The Senate Judiciary Committee today voted, along party lines, to pass Kavanaugh’s nomination on to the full senate for a vote, but…
Senator Flake requested that the full Senate vote be delayed for 1 week, to allow the FBI to investigate some of the recent allegations against him. The White House has ordered the FBI to do so.
Is this real? Are the Republican’s on the Judiciary Committee really interesting in what the FBI might find? Is this the only way that Flake would agree to vote for Kavanaugh in the full vote? Is there real concern for the truth, or is this a way to be able to say to the voting public “See? We let the FBI look. We’re doing our due diligence”? Something else?
Yes, Flake would only agree to vote in the full House vote if there were a one-week FBI investigation. Of course, this stipulation is not binding, as nobody on that committee has the authority to order the investigation.
McConnell will have to decide if he needs Flake’s vote badly enough to order the investigation.
The R Senators recognized that the public had bought into the D’s demand for an FBI investigation.
It’s important to satisfy the public. Especially a few weeks before mid term elections. Otherwise the D’s will be using this as a political club against the R’s. Imagine the political ads before the election.
So, the FBI will do exactly what the committee had already done. They’ll get statements from Ford and Kavanaugh. They’ll get statements from Mark Judge, PJ, and Leland Keyser. The three identified at the alleged party.
The committee already has sworn statements but the FBI will confirm their findings.
Hopefully that will satisfy the demand for an OFFICIAL FBI INVESTIGATION. As if the congressional committee investigation was incompetent.
The D’s played the FBI card like a masterful violinist.
So they get their precious way. It won’t change a thing.
Either you believe the accuser or you don’t. It’s a he said / she said case.
None of the other people have any memory of a 35 year old event. Even Ford says there’s no reason Leland or PJ would remember. Nothing special or memorable happened for them.
I don’t see how the FBI can do an investigation in a week. My guess would be a serious investigation would take at least a couple months: you talk to A; he mentions B; you talk to B; he mentions C and something which contradicts what A said; you go back to A as well as talking to C…
And there are several separate incidents which need to be investigate–so you do this for each one. So you talk to 50 to 100 people all together and several are contradicting each other…
FBI investigation? Can the words “witch hunt” be far behind?
Kidding. (I hope.)
McConnell never wanted Kavanaugh. Trump only wanted Kavanaugh because McGann told him Kavanaugh was his best chance to fucker up Mueller’s probe. Even that is a long shot.
McConnell knew the only possible chance to accomplish Trump’s wish was to ram this shit show through so fast he hoped no one would notice. That failed.
But for McConnell, even a loss is a win. If Kavanaugh doesn’t withstand the FBI investigation and the vote goes south on him/Kavanaugh withdraws before the investigation is complete, then McConnell simply moves on to one of his preferred choices and pushes the new nominee through before the mid-terms if possible, and after the mid-terms if he must.
As for whether the Judiciary Committee is genuinely interested in what the FBI might find… at least some of them already probably have a pretty good idea. Which explains why Dems were pushing for it so hard – and why the Republicans were fighting it every step of the way.
Time and/or investigation are not Kavanaugh’s friends. I think he’s gone. Unfortunately, the next one won’t be.
It is a rather arbitrary deadline, but I suppose that there is some chance that the deadline could get moved out if the initial responses make it look like they might not want to attach their horse to this cart.
On the other hand, the case has been in the news and it’s possible that there are some number of people all ready trying to knock down the FBI’s door, wanting to talk, who didn’t want to get the publicity and attention from going to the media.
I don’t think the FBI is going to be doing a lot of driving in the first week. They’ll just have a queue of people to process who all come in to meet with them.
The Republicans need a week to get some polling done so they can decide whether defending Kavanaugh is a good idea. They probably also want an idea of how much more evidence is out there before they commit themselves too deeply to denying it.
I really had the feeling McConnell was always hoping to lose the vote. After Murkowski, Collins and Flake had earlier said they were leaning toward Ford, I got the feeling from body language that he was really trying to wink and say “Come on people, stop demanding a hearing, lets just rush a vote, shoot this jackass down, and move to the next nominee, and we all win for now, except Trump.”
I think you’re right. The only downside for McConnell is the Republicans look weak to the base, but that’s temporary and he’ll regain their admiration no matter which krazy konservative he shoves onto the SCOTUS.
McConnell has a finger in the wind, and he has stated cryptically on more than 1 occasion that the Senate is now in play for Dems as well as the House. The minute he committed to Kavanaugh, I think he knew the Republicans are probably going to be run out on a rail come November. More of them than many realize. Even if Kavanaugh goes down in flames, women will vividly remember this moment on November 6th.
I think he knows his only and final legacy is a 5-4 SCOTUS. He’s going to get it done no matter what or whom he sacrifices to it.
The nomination itself has been referred to the full Senate. The investigation report is what would be delivered, distributed and entered into the record to be used by the Senate in their making of the final voting decision. The committee need not take additional votes and need not make any other comment or recommendation than “here’s that FBI report that was asked for”, or could append their own repprt on what *they *think of it (more likely, a majority and minority reports). Technically they could try withdrawing today’s nomination report to the Senate for further consideration but that would NOT necessarily prevent passage as the Senate has the means to relieve the committee from a matter and place it on the Daily Order directly.
Correct me if I misheard this. I am under the impression that the Senate has no power to order an investigation. They can only request it. The president has to order it which he has. The DoJ is part of the executive branch.
If I was doing the investigation it would take a long time. I would have to bounce around and would be pulled in a million different directions. If given access to all manpower and resources the FBI has at their disposal it can be done in a week. After all they are not putting together a case for prosecution. Most if not all of the players have been identified. If there is anything concrete that will mean the end of the nomination you will see his nomination withdrawn before the end of the week.
This, and Flake is taking bids for his vote. Since this is his last Senate term and he exits, IIRC, in January. He can’t get too greedy, but he’s a fulcrum for this confirmation vote. Which I guess is ironic, considering the Justice that Kavanaugh would be replacing.
Surprising that Donnelly (https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/408944-donnelly-to-vote-no-on-kavanaugh) has evidently already made clear that his vote would be “No,” considering how close his Senate race is, and how much his state voted for Trump in '16. Guess that’s what makes this interesting. I’m also surprised given his vehemence—implying that Kavanaugh doesn’t need Dem votes—that Heitkamp and Tester haven’t made their "No"s public then.
Doubt it for two reasons. Firstly since the base has from what I can tell been energised by this fight, remember the allegations first came out [del]2 million years[/del] two weeks ago. Secondly, the committee has been investigating, they do have access to support from other law enforcement. They almost certainly would have not agreed to an investigation if they felt that there was a risk of an adverse finding for them.