Senate Republicans Ready for Confirmation Vote, Ahead of FBI Review

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans set the stage late Wednesday for a pair of late-week votes on the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, pushing forward even as senators awaited a chance to review an FBI investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct that could determine his fate.

In a show of confidence, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader, walked to the floor of the Senate late Wednesday — before the White House had even transferred the FBI’s findings — to initiate a procedural vote Friday and a potential final confirmation vote that could take place as soon as Saturday.

“There will be plenty of time for members to review and be briefed on the supplemental material before a Friday cloture vote,” he said in brief remarks.

But McConnell’s confidence belied yet another day of roiling fights that included new objections voiced by Democrats over the investigation itself and Republican tactics, as well as condemnation by three influential Republicans of President Donald Trump for mocking one of the women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

As they were waiting for the investigative files, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee insinuated that previous FBI background checks of Kavanaugh had, in fact, turned up evidence of either inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse. A letter from Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and other Democrats chastised committee Republicans for a Twitter post that said “nowhere” in the earlier FBI checks “was there ever a whiff of ANY issue — at all — related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse.”

Information in the post “is not accurate,” the Democrats wrote.

“It is troubling,” they wrote, “that the committee majority has characterized information from Judge Kavanaugh’s confidential background information on Twitter.”

Republicans called the letter “more baseless innuendo and more false smears.”

The exchange was just part of the fierce jockeying between the parties. Hours before the documents were expected to arrive, Republicans stepped up efforts to question the credibility of the first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, confronting her with a sworn statement from a former boyfriend who questioned assertions she made during an explosive public hearing last week.

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, warned that the interview summaries might be worthless because the investigation did not include interviews with Kavanaugh, Blasey or witnesses identified as corroborators by his second accuser, a classmate at Yale named Deborah Ramirez.

Those restrictions, she wrote, raise “serious concerns that this is not a credible investigation and begs the question: What other restrictions has the White House placed on the FBI?”

But it was the three Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona — who injected the most uncertainty into the confirmation. Together they pushed for the FBI investigation over McConnell’s wishes, and they could determine whether Kavanaugh is confirmed to the Supreme Court. Trump’s mockery of Blasey at a Mississippi campaign rally Tuesday only heightened tensions.

“I am taking everything into account,” Murkowski told reporters. “The president’s comments yesterday mocking Dr. Ford were wholly inappropriate and in my view unacceptable.”

On NBC’s “Today,” Flake called the remarks “appalling.”

He said, “There is no time and no place for remarks like that, but to discuss something this sensitive at a political rally is just not right.”

And Collins told reporters in the Capitol the remarks were “just plain wrong.”

Collins did not indicate that the comments would affect her final vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Flake said they would not affect his: “No, you can’t blame or take it out on other people, the president’s insensitive remarks.”

Instead, the senators said they would judge the results of the FBI’s supplemental background investigation. Senate officials were expecting to receive the investigative material early Thursday but said no one from either party would look at it until later Thursday morning. Because the White House was expected to produce just a single copy of the findings, Republicans and Democrats planned to take turns Thursday looking at the files in a secured room in the Capitol, the officials said. Senators from both parties said they would like to see the FBI’s findings eventually made public in some form, but a previous agreement governing background investigations like the one into Kavanaugh could make that legally difficult.

A four-page memorandum between the Judiciary Committee and the White House precludes disclosure of contents of a background file by the committee and lays out circumstances under which designated staff members or senators who disclose its contents without authorization can be punished.

White House lawyers have concluded that a similar memorandum dealing with Privacy Act restrictions bars them from making the contents public either, or from commenting on them with any specificity.

An FBI background investigation differs considerably from more familiar criminal investigations and is based principally on gathering information to inform decisions by senators and the White House. In a criminal investigation, agents make crucial investigative decisions about scope and strategy, and they are able to use search warrants and subpoenas to compel evidence. Agents working a background investigation have no such tools, and they get explicit marching orders through the White House Counsel’s Office.

Trump’s remarks about Blasey dominated much of the day.

Liberal opponents of Kavanaugh turned Trump’s verbal assault on Blasey into an internet advertisement intended to pressure Collins, Flake and Murkowski.

Democratic senators railed against his insensitivity. And Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, took to Twitter to “plead with all” to stop attacks and “destruction of” Blasey.

But in a sign of how the Kavanaugh debate has shattered the long-standing rules of decorum in the Senate, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, nearly accused his Republican counterpart, McConnell, of lying after McConnell accused Democrats of trying to delay the confirmation vote.

“It is a blatant falsehood,” Schumer declared. “I’m so tempted to use the ‘L’ word — but he is my friend — to say the Democrats caused the delay.”

McConnell railed against protesters who have dogged him and other Republican senators.

“One of our colleagues and his family were effectively run out of a restaurant in recent days. Another reported having protesters physically block his car door,” he said.

“I’m not suggesting we’re the victims here,” he went on. “But I want to make it clear to these people who are chasing my members around the hall here, or harassing them at the airports, or going to their homes: We will not be intimidated by these people.”

Trump’s tone toward Blasey has shifted in the days since she first came forward with a story that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her more than 30 years ago when they were both teenagers. The president initially avoided criticizing her directly and said he would watch her testimony before the Judiciary Committee closely.

But Tuesday, before a cheering crowd in Mississippi, he dispensed with that reserve, deriding Blasey’s emotional testimony of what happened that night.

“Thirty-six years ago this happened. I had one beer, right? I had one beer,” Trump said, imitating Blasey.

“How did you get home? I don’t remember,” he said. “How’d you get there? I don’t remember. Where is the place? I don’t remember. How many years ago was it? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”