Flake says he wants a ‘real’ investigation of Kavanaugh
U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake kept the national gaze on himself Monday, telling a Boston audience that included vocal protesters that he wants a “real investigation” of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
“We certainly want the FBI to do a real investigation,” Flake said of the Kavanaugh probe he helped make happen. “We are working to make sure that that happens.”
“It does no good to have an investigation that just gives us more cover,”
he said, according to accounts of his remarks by Boston’s CBS affiliate WBZ. “We actually need to find out what we can find out and we have to realize we may not be able to find out everything that happened.”
Flake was scheduled to deliver a speech later Monday in New Hampshire, a key presidential primary state. That only fuels speculation about Flake’s possible presidential ambitions in 2020.
Flake at least temporarily sidetracked Kavanaugh’s nomination to the high court when the Arizona Republican said Friday that he only would vote to confirm the judge if the FBI examined the allegations of sexual assault from decades ago that were detailed in a spellbinding hearing in Washington last week.
The investigation was expected to end this week, and Democrats and Republicans already have feuded over whether the probe is being unfairly limited in time and scope.
Flake explained in a “60 Minutes” segment on Sunday how the compromise on the investigation was reached by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Before Flake spoke at Monday’s event, there were an estimated 2,000 protesters urging Flake to oppose Kavanaugh’s nomination.