THE GREAT DIVIDE GETS WIDER
KAVANAUGH’S PATH TO THE SUPREME COURT LOOKS CLEARER
Brett Kavanaugh is looking increasingly likely to be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court amid an ugly, partisan battle that has split the country and shows no indication of dying down.
U.S. Senators on Thursday saw a report by FBI investigators who had spent the last five days looking into claims of sex assault by Kavanaugh as a high schooler more than three decades ago.
A row quickly broke out with Republicans claiming investigators found “no hint of misconduct” and Democrats accusing the White House of slapping crippling constraints on the probe.
And while 3,000 demonstrators gathered outside the Supreme Court to protest Kavanaugh’s nomination, the confirmation fight has galvanized the GOP base with record donations to the Republican Party.
In a hardening of battle lines, one of two vacillating Democrats — North Dakota’s Heidi Heitkamp — said she’d oppose the Supreme Court nominee. Heitkamp, facing a tough re-election fight next month, said she was concerned about his past conduct and felt that his angry attacks on Democrats during last week’s Judiciary Committee hearing raised questions about his “current temperament, honesty and impartiality.”
However, in a potential sign of momentum for Kavanaugh, Republican Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN that “we’ve seen no additional corroborating information” for the accusations and that the investigation had been comprehensive. Flake, who’s not stated his position on the nomination, was among three Republicans who had pressed President Donald Trump to order the renewed FBI background check.
Another GOP lawmaker who has publicly taken no stance, Susan Collins of Maine, also called the probe “a very thorough investigation” and said she’d read the documents later.
Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski said she’d read the report.
Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia also has not declared how he’ ll vote.
The battling commenced as the conservative jurist’s prospects for winning Senate confirmation remained at the mercy of five undeclared senators, including the three Republicans, with an initial, critical vote looming Friday and a decisive roll call on his confirmation, likely over the weekend. It followed the FBI’s early-morning release of its investigation.
“There’s nothing in it that we didn’t already know,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa.
He said he based his view on a briefing from committee aides and added, “This investigation found no hint of misconduct.”
Other Republicans who’d already voiced support for Kavanaugh echoed Grassley, saying there’d been no corroboration of wrongdoing by Kavanaugh.
Said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, “The senators who requested the supplemental background check got what they requested, and I am ready to vote.”
Top Democrats fired back at Grassley after getting their own briefing.
The Judiciary panel’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, said it appeared that the White House had “blocked the FBI from doing its job.”
She said that while Democrats had agreed to limit the probe’s scope, “we did not agree that the White House should tie the FBI’s hands.” Several senators said 10 witnesses were interviewed for the report. One senator said it was about 50 pages long.
Republican Sen. John Kennedy said agents reached out to 10 but spoke only to nine. He said five were witnesses connected to accusations by Christine Blasey Ford and four involved a separate claim by Deborah Ramirez.
Feinstein complained that agents had not interviewed Kavanaugh or Ford, who has testified that he sexually attacked her in a locked bedroom during a high school gathering in 1982.
Grassley said the FBI could not “locate any third parties who can attest to any of the allegations,” and he said there is “no contemporaneous evidence.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats’ fears that the “very limited process” laid out for the investigation would restrain the FBI “have been realized.”