[T]he Senate Judiciary Committee advanced Friday the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, but a vote in the full Senate is on pause after the White House agreed to wait for the results of an FBI investigation before moving forward.
Members of the committee voted along party lines to advance Kavanaugh, who has been accused by three women of sexual misconduct.
When the nomination will be considered by the full Senate, however, is now up in the air.
The FBI will investigate the allegations against Kavanaugh, including those by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who testified before the Senate committee on Thursday that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.
Outside the judiciary committee hearing, women, including several Vermonters, protested with chants and blowing rape whistles.
More than 100 women, including one Vermonter, then sat down in the hallway, blocking people’s path, and were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police.
The drama outside the committee room was matched inside with a last minute decision by Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, a key undecided, to vote the nomination out of committee but only after he stipulated that he could not vote to confirm Kavanaugh in the full Senate vote until there was a FBI investigation that was “limited in time and scope.”
Flake entered the committee room 15 minutes after the scheduled time for the vote and said, “We ought to do what we can to make sure we do all due diligence with a nomination this important.”
“We need to make sure we do our due diligence. I think we can have a short pause and make sure the FBI can investigate. I’m prepared to make a request to the White House,” Flake said, echoing what Democrats have been calling for.
While committee members on both sides of the aisle were still trying to understand what was going on, committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, adjourned the meeting, citing the archaic ‘two hour rule’ — which says no Senate committee can meet after the Senate has been in session for two hours or past 2 p.m.
Now that the Kavanaugh nomination has been moved out of committee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., holds the power to decide when to a hold a Senate vote.
Key Republican swing votes include Sens. Flake; Susan Collins of Maine; and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
On Friday afternoon both Collins and Murkowski released statements saying they supported the decision to move the nomination process forward but to delay it for a week in order to allow an FBI investigation. Not long after, President Donald Trump announced that he was directing the FBI to begin the investigation at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Kate Lapp, a community coordinator for the group Rights & Democracy who organized a dozen Vermont women to travel to Washington, D.C., to show support for Ford, said Flake’s decision to call for an FBI investigation feels like a victory.
People are “shedding some happy tears, trying to process, and trying to figure out our travel plans,” she said.
“To be honest this feels like a moment to come up for air,” Lapp said, “a lot of people are feeling relief that they can go back to their families for the weekend and regroup.”
Lapp said other women are taking Flake’s comments as a sign of hope and that their actions can make a difference.
“The fight is not over and not lost and we will keep doing everything in our power and hopefully it will still work,” Lapp said.
In Burlington, as part of nationwide protests against Kavanaugh’s nomination, about 35 protesters gathered outside Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Church Street office and marched to Sen. Patrick Leahy’s Main Street office in support of victims of sexual violence.
People chanted, “No means no, Kavanaugh has got to go,” and Rep. Selene Coburn, P-Burlington, who serves on the House Committee on Judiciary, said it was disheartening to watch Thursday’s proceedings.
“On the judiciary committee that I serve on, we believe women, we protect survivors and we work to restore and heal survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence and prevent it from happening,” she said.
On Friday morning, Leahy said confirming Kavanaugh would send a chilling message to sexual assault victims.
“Every one of us who has been a prosecutor has seen how hard it is sometimes for victims to come forward and are we sending the signal that ‘you stay there. Don’t come forth,’” Leahy said in an impassioned statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Leahy also criticized Kavanaugh for “misleading” the committee and for attacking Democrats.
“I found Dr. Ford’s testimony to be wholly credible. Not one member of this committee has suggest she was not,” Leahy said, “the same cannot be said of Judge Kavanaugh.”
Leahy said that Kavanaugh’s “veracity has been an issue every single time he’s ever testified before the Senate” and that they “cannot depend on Judge Kavanaugh to tell the truth under oath.”
Leahy also said how the Senate was dealing with the allegations of sexual misconduct could have a lasting impact on the country and victims’ ability to come forward for years to come.
“When survivors see us taking sexual assault seriously, they’re empowered to come forward. If they see us callously sweeping it under the rug, I fear they’ll have disastrous consequences,” Leahy said. “If victims think they’ll never be believed then why come forward at all.”
Aidan Quigley contributed reporting.
