Chapter Title: How to Work the Refs: What the Dems Should Learn From the GOP

“We have no power.” — Chuck Schumer, 2018

🧠 I. The Moment of Fracture

October 2018. Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings. #MoscowMitch in full ram-through mode. The Democratic base was unified—but the cracks were forming. Some trusted the leadership. Others, like myself, were skeptical.

FN: You can fairly surmise where I came out from where I add the word us…

The debate sharpened after the November landslide. The enemy was clear. The goal was achieved. But now the question was: What next?

The FN only makes sense with my original exact wording in the manuscript. Question is wether I prefer this wording-in which case the FN goes.

🧠 II. The Unity Police vs. The Cassandras

Democratic Twitter split. Some questioned Schumer’s fight. Others accused the skeptics of sowing division. You hoped they were right. But like with Barr and Mueller, the Cassandras were correct.

FN: See Chapter Barr-Durham for more.

Ryan Grim’s reporting confirmed it: Schumer told allies to sit on their hands. A furious stand would “enrage Trump supporters” and “disappoint progressives.” His mantra? We have no power.

I couldn’t help but ask—would Harry Reid have said that?

🧠 III. The Myth of Stored Power

Schumer’s premise was flawed. Power isn’t something you store for later. It’s a scarce resource. You use it or lose it. The Senate Democrats could have made Kavanaugh’s confirmation painful. Instead, they made it easy.

UPDATE: See Tennessee Democrats for how to fight asymmetrically—even when outnumbered.

The operative credo wasn’t damn the torpedoes. It was don’t rock the boat.

🧠 IV. The Grassroots Pressure That Shifted the Field

Kavanaugh’s confirmation wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Grassroots protests moved the needle. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake—all felt the heat. Demand Justice threatened ads. Schumer was furious.

Not because it wouldn’t work. But because it might.

🧠 V. The Strategy of Inaction

After Blasey Ford’s testimony, Schumer told the caucus: “Don’t do anything.” His logic? Kavanaugh couldn’t survive. So the smartest move was to stand down.

“Don’t screw this up. Don’t give Republicans a way to paint Kavanaugh as the victim.”

They did that anyway. They were always going to. The Democrats didn’t fight. Millions of women feared for Roe. Now they live in its aftermath.

🧠 VI. The Inconvenience of Courage

Blasey Ford’s emergence was inconvenient—for Schumer, for Feinstein. Feinstein sat on the letter. She didn’t delay it. She never intended to release it.

“Ford had sent the letter on July 30. It only came to light in mid-September—after Grim’s reporting.”

The GOP accused Feinstein of Machiavellianism. Ironically, they were exactly right—and exactly wrong.

🔥 Final Punch

The Democrats didn’t just fail to stop Kavanaugh. They failed to fight. Schumer’s strategy was always the path of least resistance. Feinstein’s silence was complicity. The GOP weaponized every moment. The Democrats feared optics. Millions of women deserved a war. They got a shrug. And the lesson? Power unused is power lost. The GOP works the refs. The Democrats apologize to them.

🧠 The Letter, the Leak, and the Lie of Restraint

🧠 I. Feinstein’s Delay and the Cost of Caution

Feinstein claimed Ford’s letter was confidential. But Grim’s reporting dismantles that defense. Ford had already taken steps to come forward. She wanted confidentiality until Feinstein spoke with her—not indefinite silence.

Legal, not personal issues. That was Feinstein’s rationale. But Ford’s letter wasn’t just legal—it was moral. It demanded to be heard.

And yet Feinstein chose restraint. Not to protect Ford—but to protect her own reelection bid. Facing a challenge from Kevin de León, she needed conservative votes. A combative posture toward Kavanaugh didn’t serve her interests.

🧠 II. The Rhapsody of Professionalism

Feinstein didn’t just delay the letter. She praised Lindsey Graham’s professionalism. The same Graham who helped ram through a nominee accused of sexual assault. The same Graham who would later cheer the fall of Roe.

Millions of women feared for Roe. Now they live in its aftermath.

Eight months later, Sarah Jones wrote: “Democratic Leaders’ Reluctance to Wage Kavanaugh Fight Looks Even Worse Today.” That was June 2019. Two years before Dobbs.

🧠 III. Trumpland’s Sham Investigation

Ford’s testimony gained traction. Jeff Flake asked for an FBI investigation. But optimism was hard to come by. The FBI had elected Trump. It was now run by Chris Christie’s Bridgegate lawyer.

The investigation was a charade. Just enough cover to confirm Kavanaugh. And the Democrats rushed to absolve the Trumpland-I mean the FBI—presuming Trump’s Russia House had tied their hands. Not sure what this small print below is referring to-have to check the original manuscript

But the FBI didn’t want to embarrass Trump. They’d already helped elect him.

Matthew Miller, Obama’s former DOJ spokesman, warned Senate Democrats: don’t trust the FBI. They didn’t listen.

🧠 IV. The McGahn Paradox

Trump wanted a real investigation. McGahn said no. The same McGahn hailed as the hero of the Mueller Report—who resisted Trump’s obstruction.

But here? He led it.

“A wide-ranging inquiry would be disastrous for Kavanaugh’s chances.”

If Kavanaugh was innocent, why would a real investigation be disastrous?

🔥 Final Punch

Feinstein delayed the truth. Schumer feared the optics. The FBI ran a sham. McGahn blocked the truth. And the Democrats, once again, chose restraint over resistance. Ford wanted to be heard. The country needed a fight. But the leadership chose silence. And the cost? Roe. Credibility. And the canon of truth buried beneath professionalism and political calculus.

🧠 The Sham Investigation and the Myth of Restraint

The FBI’s “supplemental background investigation” was narrow by design. McGahn told Trump they couldn’t “rummage indiscriminately”—as if interviewing the two central figures in a sexual assault allegation was somehow indiscriminate.

Ten people were interviewed. Neither Kavanaugh nor Blasey Ford were among them.

Trumpland expected applause. Democrats hoped for a real investigation. But they were skeptical. And rightly so.

🧠 The Cassandra of DOJ: Matthew Miller

Obama’s former DOJ spokesman, Matthew Miller, warned Democrats: Don’t trust the FBI. This was the same agency that handed Trump the presidency in 2016. That Democrats still needed to be warned two years later says everything about the Old Guard’s blind spots.

Miller’s prescription? Treat the FBI like the GOP does.

“Absent any pressure from Democrats, the FBI is likely to simply follow its orders from the White House.”

🧠 The Asymmetry of Accountability

Republicans assault the DOJ with politicized demands. Democrats praise its professionalism. The result? A Justice Department that bends to the loudest voices—those on the right.

In 2016, the FBI tried to reassure the GOP it wasn’t biased toward Clinton. It handed them the election. And still, the GOP claims anti-Trump bias.

Meanwhile, Democrats continue to presume the best. The Bureau has never had a Democratic Director in 100 years. But the praise flows anyway.

🧠 Wray, Rosenstein, and the Federalist Pipeline

Chris Wray—Bridgegate alumnus, Federalist Society member, Yale Law peer of Kavanaugh—was in charge of the investigation. He was a political appointee in the Bush DOJ. The Savvy class calls him an “apolitical institutionalist.”

But he’s not substantively non-Republican. He’s just branded that way.

Wray was supervised by Rod Rosenstein—another Federalist Society alum. Rosenstein and Kavanaugh worked together on Ken Starr’s Clinton investigation. Rosenstein attended Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

The pipeline is tight. The loyalties are deep. And the myth of neutrality is just that—a myth.

🔥 Final Punch

The FBI didn’t just fail to investigate. It ran cover. The Democrats didn’t just fail to push—they praised. The GOP works the refs. The Dems write thank-you notes. And the institutions, shaped by decades of asymmetric warfare, bend toward power. The lesson? You don’t win by trusting the system. You win by pressuring it. The GOP knows this. The Democrats still don’t.

🧠 The Optics Double Standard

In theory-at least in institutionalist theory-Wray and Rosenstein could fairly oversee the investigation. But in practice? The GOP spent years accusing lifelong Republicans—Comey, McCabe, Mueller—of being Clinton loyalists. If the shoe were on the other foot, and a Democratic nominee was being investigated by former colleagues and law school peers, the GOP would torch the building.

The optics alone would trigger a full-blown scandal. But for Kavanaugh, it was business as usual.

🧠 The FBI’s Tools—Unused

Miller laid out the FBI’s options:

• Notify the White House that more interviews were needed
• Include blocked leads in the final report
• Leak aggressively to the media

FN: True—though in reality, they only leak when the subject is a Democrat. See: 2016.

The Bureau had scope to resist. But it lacked incentive. And the Democrats didn’t push.

🧠 Miller’s Recommendations: A Blueprint Ignored

Miller offered three tactical moves:

1. Nadler should threaten subpoenas and hearings
2. Wray and Rosenstein should recuse due to ties to Kavanaugh
3. 302s should be released publicly, just as they were for Clinton in 2016

The last two were never going to happen. Schumer’s strategy was minimal resistance. Recusal demands and 302 releases would prolong the fight and look “partisan”—the opposite of his goal.

Feinstein wanted a narrow legal fight. Schumer wanted it over. The GOP wanted a win. Only one side got what it wanted.

🧠 Nadler Talks the Talk

To his credit, Nadler did make Miller’s first move—at least rhetorically. He promised an investigation if Democrats won the House. He called the FBI’s probe a “whitewash.” He said the legitimacy of the Court was at stake.

“We are going to have to do something to provide a check and balance.”

But he sidestepped impeachment. And like so many Democratic promises, the follow-through was murky, indeed nonexistent.

🔥 Final Punch

The GOP would have torched the FBI for far less. The Democrats praised it. The Bureau had tools to resist—but no pressure to use them. Miller gave them a playbook. Nadler read the first page. Schumer refused to open it. And the result? A whitewashed investigation. A confirmed nominee. And a Supreme Court whose legitimacy was sacrificed for optics. And a post Roe country of course where in many parts a 13 year old rape victim has less rights than her rapist. 

🧠 Nadler’s Promise and Pelosi’s Pattern

Nadler said the House would investigate. Subpoenas. Witnesses. Records. Even Wray himself. But interviewing Kavanaugh while seated on the Court? “Difficult,” he pronounced. So giving up before he even started-you might not be able to compel his testimony but his refusal could be used as an article of impeachment against him. But that’s the sort of out of the box thinking the leadership blanches at.

The FBI didn’t even interview Ford or Kavanaugh. How much more obvious do leads need to be?

By then, the Savvy narrative had calcified: Nadler’s comments were a political faux pas. The mythical “independents” would be displeased. Republicans accused Democrats of undermining the Court’s legitimacy.

 How about an investigation that actually interviewed the accuser and the accused?

🧠 The Legitimacy Illusion

Schumer and Friends feared “undercutting the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.” But the GOP Court had long undercut itself—Bush v. Gore, Citizens United, and now Dobbs.

FN: And this was four years before Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito’s corruption came to light.

Nadler felt obligated to proceed. But the pundits—and Schumer—wanted the whole thing memory-holed. And that’s exactly what happened.

🧠 The Pelosi Bottleneck

Nadler talked the talk. But walking the walk? That was Pelosi’s call. Rachel Bade’s reporting makes the pattern clear: Pelosi resisted accountability. Norm Eisen’s book confirms it—Nadler’s team drafted 10 articles of impeachment in August 2019. Pelosi shut them down.

She gave the much more narrowly construed impeachment portfolio she finally agreed to, to Schiff. She imposed a Christmas deadline. She wanted it over fast—just like Schumer did with Kavanaugh.

In 2021 Chris Coons notoriously wanted the second impeachment wrapped up by Valentine’s Day.

🧠 The Window That Closed

Democrats could have investigated Kavanaugh during their four years in power. They didn’t. Ford never testified before the Judiciary Committee. Now the House is run by McCarthy, Greene, and Santos.

They should investigate post-Dobbs. But their past inaction doesn’t inspire confidence.

🧠 Post-Dobbs Drift

After Dobbs, Democratic messaging was tepid. “Vote harder,” said President Joe and Doug Jones. But the moment demanded more than turnout—it demanded reform.

Filibuster. Court expansion. Institutional reckoning.

Hakeem Jeffries may be more open to risk. He’s Gen X. He’s electric on the mic. But he was Pelosi’s protégé. The margin of improvement remains to be seen.

The Dems would do pretty well in 2022 actually having a historical out performance holding on to the Senate and only narrowly losing the House-even here they could have hold on if not for the pathetic job done by Rich Schaeffer’s Democratic party-and Jay Jacobs Democratic party-on Long Island.

FN: Pelosi was a skilled Speaker. But on hardball, she was risk-averse.

🧠 The Tip Line That Went Nowhere

In 2022, Democrats confirmed what many suspected: Wray’s FBI slow-walked the Kavanaugh investigation. Ten interviews. No Ford. No Kavanaugh. But 4,500 tips were sent to Trump’s Russia House.

The subject got to choose the witnesses. The FBI ran cover. The Democrats ran out the clock.

🔥 Final Punch

Nadler promised accountability. Pelosi blocked it. Schumer feared optics. The FBI slow-walked justice. And the Supreme Court, already compromised, was further corrupted. The Democrats had power. They chose restraint. The GOP works the refs. The Democrats apologize to them. And the cost? Roe. Credibility. And a canon of truth buried beneath caution.

🧠 The Tip Line That Became a Dead End

In a Senate Judiciary hearing, Sheldon Whitehouse confirmed what many suspected: the FBI collected over 4,500 tips about Brett Kavanaugh—and handed them directly to the Trump White House without investigation.

“Correct,” Wray said, when asked if the Bureau failed to pursue the tips.

The Trump White House also dictated which witnesses the FBI could interview. The requesting entity controlled the scope. The subject controlled the process.

“Nothing prevented the White House from using tip line info to steer the investigation away from corroborating witnesses.” — Whitehouse

🧠 Wray’s Pattern of Deference

This wasn’t new. Whitehouse had raised concerns in 2019. The tip line was the only conduit for new information. The Bureau never pursued it. Wray echoed GOP talking points: the investigation was “by the book.” Supplemental background checks, he claimed, are inherently limited.

Not surprising. Wray is Republican in substance, if not in name. Indeed he was Chris Christie’s Bridgegate lawyer who got him off while his underlings who carried out his orders got sent to prison.

🧠 The Coons–Whitehouse Letter

In August 2019, Senators Coons and Whitehouse demanded answers:

• Why weren’t key witnesses contacted?
• How involved was the White House in narrowing the scope?
• Had the FBI ever used a tip line this way before?

The Bureau didn’t respond for nearly two years.

In June 2021 the FBI admitted it forwarded all “relevant tips” to Trump’s Office of White House Counsel—the same office that constrained the investigation.

🧠 The Wray–Horowitz Playbook

Wray’s delay wasn’t an anomaly. It’s a pattern—shared by Michael Horowitz. Both slow-walk Democratic oversight. Both fast-track GOP demands, no matter how baseless.

Selective responsiveness is the new institutional neutrality.

Last summer, Whitehouse and colleagues sent another letter. More questions. More silence.

🔥 Final Punch

The FBI didn’t just fail to investigate. It outsourced the process to the subject’s legal team. Wray echoed GOP talking points. Horowitz slow-walked oversight. The tip line became a dead end. And the Democrats, once again, were left chasing accountability through a maze built to obscure it. The GOP works the refs. The Democrats wait for a whistle that never blows.

🧠 The Tip Line That Wasn’t

Senator Whitehouse said it plainly: if the FBI didn’t follow up on the tips, what was the point of having a tip line?

It wasn’t a tip line. It was a tip dump. A garbage chute.

The 4,500 submissions were rerouted to Don McGahn—the same McGahn who told Trump to keep the investigation narrow, who prioritized protecting the nominee over uncovering the truth.

The fox wasn’t just guarding the henhouse. He was shredding the evidence.

🧠 The Silence of the Institutions

Whitehouse wrote again—to Wray, Garland, and the White House Counsel’s Office. He laid out what the Senators had learned. He asked for answers.

Eight months later: no response.

Garland’s silence speaks volumes. The resistance Whitehouse faced wasn’t just political—it was institutional. He refused to concede power before trying. Schumer, by contrast, declared defeat before the fight began.

🧠 The Lesson of Asymmetry

Matthew Miller was right: Democrats need to up their game with the FBI—and with the Deep State writ large. The IG. The Secret Service. The Supreme Court.

But the FBI isn’t predisposed to cooperate. This is the agency that:

• Elected Trump
• Hunted the Clintons for 25 years
• Has never had a Democratic Director in 115 years

You don’t win by trusting institutions. You win by pressuring them.

🔥 Final Punch

Schumer said “we have no power.” Whitehouse proved otherwise. He demanded answers. He exposed the sham. He refused to surrender to optics or fatigue. The Democrats don’t need more deference. They need more squeaky wheels. More subpoenas. More fire. More fight. The GOP works the refs. The Democrats need to stop thanking them and start calling the game.