And it turns out the Senate won’t, at least not without a week-long FBI investigation.
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However, it’s unclear if Republican leaders – or President Donald Trump – will support Mr Flake’s call for the investigation or might instead press forward with a full Senate vote on Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination.
What is the FBI’s role? The White House declined to answer specific inquiries. The information would then be added to the nominee’s background file, which is available to senators.
Ford said Judge, a close high school friend of Kavanaugh’s, was in the room when he pinned her to a bed, tried to pull off her clothes and clasped his hand over her mouth to stifle her screams.
FBI Director Christopher Wray meets with Sen.
“Deciding to proceed without conducting an additional investigation would not only have a lasting impact on the Senate’s reputation, but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court”, ABA President Robert Carlson wrote in a letter to key senators. Chris Coons (D-DE) pushed Flake into calling for the FBI investigation and now the Democrat wants to widen the scope of the investigation. The next step for Kavanaugh is the confirmation vote before the full Senate.
Doing so would “have a lasting impact on the Senate’s reputation, but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court”, said the letter from the ABA’s president to top Senate committee members, published widely by USA media.
In 2004 Judge Kavanaugh testified the nomination of William Pryor to the 11th Circuit “was not one that I worked on personally”.
Mr Flake voted to advance Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination from the committee to the full Senate, but announced he wanted to delay a confirmation vote by a week in order to let the FBI investigate. And five days of hearings, during which Judge Kavanaugh testified for almost 40 hours.
The investigation will be limited to “current credible allegations” against Kavanaugh and must be completed within a week, the committee requested.
Trump also said “these Democratic senators” are a ‘disgrace’. You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t matter and that you’re going to let people who do these things into power.
McConnell would likely only agree to such a maneuver if he thought the nomination likely to fail without Flake’s vote.
“I’ve heard her talk about many different kinds of feelings very genuinely and I can feel her pain really”, Deborah Peters, Ford’s sister-in-law, said during an interview with CNN host Kate Bolduan on Friday.
Can an investigation be done in a week? They’ll have no choice but to do so if the Federal Bureau of Investigation finds something credible there, against all odds, but for now they’re going to let Avenatti carry his own water.
The FBI can not force someone to talk to them as part of the process.
Grassley said he told Flake, “I would advocate for the position he took but I don’t control it”. “They do not make… recommendations”.
Still, with 36 years between the night of the alleged attack and the forthcoming background investigation, the agents in this background check have their work cut out for them.
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They come against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement – and the hearing included sharp exchanges between Republicans and Democrats mirroring the atmosphere of bitter political partisanship in Washington. “It was so hard to listen to, and I know a lot of people around the country felt the same way”. He said: “I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process”.
