Kavanaugh: Trump orders FBI inquiry after Republicans vote to advance nomination
Move comes after Republican
senator Jeff Flake threatened to oppose nomination without further examination
of allegations
Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington
@SabrinaSiddiqui
Fri 28 Sep 2018 23.41 BST First
published on Fri 28 Sep 2018 15.11 BST
Donald Trump has directed the FBI
to launch a supplemental investigation into the supreme court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh, after an extraordinary display of 11th-hour drama at the Senate
judiciary committee vote to advance his confirmation on Friday.
Trump said in a statement that the
updated investigation into his nominee for America’s highest bench “must be
limited in scope” and “completed in less than one week”. However, he later
suggested in a tweet that it was only a matter of time before Kavanaugh was
appointed.
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Just started, tonight, our 7th FBI
investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He will someday be recognized as a
truly great Justice of The United States Supreme Court!
2:27 AM - Sep 29, 2018
Senate Republicans voted to
advance Kavanaugh’s nomination despite a last-minute change of heart by a
Republican senator, who broke ranks and called for an FBI investigation into
the sexual assault allegations that have roiled the judge’s confirmation process.
Moments before the Senate
judiciary committee voted 11-10, along strict party lines, to send Kavanaugh’s
nomination to the floor for the full chamber’s consideration, Senator Jeff
Flake announced he would support a “limited” FBI investigation and threatened
to oppose Kavanaugh if there was no further examination of the allegations
against him.
“I think it would be proper to delay the floor
vote for up to and not more than one week in order to let the FBI do an
investigation,” Flake said at the hearing on Friday.
Following Flake’s insistence, the
Senate judiciary committee later said it was formally requesting that the Trump
administration instruct the FBI to conduct a supplemental background
investigation that would be “limited to current credible allegations against
the nominee and must be completed no later than one week from today”.
The decision marks a reversal for
the administration, which had argued that Kavanaugh had already been vetted.
The remarkable turnaround came
hours after Flake announced his support for Kavanaugh despite dramatic
testimony on Thursday that saw the supreme court nominee and Christine Blasey
Ford, a California professor who accused him of sexual assault, deliver dueling
testimony on Capitol Hill.
Flake, who had been regarded as a
crucial swing vote, reversed course after he was confronted by two survivors of
sexual assault in an elevator shortly before Friday’s committee vote.
The confrontation with Flake could
be seen in TV footage blocking the Arizona senator from closing the elevator
door. Through her tears, one woman said she had been a victim of sexual
assault, and begged Flake to look her in the eye. She said: “Look at me and
tell me that it doesn’t matter what happened to me.”
The gripping exchange appeared to
have had an impact on Flake, who subsequently sat stone-faced in the committee
room in anticipation of the vote. As his Republican colleagues took turns
declaring their support for Kavanaugh, Flake abruptly left the room to engage
in private discussions with Democrats on the committee.
Nearly an hour of tense,
closed-door deliberations followed, pushing the vote past its scheduled time.
As members exited and re-entered the room several times, seeking to make sense
of what was transpiring behind-the-scenes, Flake finally re-emerged before the
committee and voiced support delaying a full Senate vote on Kavanaugh pending a
FBI investigation.
“We can have a short pause and
make sure the FBI can investigate,” he said.
During Thursday’s hearing, Ford
recounted how Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when the two were teenagers in
the early 1980s. Kavanaugh vehemently denied the charge from Ford, who
testified to lawmakers under oath that she was “100%” sure he assaulted her.
According to her lawyer, Ford
welcomed the FBI investigation, but said “no artificial limits as to time or
scope should be imposed on it”.
Kavanaugh said he had done
“everything” the Senate had asked of him and “will continue to cooperate.”
Thursday’s emotionally charged
hearing underscored not only the potential ramifications of sending Kavanaugh
to the supreme court, where he would play a role in shaping decades’ worth of
policy, but also the societal impact of the #MeToo movement and recourse for
victims of sexual assault.
It remains unclear if Republicans
possess the necessary votes from the full chamber to confirm Kavanaugh. With a
narrow 51-49 seat majority in the Senate, Republicans can afford to lose just
one vote.
Tell us: how have the Brett
Kavanaugh hearings affected you?
Read more
Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa
Murkowski of Alaska, two of the Senate’s prominent Republican women, have
remained undecided on Kavanaugh. Both senators on Friday afternoon expressed
support for a limited FBI investigation following the committee’s announcement
that it would seek one.
CNN
✔
@CNN
Women confront Sen. Jeff Flake after he says
he'll vote yes to Kavanuagh: “That’s what you’re telling all women in America,
that they don’t matter. They should just keep it to themselves because if they
have told the truth you’re just going to help that man to power anyway.”
3:46 PM - Sep 28, 2018
Speaking to reporters earlier on
Friday, Trump said he had not considered an alternative to Kavanaugh. But he
did not escalate pressure on Senate Republicans to rally behind his nominee,
stating: “They have to do what they think is right.”
Also earlier in the day, Sarah
Sanders, the White House press secretary, had dismissed calls for a new FBI
investigation, telling reporters Kavanaugh had already “been through six
separate background investigations by the FBI”.
Kavanaugh is a darling of the
conservative right in America but his path to the supreme court has been hit by
a series of sexual assault allegations from three women.
Democrats have called for
Kavanaugh to withdraw as more accusers have come forward. Following Kavanaugh’s
fiery testimony on Thursday, several Democrats voiced concerns over his
suitability for the historically independent supreme court.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, the
judiciary committee’s top Democrat, said the judge had been “aggressive and
belligerent”.
“I have never seen someone who
wanted to be elevated to the highest court in our country behave in that
manner,” she said.
Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from
Vermont, lamented the committee was no longer independent.
He said: “We are an arm, and a
very weak arm, of the Trump White House.”
Brett Kavanaugh: Trump defers to
Senate after Jeff Flake calls for FBI investigation – as it happened
Read more
Red-state Democrats facing tough
re-election battles in November, some of whom crossed over the aisle last year
to confirm Trump’s other supreme court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, also appeared to
feel the heat. At least two of them, Senators Jon Tester of Montana and Joe
Donnelly of Indiana, announced they would vote against Kavanaugh on Friday.
“As I have made clear before,
sexual assault has no place in our society,” Donnelly said in a statement.
“When it does occur, we should
listen to the survivors and work to ensure it never happens again. That should
not be a partisan issue.”
Joe Manchin, a vulnerable Democrat
up for re-election in West Virginia, endorsed Flake’s position.
Meanwhile, there were signs the
remarkable testimony had registered negatively with at least two organizations
whose endorsement Kavanaugh had earlier received.
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