President Trump said he is willing to back any path forward that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Senate Republicans choose with regard to Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, which could include a new FBI probe into his past.
“I’m going to let the Senate handle that. They’ll make their decisions. They’ve been doing a good job and very professional. I’m just hearing a little bit about it because I’ve been with the president of Chile and we’re talking about some very important subjects,” the president told reporters in. “I’m sure it will all be very good. I guess the vote was a positive vote but there seems to be a delay. I’ll learn more about it as the day goes on. I just heard about it because we were together.”
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Kavanaugh made it past a critical step in the nomination process Friday afternoon after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of his nomination to the Supreme Court. The vote came roughly 24 hours after Kavanaugh defended himself against allegations that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford at a high school party in the early 1980s.
Asked what he thought about Ford’s testimony and how she conducted herself at the Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday, Trump said she was a credible witness and that her testimony was “very compelling.”
“I thought her testimony was very compelling and she looks like a very fine woman to me. A very fine woman,” Trump said, adding that Kavanaugh’s testimony was also “really something … incredible.”
“I think it will work out very well for the country. I just want it to work out well for the country. If that happens, I’m happy,” Trump said of the final outcome.
The president said that, at this time, he is not considering another nominee in place of Kavanaugh.
While Kavanaugh got the thumbs up from the committee, the process hit another snag Friday after Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., called for no more than a week long break so that the FBI can investigate Ford’s allegations.
“I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote up to but not more than one week in order to let the FBI do an investigation limited in time and scope [on] the current allegations that are there,” Flake said.
Flake’s request came hours after he announced his intention to vote Kavanaugh out of committee. The senator’s Friday morning decision drew immediate criticism from opponents of Kavanaugh. Just after Flake’s office released his statement, the senator was confronted in a Senate elevator by a swarm of female protesters.
The group lambasted Flake for his intention to vote for Kavanaugh and told him that he is essentially telling women that “they don’t matter.”
“I was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me. I didn’t tell anyone and you’re telling all women that they don’t matter, that they should just stay quiet because if they tell you what happened to them you are going to ignore them,” one protester shouted at Flake.
“That is what happened to me and that is what you are telling all women in America,” she said.
“You are telling me that my assault doesn’t matter. That what happened to me doesn’t matter. You are going to let people who do these things into power,” the protester continued.
Flake’s request for a delay had the potential to get support from a small group of his Republican and Democratic colleagues: Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. That potential was realized less than an hour later, after Murkowski said she is backing Flake in support of an FBI investigation.
A former Senate aide told the Washington Examiner after Flake announced he would like a delay that the decision for an FBI investigation does not lie with the senators, but rather the White House.
“The White House has to request the FBI investigation. Mitch McConnell can bring the nomination to the floor whenever he wants. Technically once he’s out of committee, any senator can make a motion to move to the Kavanaugh nominee,” the former Senate aide said. “I assume McConnell is now in a position of losing Flake’s vote if he tries to move to the nomination earlier than a week from now.”
