McConnell preps final Senate vote
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell took steps Wednesday to set up a final vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, as it was announced that senators will be able to read the FBI’s report on the Supreme Court pick Thursday.
McConnell scheduled a cloture vote for Friday to end debate, meaning a vote by the full Senate could take place Saturday.
The move came as the results of the FBI probe into sexual-misconduct allegations against the judge were being sent to the Senate Wednesday night.
All 100 senators and a handful of their aides will have access to the report Thursday morning.
McConnell had previously said it would not be made available to the public.
Senators and aides have said the file will contain information from interviews conducted by the FBI, but not a conclusion about whether Kavanaugh or his primary accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is telling the truth.
To guard potentially sensitive information, the report will be kept in a secure room where the senators will be able to read it. It is on paper and there are no electronic copies, NBC News said.
Late Wednesday, President Trump tweeted, “Wow, such enthusiasm and energy for Judge Brett Kavanaugh . . . He is a fine man and great intellect. The country is with him all the way!”
A report early Thursday in The Wall Street Journal said sources in the White House say the administration believes that no corroboration of the sex allegations is contained in the report, but no details of what was found were provided.
The FBI document could make or break Kavanaugh’s nomination — even though agents did not interview Ford, the California psychology professor who accuses him of drunkenly assaulting her sexually at a high-school party 36 years ago.
In fact, the FBI didn’t question either Kavanaugh or Ford because it didn’t have the authority from the White House to do so, Bloomberg News reported. Instead, Team Trump told the agency the duo’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week was sufficient.
Still, Trump had said Monday that “the FBI should interview anybody that they want, within reason.” And Debra Katz, one of Ford’s lawyers, told Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) that Ford was ready to be interviewed and would provide the FBI with her therapy notes from years ago, in which she discussed the alleged attack, as well as polygraph data.
But the White House said Wednesday it was up to the GOP-controlled Senate to decide who would be interviewed.
In a statement late Wednesday, Ford’s lawyers challenged the notion the probe could be completed without an FBI interview of their client, saying those leading the investigation “were not interested in seeking the truth.”
Earlier, Chris Garrett, a highschool friend of Kavanaugh’s, became at least the fifth person known to have been interviewed since Friday, when the White House directed the FBI to look into Ford’s allegations. Others include Mark Judge, who Ford has said was in the bedroom when Kavanaugh allegedly attacked her, and two other people Ford said were present but in a different room: Patrick “P.J.” Smyth and Leland Keyser. Judge, Smyth and Keyser had said earlier that they don’t recall the incident described by Ford.
Senators have been awaiting completion of the report since last week, when a handful of wavering Republicans, including Arizona’s Jeff Flake, Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski and Maine’s Susan Collins, asked the FBI to renew its background check of Kavanaugh.
The GOP’s 51-49 Senate majority means Republicans can’t afford to lose more than one vote.
Kavanaugh has denied the accusations by Ford, as well as by Deborah Ramirez, who says he exposed himself to her during a Yale party, and by Julie Swetnick, who has alleged she was victimized at a party attended by Kavanaugh and his friends.