Key senators back embattled Kavanaugh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — US President Donald Trump’s nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, looked headed for a lifetime job on the US Supreme Court on Friday after two crucial senators said that sexual misconduct accusations against the judge would not prevent them from voting to confirm him.
If Kavanaugh is approved in a final Senate vote, likely today, Trump will have achieved a victory in his drive to consolidate conservative dominance of the nation’s highest court and move the American judiciary to the right.
Two key senators, Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Joe Manchin, both seen as swing votes, said they would support Kavanaugh, after weeks of debate about sexual violence and the nominee’s temperament that gripped the nation.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation would give conservatives a solid 5-4 majority in future legal battles on contentious issues such as abortion rights, immigration, industry regulation, presidential powers, and gay and transgender rights.
A sharply partisan battle over the nomination became an intense personal and political drama when university professor Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were high school students in Maryland in 1982.
Collins, in remarks on the Senate floor explaining her decision to back Kavanaugh, said Ford’s accusations against him “fail to meet the more-likelythan-not standard.”
As protesters in a Capitol Hill hallway shouted, “Shame! Shame! Shame!” Manchin told reporters an FBI investigation, which did not find corroborating evidence of Ford’s accusations, was thorough.
“I believe Dr. Ford. Something happened to Dr. Ford. I don’t believe the facts show that it was Brett Kavanaugh, but I believe something happened,” Manchin said.
Two other women also made accusations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh in the 1980s. He denied those accusations, as well as Ford’s, in angry testimony to a Senate committee.
The only Republican to vote against Kavanaugh, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said in a speech on the Senate floor on Friday night that her decision was “agonizing” but after watching Kavanaugh’s Senate testimony she “could not conclude that he is the right person for the court at this time.”
About 100 demonstrators were arrested on Friday in Senate office buildings, the Capitol Building, and outside the Supreme Court, the US Capitol Police said in a statement. More than 300 were arrested on Thursday.
Republicans hold a 51-49 majority in the US Senate, and with the two key senators choosing to vote in favor of Kavanaugh, the confirmation looked locked-in late on Friday.
Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice, a group that opposes Trump’s judicial nominees, said Kavanaugh would join the court “with a cloud over his head.”
“He will be an illegitimate justice, and his confirmation will mark a point of no return for the Supreme Court’s reputation as the one, apolitical branch of government,” Fallon said.