President Donald Trump mocked the account of a woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assault and told a MS crowd that the #MeToo movement was unfairly hurting men.
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Mr. Trump ordered the FBI to reopen a background investigation of Mr. Kavanaugh after allegations of sexual misconduct when he was 17 years old at a high school party. On Friday, he voted to move the nominee out of committee but called for an FBI investigation into allegations made against Kavanaugh in order to gain more clarity on the matter before the full Senate votes on his nomination. He has denied all accusations.
Trump and Senate Republicans have instructed the FBI to investigate it and any other “credible allegations” against him, but the president also said “speed” was important in the process.
Flake said that he is pushing the White House for “a fulsome investigation” of the allegations against Kavanaugh.
Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations. Vice-President Mike Pence would break any 50-50 tie in Kavanaugh’s favour.
The White House aides and allies said Tuesday that they remained optimistic Kavanaugh would be confirmed but frustrated with the delay on a vote. “It would – in effect – be appealing the Senate’s verdict directly to the American people”, the South Carolina Republican said.
The FBI is known to have interviewed Mark Judge, a boyhood friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s, whom Prof Ford said was in the room when she was assaulted. “There’s plenty to disbelieve in what he said but, again, it’s very hard to sort through this until you have the investigation, which is why we pushed so hard to make sure that took place”. He said she was cooperating with the investigation.
Two other people who Ford said attended the same party have also been interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Dr. Ford identified other witnesses to the event, and those witnesses either refuted her allegations or failed to corroborate them”. If all Democratic senators vote against Kavanaugh, Republicans – who have a 51-49 edge in the Senate – can only afford to lose one vote to get the judge’s confirmation passed.
Susan Collins, another undecided Republican, was riding with Murkowski on an underground Senate train.
President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh in July, has defended his pick, but appeared to temper the endorsement in recent days.
Ernst says if no corroboration is turned up she “will continue to support Judge Kavanaugh based on the information” she has.
A fourth person accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct sent an anonymous letter to Colorado Senator Cory Gardner detailing the claims.
The probe came after Kavanaugh faced a heavily-scrutinized set of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of a possible confirmation in the Senate.
He said that Kavanaugh’s life was “in tatters” and urged the crowd to think about his family.
Concerns: Flake says he supports putting a conservative jurist such as Kavanaugh on the bench but he has expressed concern about the public’s perception of an illegitimate process that would damage the Supreme Court’s reputation.
Kavanaugh would replace Anthony Kennedy, who he once served as a law clerk, on the top court. Trump denied all the allegations, calling the women “horrible, awful liars”. What’s happening here has much more to do than even the appointment of a Supreme Court justice.
But he said they are not following up at all on Ramirez’s account that Kavanaugh thrust his genitals in her face, forcing her to touch them without her consent, during an alcohol-fueled party when they were students at Yale University in the mid-1980s.
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That means if all the Democrats vote against Kavanaugh, Trump could not afford to have more than one Republican oppose his nominee, with Vice President Mike Pence casting a tie-breaking vote.
