Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who delayed Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination last week, announced Friday that he would vote to confirm him, The Hill reports.
Flake made his position known after a procedural vote on Friday morning.
Flake announced his support for Kavanaugh last week shortly before the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance his nomination to the floor. But after being confronted in a Senate elevator by two women saying they were victims of sexual assault, Flake struck a deal with Democrats on the Judiciary Committee to delay a floor vote for a week to give the FBI time to investigate assault allegations against Kavanaugh.
After reviewing the FBI’s report Thursday, however, Flake said there was nothing in it to back up the allegations from Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party in the early 1980s when they were both in high school.
Republicans hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate and cannot afford to lose more than one GOP senator without needing to rely on Democratic support to confirm Kavanaugh on Saturday afternoon.
Ford last week provided the Senate with an account of an alleged assault against her by Kavanaugh when they were in high school. Kavanaugh followed with an emotional performance of his own, blasting the confirmation proceedings as “a national disgrace” and accusing senators of letting the chamber’s constitutional role of “advice and consent” become twisted into a mission to “search and destroy.”
Following that hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)