Published on The New York Times, the letter states Kavanaugh “did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament requisite to sit on the highest court of our land”.
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The Senate is poised to take a key procedural vote at 10:30 a.m. Friday on whether to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Some 3,000 protesters gathered outside the Supreme Court yesterday to protest against Mr Kavanaugh’s proposed appointment.
The battling commenced as the conservative jurist’s prospects for winning Senate confirmation to the Supreme Court remained at the mercy of five undeclared senators, with an initial, critical vote looming Friday. On Wednesday, the California senator said in a statement that a lack of FBI interviews with Kavanaugh and Ford “raises serious concerns that this is not a credible investigation”.
The controversy has unfolded just weeks ahead of the November 6 congressional elections in which Democrats are trying to seize control of Congress from the Republicans. Kavanaugh has denied the accusations.
Even though the report is not public, if there was a bombshell revelation in it about Kavanaugh, the Democrats would have said so.
However, senior Democrats attacked the process, calling the investigation “incomplete” and accusing the White House of limiting its scope.
Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation leveled against him by Ford.
“Beyond this shameful spectacle, which is an embarrassment to the Senate, what will endure are the actual facts before us”, he said, adding that he looks forward to voting for the “well-qualified” Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
The protester, referring to Kavanaugh, said “if he would take a polygraph it would all be over Senator”.
Ford, who testified before the judiciary committee in Washington on September 27, alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, when they were high school students.
Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from ME, said it was “a very thorough investigation”. A final vote could come Saturday.
Late in the day, with Collins praising the reach of the brief FBI investigation and Flake indicating he had seen nothing incriminating in the results, the pro-Kavanaugh forces appeared closer to the prize.
In particular, she objected that the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not interview Ford, despite the fact that Ford had already testified before the committee and expressly testified that she had nothing further to add. Schumer said, “We had many fears that this was a limited process …”
Nothing was more predictable than Republican senators embracing the FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh and Democrats denouncing it.
Democrats complained loudly about the process, saying it made it tough to evaluate the FBI’s findings.
The FBI didn’t interview Kavanaugh or Christine Blasey Ford, one of his accusers, because it didn’t have clear authority from the White House to do so, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said the Trump administration was “fully confident” Kavanaugh had the necessary support.
“It’s time to vote”, he said.
The Senate Republican leadership accuses the minority Democrats of attempting to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination for exclusively political reasons.
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The FBI’s report will be available at a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, in the Capitol Visitor Center, a secure room designed for senators to review sensitive or classified material, two Senate officials said.
