Senate plans procedural vote on Kavanaugh
in bitter confirmation fight
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[October 05, 2018]
By Richard Cowan and Amanda Becker
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald
Trump's drive to cement the conservative grip on the top U.S. court
faces a major test on Friday as the Senate holds a key procedural vote
on Brett Kavanaugh, whose Supreme Court nomination has set off a
political brawl.
Senate Republicans were growing more confident they would win the 10:30
a.m. (1430 GMT) vote after two wavering Republican senators responded
positively on Thursday to an FBI report on accusations of sexual
misconduct against Kavanaugh. The Senate plans a final confirmation vote
on Saturday.
Trump, himself accused by numerous women during the 2016 presidential
race of sexual misconduct, wrote on Twitter that the FBI report showed
that the allegations against Kavanaugh were "totally uncorroborated."
The confirmation of Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, would tip
the balance on the Supreme Court to a 5-4 conservative majority. He was
nominated by Trump to succeed retired Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was
seen as a swing vote on the court.
While she did not pledge support for Kavanaugh, moderate Republican
Senator Susan Collins said the FBI probe appeared thorough.
Republican Senator Jeff Flake, who voted for Kavanaugh at the committee
level on the condition that the FBI look more closely into the
allegations against Kavanaugh, said he saw no additional information
corroborating the accusations.
Most Democrats opposed Trump's nomination of Kavanaugh from the outset,
but their objections sharpened when Christine Blasey Ford, now a college
professor in California, and two other women accused Kavanaugh of sexual
misconduct in the 1980s when he was in high school and college.
Ford and Kavanaugh testified at a dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing last week in which she described the alleged assault, and
Kavanaugh denied all of the allegations against him, while accusing the
Democrats of a political "hit."
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U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh becomes emotional as he
testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing
for Kavanaugh on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 27,
2018. REUTERS/Jim Bourg/File Photo
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday, Kavanaugh said he "might
have been too emotional at times" in his testimony, saying it
"reflected my overwhelming frustration at being wrongly accused."
"I know that my tone was sharp," he wrote, "and I said a few things
I should not have said."
Trump's fellow Republicans hold a 51-49 majority in the Senate,
meaning that if all Senate Democrats oppose Kavanaugh, Trump cannot
afford to lose more than one Republican vote for his nominee, with
Vice President Mike Pence casting a tiebreaking vote.
No Republicans have said they will vote against him, but all eyes
will be on Flake, Collins, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski and
Democrat Joe Manchin - all potential swing votes.
The FBI report, sent by the White House to the Senate Judiciary
Committee in the middle of the night on Thursday, was denounced by
Democrats as a whitewash that was too narrow in scope and ignored
critical witnesses.
Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley said: "The (FBI) investigation
doesn’t come close to honoring and respecting the women who came
forward to share their stories. It appears that the White House
completely circumscribed the investigation to try to make it
meaningless and they succeeded."
(Reporting by Amanda Becker and Richard Cowan; Editing by Kevin
Drawbaugh and Peter Cooney)
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