In a surprising turn of events today, when the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on whether to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination to the floor of the Senate for a full vote, Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona said that he would vote yes to do so, but also said that he wants the FBI to reopen their background check into Judge Kavanaugh to better determine the facts surrounding Dr. Ford’s extremely credible testimony yesterday. He said he wanted the delay to take no more than a week.
Senator Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, reportedly supports Senator Flake’s position that the full Senate vote needs to be delayed to allow the FBI to investigate Dr. Ford’s claims.
Right after this post was first published, Susan Collins of Maine tweeted that she is joining Senator Flake and Senator Murkowski in asking for the FBI background check. Senator Flake is not running for reelection to the Senate and this morning on TV one commentator referred to him as the “heat shield” making this slight pushback on the Republican side of the aisle possible.
While Flake, Murkowski, and Collins are not in charge of opening up FBI background checks (the White House has to ask the FBI to do this, so cross your fingers), their move today strongly suggests that if an FBI background check isn’t reopened, they would vote no when the full floor of the Senate votes, thus torpedoing Kavanaugh’s nomination. There are 51 Republican seats in the Senate, so if two or three vote no, and all Democrats join them, the confirmation goes down in flames.
So, against all odds, it may turn out that the White House decides they have to reopen the background check because it’s their only remaining chance to get their nominee confirmed.
Earlier this morning, Senator Flake had signaled that he planned to vote yes to advance Kavanaugh’s nomination out of committee, but after news reports of that expected vote, he was confronted in an elevator by two women who said they had been sexually assaulted and that if Flake voted yes on Kavanaugh, he would be telling them that they—and millions of other women—don’t matter.
“You’re telling all women that they don’t matter, that they should just stay quiet because if they tell you what happened to them, you’re going to ignore them,” one of the women said. “That’s what happened to me and 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 tell the truth they’re just going to help that man into power anyway. That’s what you’re telling all of these women! That’s what you’re telling me right now!”
She added, “Look at me and tell me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t matter.”
Another woman said: “You have children in your family! Think about them! I have two children, and cannot imagine that for the next 50 years, they will have to have someone in the Supreme Court who has been accused of violating a young girl. What are you doing, sir?”
Watch the full elevator confrontation here:
VIDEO: Jeff Flake confronted in an elevator by two women over Kavanaugh. pic.twitter.com/MOTuHvE8RW
— andrew kaczynski🧐 (@KFILE) September 28, 2018
After Flake’s announcement to the committee, journalist Robert Costa said, “We’re watching history unfold, in a raw and urgent way. A retiring Republican senator dramatically changes the trajectory of a Supreme Court nomination as his sometime foil/POTUS looks on from 1600 [Pennsylvania Avenue].”
Presumably, the background check that Flake and Murkowski have asked for would include interviewing people like Kavanaugh’s high school friend and noted alcoholic Mark Judge, who is reportedly hiding out in beachfront property somewhere on the eastern shore, not wanting to talk to anyone about his high school bestie Brett Kavanaugh.
But Senator Collins just tweeted: “I am pleased to hear Mark Judge has indicated he would cooperate with investigators.”
Dr. Ford testified yesterday that Mark Judge was “ambivalent” during the assault, at some times encouraging Kavanaugh as he pinned down and groped and silenced Dr. Ford, and at other times telling Kavanuagh to stop. She also testified that it was eventually Mark Judge who put an end to the encounter by climbing onto the bed and breaking Kavanaugh’s grip on Dr. Ford, who was 15 years old at the time.
Kavanaugh denied the allegations yesterday while all but foaming at the mouth.
He didn’t even listen to Dr. Ford’s testimony (shades of putting his hand over someone’s mouth) although I bet he regrets that this morning. It was a serious strategic blunder, because he stormed in there saying all kinds of cuckoo stuff about a leftwing conspiracy orchestrated by the Clintons. Dr. Ford made it clear that she was an independent person, not a partisan player, no one’s puppet, and that she had tried to sound the alarm on Kavanaugh before he became the nominee, essentially to help Trump select a better candidate.
Even Fox News admitted that Dr. Ford’s testimony was “extremely credible.”
Flake seems to have changed everything today. Even Lindsay Graham—speaking of people who were foaming at the mouth yesterday—changed his tune after Flake’s announcement today. Graham told reporters, almost cheerfully, “Somebody’s gotta explain this to Trump. I guess that’s my job.”
UPDATE! 2:14 PM: President Trump has asked for the FBI to reopen its background check.
Statement from President @realDonaldTrump:
“I’ve ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file. As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week.”— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 28, 2018
