KAVANAUGH
statement shortly afterward that while he had reservations, he “found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist who will follow the Constitution and determine cases based on the legal findings before him.”
Earlier in the day, Flake indicated that he plans to vote for Kavanaugh’s confirmation Saturday “unless something big changes,” which he said he doesn’t expect.
In the final confirmation vote, Kavanaugh needs support from at least 50 senators. Vice President Mike Pence could cast the tiebreaking vote if necessary.
Trump nominated Kavanaugh in July to succeed retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, a move that triggered an intense partisan battle over the court’s future well before the first allegation of misconduct surfaced from Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a suburban Maryland home when they were teenagers.
The nomination collided with the #MeToo movement and midterm election politics and could alter the balance of power on the Supreme Court for a generation.
Confirmation of Kavanaugh would be a crowning achievement for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who blocked a Democratic nominee to the court for more than a year and has muscled dozens of appeals and district court nominees through the Senate.
In Friday morning’s procedural vote, all Democrats but Manchin stood firm against elevating Kavanaugh to the nation’s highest court.
Underscoring the strength of the Democratic Sen. Susan Collins of Maine delivers her 45-minute speech explaining why she will vote Saturday to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Behind her are fellow Republican Sens. Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi.
opposition, Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., called Kavanaugh’s nomination “one of the saddest, most sordid chapters in the long history of the federal judiciary.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska, was the only GOP senator to break with her party. Murkowski said she made up her mind to vote against advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination as she entered the chamber to vote Friday.
“I believe that Brett Kavanaugh is a good man,” she told reporters. “I believe he is a good man. It just may be that in my view he’s not the right man for the court at this time.”
Drama escalated in the afternoon as senators awaited Collins’ floor speech.
McConnell swiveled his chair at his desk so he could watch Collins — who sits two rows behind him — during the entire speech. As she began to speak, protesters stood up in the gallery, yelling “Vote no! Show up for Maine women!” Collins just looked down until all
had been escorted from the gallery.
Three Republican women sat behind her in a clear show of support, not sitting in their usual seats.
At the end of a nearly 45-minute speech, when Collins said she would vote to confirm Kavanaugh, McConnell led a standing ovation. He then went over and shook her hand, as did several other GOP senators. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who presided over Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, gave her a giant bear hug.
Of Collins, Ohio Republican Rob Portman tweeted that “Today the country saw her principled leadership and the Senate heard a thoughtful speech about our obligation to do our due diligence and rise above partisanship.”When Manchin emerged from his office soon afterward to talk to reporters, protesters were waiting and drowned him out by shouting “shame, shame, shame,” “you betrayed us” and “think of your daughters,” among
other things.
The last of the undecided votes began falling into place Friday after the senators reviewed a highly anticipated report from the FBI investigating allegations of misconduct against Kavanaugh while in high school and college in the early 1980s.
Republicans, including Portman, argued the report exonerated Kavanaugh of any wrongdoing, giving senators more confidence in voting to confirm him. But Democrats disputed the Republicans’ assertions, especially because, they argued, the scope of the investigation was too limited. That was a viewed shared by Ohio Democrat Sherrod Brown.
The FBI investigated the allegation brought by Ford, a psychology professor in California. Agents also looked into the accusation brought by Deborah Ramirez that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when they were students at Yale University. Kavanaugh adamantly denies both accusations.
The allegations of a third accuser, Julie Swetnick, were not a focus of the investigation.
The FBI reached out to 10 witnesses, although nine were ultimately interviewed, according to senators and the White House. But lawyers for both Ford and Ramirez have said they offered the FBI numerous other witnesses who could potentially corroborate the women’s claims.
Kavanaugh, 53, has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 2006 and previously worked in George W. Bush’s White House. He served as a clerk to Justice Kennedy in the early 1990s alongside Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump nominated for the Supreme Court last year.
The American Bar Association, which had issued a unanimous “well qualified” rating for Kavanaugh, said in a letter sent Friday that it would reopen its evaluation because of “new information of a material nature regarding temperament” that emerged from an emotional and combative hearing last week the featured testimony from Ford and Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh addressed his comportment at the hearing in an extraordinary op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published Thursday night, acknowledging that he was “very emotional” during his testimony and “I said a few things I should not have said.”
“Going forward, you can count on me to be the same kind of judge and person I have been for my entire 28-year legal career: hardworking, even-keeled, open-minded, independent and dedicated to the Constitution and the public good,” Kavanaugh wrote.