The confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is headed into another week of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
Senate GOP leaders on Friday afternoon delayed a vote to end debate on Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination after Sen.\u00a0Jeff Flake<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Ariz.) said he would be comfortable moving forward only after the FBI conducts an investigation into the sexual assault allegations against the District of Columbia\u00a0Circuit Court of Appeals judge.<\/p>\n While Flake voted with his Republican colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the floor, his pronouncement threw another wrench into a dramatic and bitterly partisan fight that reached new heights Thursday with emotional testimony from one of Kavanaugh\u2019s accusers followed by his charged rebuttal.<\/p>\n Republicans hold a slim 51-49 majority in the Senate, meaning it would take only two Republicans to sink his confirmation if Democrats are united in their opposition.<\/p>\n Sen.\u00a0Lisa Murkowski<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Alaska) announced her support for a delay before Republican leaders agreed to Flake\u2019s request.<\/p>\n Sen.\u00a0Susan Collins<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Maine) gave her backing following the Judiciary Committee\u2019s statement saying it would request the Trump administration instruct the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation\u00a0that would be \u201climited to current credible allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n She called it a \u201csensible agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n Collins and Murkowski both remain undecided on Kavanaugh and are viewed as potential swing votes. The two senators were \u201cpivotal\u201d and \u201cvery involved\u201d in the negotiations that led to postponing the procedural vote on the Senate floor, according to Flake.<\/p>\n \u201cSome of us on the Republican side … feel more comfortable moving ahead to a final vote once the FBI has done a supplemental background check,\u201d Flake said.<\/p>\n The Arizona senator even opened the door to voting against Kavanaugh, while noting he hopes that Kavanaugh is ultimately confirmed.<\/p>\n \u201cSure, you bet, that’s why we’re doing an extended background investigation,\u201d he said when asked if he could vote “no.”<\/p>\n Sens.\u00a0Heidi Heitkamp<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(N.D.) and\u00a0Joe Manchin<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(W.Va.)\u00a0\u2014 two moderate Democrats in states won by Trump who are up for reelection this year \u2014 backed the delay. Both senators voted for Trump\u2019s first Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, in 2017.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to get politics out of this process and allow an independent law enforcement agency to do its job,\u201d Heitkamp tweeted.<\/p>\n But not all senators were pleased with the delay.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we extend a broken process beyond this expiration date,\u201d said Sen.\u00a0Lindsey Graham<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-S.C.), a member of the Judiciary Committee. \u201cBut, Jeff is very sincere, so we’re going to see what we can do.”<\/p>\n Sen.\u00a0John Cornyn<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(R-Texas), the No. 2 GOP senator, appeared bullish that Kavanaugh would eventually get confirmed, but said that if the allegations sink his nomination it would \u201cforever poison the confirmation process.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn a few more days, after a few more delays, we will finally vote to put him there and say enough with the games,\u201d Cornyn said.<\/p>\n President Trump<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on Friday said he has ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Kavanaugh\u2019s file.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week,\u201d Trump said in a statement released by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.<\/p>\n Flake noted during Friday\u2019s committee meeting, when senators advanced Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the full Senate in an 11-10 party-line vote, that it may not take the FBI a full week.<\/p>\n \u201cI understand that some of these witnesses may not want to discuss anything further, but I think we owe them due diligence,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Mark Judge, who Christine Blasey Ford said was in the room when Kavanaugh allegedly pinned her to a bed and groped her at a high school party in the early 1980s, said Friday afternoon that he would cooperate with an FBI investigation.<\/p>\n Judge has said he does not recall an incident similar to the one described by Ford.<\/p>\n A delay raises the possibility of more allegations against Kavanaugh, who has been accused of sexual misconduct during high school and college by two other women, or more evidence to corroborate existing allegations.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it would threaten confirmation only if they develop strong evidence that Judge Kavanaugh lied to the Senate or committed one of the sexual assaults with which he\u2019s charged,\u201d Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney who teaches at the University of California in both San Diego and Los Angeles, said via email.<\/p>\n Litman said a week is ample time to conduct an investigation of this kind, but it depends on whether the White House, which directs the FBI, is fully cooperative.<\/p>\n The deal to delay moving forward with Kavanaugh\u2019s confirmation vote capped off a dramatic and suspenseful day on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n The committee meeting started with several Democrats walking out in protest after Republicans scheduled a 1:30 p.m. vote to advance Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the full Senate.<\/p>\n But as the clocked ticked closer to the vote, speculation starting swirling that Flake might flip after reporters spotted him talking with Democratic Sens.\u00a0Amy Klobuchar<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Minn.) and\u00a0Christopher Coons<\/a><\/span>\u00a0(Del.), both members of the Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n Many wondered if an uncomfortable exchange with anti-Kavanaugh protesters earlier in the day contributed to Flake\u2019s decision to call for a delay.<\/p>\n On Friday morning, Flake was confronted by two women who said they were victims of sexual assault. They lambasted him for having just announced he would vote to confirm Kavanaugh.<\/p>\n \u201cLook at me when I\u2019m talking to you,\u201d one woman yelled through tears as Flake stood in the corner of the elevator looking down. \u201cYou\u2019re telling me that my assault doesn\u2019t matter, that what happened to me doesn\u2019t matter, that you\u2019re going to let people who do these things into power?\u201d<\/p>\n Flake later told reporters that hearing from multiple people led him to call for the delay.<\/p>\n “I can’t pinpoint anything but the emails and calls from friends, colleagues and associates and others who’ve talked about what this has meant to them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The confirmation process for Supreme Court...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10602,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10601\/revisions\/10602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}