FBI report in; vote today
Kavanaugh laments his sharp tone with panel
WASHINGTON — A pair of undeclared Republican senators accepted a confidential new FBI report into sex-abuse allegations against Brett Kavanaugh on Thursday as “thorough,” bolstering GOP hopes for confirmation as the Senate prepared to vote on President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.
One of the senators hinted that he was open to supporting Kavanaugh as party leaders set a pivotal preliminary vote for 10:30 a.m. today. If that succeeds, a final roll call is expected Saturday.
Meanwhile, Kavanaugh on Thursday wrote a column published on The Wall Street Journal’s website acknowledging that he “might have been too emotional” in Senate testimony but says he can be counted on to be an “even-keeled” judge.
Kavanaugh said his “tone was sharp” and he said “a few things” he should not have during testimony last week before the Judiciary Committee.
His column appeared to be aimed at winning over three undecided GOP senators.
Six days after Trump ordered the FBI to scrutinize sexual misconduct accusations — which Kavanaugh has denied — leading GOP lawmakers briefed on the agency’s confidential document all reached the same conclusion: There was no verification of at least three women’s past claims and nothing new.
Democrats complained that the investigation was shoddy, omitting interviews with numerous potential witnesses, and they accused the White House of limiting the FBI’s scope in the investigation.
Those not interviewed in the reopened background investigation included Kavanaugh himself and Christine Blasey Ford, who said he had sexually assaulted her during a 1982 house party.
A week after the televised Senate Judiciary Committee hearing at which Kavanaugh and Ford testified, the Capitol campus remained a stew of tension. A hefty police presence added an air of anxiety, as did thousands of anti-Kavanaugh demonstrators who gathered outside the Supreme Court and in Senate office buildings.
U.S. Capitol Police said 302 people were arrested — among them comedian Amy Schumer, a distant relative of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
“What we know for sure is the FBI report did not corroborate any of the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told reporters about the FBI document, which was sent to Congress overnight. On the Senate floor, he called the accusations “uncorroborated mud.”
Earlier, Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, one of the publicly undecided Republicans, told reporters that “we’ve seen no additional corroborating information” about the claims against the 53-year-old conservative jurist and the investigation had been comprehensive.
A second undeclared Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, also expressed satisfaction with the inquiry, calling it “a very thorough investigation,” and she paid two visits to the off-limits room where the document was being displayed to lawmakers. She told reporters she’d not announce her position until today.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said she was “still reviewing” her decision.
While GOP leaders were not saying they definitely had the support needed to confirm Kavanaugh, backing from two of the three undecided senators would ensure Kavanaugh’s confirmation because every other Republican was poised to back him. Republicans have a narrow 51-49 Senate majority, and Vice President Mike Pence will be available to cast a tie-breaking vote.
Flake, concerned about Ford’s testimony of alcohol-fueled sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh, had refused to let Kavanaugh’s nomination proceed last week until Trump ordered the FBI probe. Flake and two other GOP moderates were briefed together Thursday on the investigation in the secure room. They were followed by reporters for much of the day, sometimes shielded by Capitol Police.
“The president, the White House are firmly behind Brett Kavanaugh,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said during an appearance Thursday morning on CNN. “We believe that all the Senate’s questions have been addressed through this supplemental FBI investigation.”
CRITICS AND SUPPORTERS
Underscoring the hardening partisan lines, one of the two undecided Democratic senators said she’d oppose Kavanaugh. North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, who faces a difficult re-election race next month, cited concerns about his “past conduct” and said she felt his heated attacks on Democrats during last week’s Judiciary Committee hearing raised questions about his “current temperament, honesty and impartiality.”
West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, the other undeclared Democrat, spent time looking at the report and said he would resume reading it today.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat, said that while her party had agreed to a weeklong FBI probe with a finite scope, “We did not agree that the White House should tie the FBI’s hands.”
Feinstein was joined by Schumer, who echoed her complaints but suggested that there is objectionable new information in the documents. He reiterated his call that the documents — “with proper redactions” — be made public. “Why shouldn’t all of America see the facts?” he asked.
Democrats also objected to a statement by committee chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who said the investigation “found no hint of misconduct.” The Judiciary panel’s 10 Democrats said in a statement that based on their briefing and study of the document, “That is not true.”
Grassley also 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.”
Neither side specified what they were referring to. Under rules that Congress and the White House have used for years, FBI background checks are considered confidential, and lawmakers and aides are not supposed to reveal the details.
Shah rebuffed Democrats’ complaints, saying, “What critics want is a never-ending fishing expedition into high school drinking.” He said the FBI reached out to 10 people and interviewed nine, including “several individuals at the request of the Senate, and had a series of follow-up interviews … following certain leads.”
Senators said the documents they examined totaled about 50 pages. Some said there were notes on interviews with nine people, though others said 10.
Trump, who Tuesday mocked Ford’s Judiciary panel testimony, tweeted that Kavanaugh’s “great life cannot be ruined by mean” and “despicable Democrats and totally uncorroborated allegations!”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said five of the witnesses involved Ford’s claims and four were related to Deborah Ramirez, who has asserted that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were Yale freshmen.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said senators would sit around a rectangular table reading different sections of the report while a committee aide read other parts aloud. Senators were allowed to take notes but not remove them from the room, he said. The chamber, in the Capitol Visitor Center adjacent to the Capitol, is also used for secret intelligence briefings. Some lawmakers said they’d not been able to schedule time in the room until today.
Corker said nine of the pages were about Mark Judge, the Kavanaugh friend who Ford said also jumped on her while Kavanaugh assaulted her. Judge has said he doesn’t recall the incident.
While the FBI interviews were to focus on sexual assault allegations, Democrats have also questioned Kavanaugh’s drinking habits during high school and college, and dishonest comments they say he has made about his background. Kavanaugh has said stories about his bad behavior while drinking are exaggerated.
Barring leaks, it was unclear how much if any of the FBI report would be made public.
Lawyers for Ford and for Ramirez wrote to the FBI on Thursday decrying a “failure” to fully investigate their claims. Ramirez’s lawyer said his client had provided a list of more than 20 potential witnesses who he did not believe were interviewed.
“We can only conclude that the FBI — or those controlling the investigation — did not want to learn the truth behind Ms. Ramirez’s allegation,” the lawyer, William Pittard, wrote.
Ford’s lawyers provided the FBI with the names of eight people who they argued should have been interviewed, in addition to their client, and offered to provide additional evidence, including medical records. They said Thursday that they got no response.
“The ‘investigation’ conducted over the past five days is a stain on the process, on the FBI and on our American ideal of justice,” the lawyers wrote.
CHURCH, LAWYER OPPOSITION
On Wednesday, the National Council of Churches, an umbrella organization representing dozens of Protestant denominations, released a rare statement on Kavanaugh. The council usually steers clear of Supreme Court nominations.
“We believe he has disqualified himself from this lifetime appointment and must step aside immediately,” the group, which represents about 30 million U.S. parishioners, wrote in a statement.
“During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Kavanaugh exhibited extreme partisan bias and disrespect towards certain members of the committee and thereby demonstrated that he possesses neither the temperament nor the charac-
ter essential for a member of the highest court in our nation,” the statement said. “We are deeply disturbed by the multiple allegations of sexual assault and call for a full and unhindered investigation of these accusations. In addition, his testimony before the Judiciary Committee included several misstatements and some outright falsehoods.”
Jim Winkler, the president and general secretary of the council who authorized the statement, said Thursday that he hopes and believes that members of Congress will take notice, as they prepare to vote on the nominee. “Many have told me, ‘We definitely pay attention to what the faith community says,’” Winkler said.
Meanwhile, more than 1,200 law professors have signed onto a letter saying that Kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial restraint at last week’s Senate hearing — behavior that would be disqualifying for any court nominee.
At the hearing, he vehemently defended his innocence and derided what he called “a calculated and orchestrated political hit.”
Afterward, law professors across the country began discussing “with great distress, the unprecedented and unfathomable demeanor of Judge Kavanaugh,” said Bernard Harcourt, a professor at Columbia Law School.
The letter, which will be sent to the Senate, grew out of those conversations. “It was a spontaneous reaction to the hearing,” Harcourt said.
The groundswell was overwhelming, he said, with hundreds of lawyers from more than 150 law schools signing on within hours.
Signatories included Martha Minow — the former dean of Harvard Law School, where Kavanaugh taught a popular course — and some scholars who previously supported Kavanaugh.
Harcourt said they signed out of concern about a rush to judgment, in the belief that for the Senate to elevate Kavanaugh “without full information and deliberation to the Supreme Court would undermine the respect owed” to the institution.
The letter to the Senate cites two laws governing bias and recusal, noting, “Judges must step aside if they are at risk of being perceived as or of being unfair.”
“We have differing views about the other qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh,” they wrote. “But we are united, as professors of law and scholars of judicial institutions, in believing that Judge Kavanaugh did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land.”
Information for this article was contributed by Alan Fram, Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Daly, Kevin Freking, Padmananda Rama, Juliet Linderman, Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo, Catherine Lucey and Zeke Miller in Washington; by John Raby of The Associated Press; by Nicholas Fandos and Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times; and by Susan Svrluga, Julie Zauzmer, John Wagner, Seung Min Kim, Emma Brown, Josh Dawsey, Mike DeBonis, Karoun Demirjian, Tom Hamburger, Paul Kane, Gabriel Pogrund, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Erica Werner of The Washington Post.