Brett Kavanaugh just took a BIG step toward the Supreme Court

Senators had one day to review a confidential supplemental background check into Kavanaugh’s behavior in the early-to-mid 1980s when he was in high school and college. Collins said Kavanaugh assured her during a private meeting that Roe v. Wade, the ruling that established abortion rights, is settled law. “Republicans said they’d be angry if he wasn’t”, said Anthony Salvanto, CBS News’ director of elections and surveys.

“Certain fundamental legal principles about due process, the presumption of innocence and fairness do bear on my thinking and I can not abandon them”.

It’s not a huge surprise that Manchin voted for Trump’s nominee considering he’s running for reelection in a state the president won by almost 42 percentage points over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Republicans woke up on Friday without the necessary 50 votes to push ahead on Kavanaugh’s nomination, people with direct knowledge of the situation tell CNN, though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his deputies were optimistic that they’d get there by the time of the vote.

“We have found nothing, nothing to corroborate accusations against him”, Hatch said. Collins, a crucial vote, announced her decision in a dramatic speech on the Senate floor.

At senators behest, the FBI investigated and the agency’s latest report Thursday did not corroborate “any of the sexual misconduct allegations against” Kavanaugh, said Majority Leader and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, according to the Associated Press.

Experts are split about whether the Kavanaugh uproar will fuel Republican or Democratic turnout, but Trump insisted that the “harsh and unfair” treatment of Kavanaugh by Democrats is having “an incredible upward impact on voters”.

Several Democrats conferred with Murkowski as well, including Minnesota Sen.

Democrats called the Federal Bureau of Investigation report a whitewash and said the White House placed constraints on the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which did not speak to many potential witnesses.

Melina Mara-Pool/Getty Images Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, with lawyer Debra S. Katz, left, answers questions at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 27, 2018.

Feinstein added, “Democrats agreed that the investigation’s scope should be limited”.

Responding to criticism from the other side of the aisle, Trump tweeted on Thursday that “this is now the seventh time the FBI has investigated Judge Kavanaugh”.

The chamber voted 51-49 to move forward with President Donald Trump’s nominee.

On Friday, Flake voted to end debate and advance Kavanaugh’s nomination for a final vote.

In addition to Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, high-profile cases of sexual assault recently brought the issue to the fore in Alaska. The nine-member court is now operating with eight justices.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation would ensure a conservative majority on the court for years and perhaps decades to come – and hand Trump a huge political victory.

On Thursday afternoon, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told a small gathering in Boca Raton, Florida, that Kavanaugh should not be confirmed, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Thousands of anti-Kavanaugh protesters rallied outside the Supreme Court and entered a Senate office building, holding signs such as “Believe Survivors” and “Kava-Nope”. “I’ve changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability …”

“If you appear before congress and lie, you’re out, and I really wish the senators felt that way”, she said.