Initial Senate vote on Kavanaugh nomination set for Friday

The Senate braced for a crucial initial vote Friday on Brett Kavanaugh's tottering Supreme Court nomination after Majority Leader Mitch McConnell set his polarized chamber on a schedule to decide an election-season battle that has consumed the nation.

A showdown roll call over confirmation seemed likely over the weekend.

McConnell, R-Ky., cemented the process late Wednesday and announced that the FBI would soon deliver to an anxious Senate the potentially fateful report on claims that Kavanaugh sexually abused women.

With Republicans clinging to a razor-thin 51-49 majority and five senators including three Republicans still vacillating, the conservative jurist's prospects of Senate confirmation remained murky and dependent, in part, on the file's contents, which are supposed to be kept secret.

"There will be plenty of time for members to review and be briefed on the supplemental material" before Friday's vote, McConnell said to the nearly empty chamber. In a rare moment of randomness in what's been a deadly serious process, the normally meticulous lawmaker's cell phone emitted a ringtone during part of his remarks.

Lawmakers were planning to begin reading the FBI report Thursday morning, with senators and a small number of top aides permitted to view it in a secure room in the Capitol complex. Senators are not supposed to divulge the contents of the agency's background reports.

The report was arriving at a Capitol palpably tense over the political stakes of the nomination fight and from aggressive anti-Kavanaugh protesters who have rattled and reportedly harassed senators. Feeding the anxiety was an unusually beefy presence of the US Capitol Police, who were keeping demonstrators and frequently reporters at arm's length by forming wedges around lawmakers walking through corridors.

Amid complaints that some lawmakers were being confronted outside their homes, McConnell claimed on the Senate floor that the protesters were "part of the organized effort" to derail Kavanaugh's nomination.

"There is no chance in the world that they're going to scare us out of doing our duty," he said.

Adding to the uncertainty, the three undecided GOP senators who could decide Kavanaugh's fate rebuked President Donald Trump for mocking one accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, by mimicking her responses to questions at last week's dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

"I would tell him, knock it off. You're not helping," Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said of Trump's Tuesday night tirade.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump's insults marked a "new low." Barring leaks, it was unclear how much of the FBI report, if any, would be made public.

While senators from both sides have expressed support for revealing at least parts of the findings, FBI background checks on nominees are supposed to remain confidential.

Underscoring rising tensions, Democrats suggested that previous FBI background checks of Kavanaugh may have unearthed misconduct by the nominee.

Democrats wrote to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, challenging a Tuesday tweet by GOP aides saying prior investigations never found "a whiff of ANY issue at all related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse."
Democrats wrote that the GOP tweet contained information that is "not accurate." Committee Republicans tweeted in response that their prior tweet was "completely truthful" and accused Democrats of "false smears." Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters that Trump's lampooning of Ford at a Tuesday night Mississippi campaign rally was "just plain wrong."
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday echoed the president's newly aggressive approach. She said Ford has "been treated like a Faberg egg by all of us, beginning with me and the president," and said Trump was merely "pointing out factual inconsistencies."