if these background investigations are to be truly confidential, we cannot have people representing what is in it or not in it. in this case, the republican staffers made a generalized tweet on what they believe was contained in previous background investigations. what was not contained in there. i think we ought to discuss that. is that the ground rule now? can i come out of reading this background report currently being made and say, let me tell you what wasn t in there. that really is the standard we ought to discuss publically. secondly, i will tell you on its face that statement was an inaccurate. that not a whiff statement.
i know it based on having reviewed personally the background investigation of judge brett kavanaugh before this controversy. you re saying there is a whiff of inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse? well, i m not going to get into specifics because i m trying to of course protect confidentiality. but the not a whiff statement came from republican staffers. they volunteered it, put it out on tweets. when i read it i thought that is plain inaccurate and wrong. saying there is not a whiff of accusations of alcohol abuse or sexual impro pprietimproprie saying that is inaccurate. yes. you are saying there is something in those reports that does point to some direction of brett kavanaugh being involved in something inappropriate before. is that a correct inference that i m making? of course that s the inference and one we ought to discuss at a committee level.