WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Senate is poised to take a crucial vote Friday on whether to advance Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the Supreme Court as\u2026<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Senate is poised to take a crucial vote Friday on whether to advance Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the Supreme Court as key Republican senators remain undecided amid allegations of sexual misconduct and intense protests that have divided the nation.
The 53-year-old judge made what were in effect closing arguments by acknowledging that he became \u201cvery emotional\u201d when forcefully denying the allegations at a Judiciary Committee hearing last week. \u201cI said a few things I should not have said,\u201d he wrote in an op-ed published Thursday evening. But he said he remains the same \u201chardworking, even-keeled\u201d person he has always been. \u201cGoing forward, you can count on me,\u201d he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
The op-ed, as well as a late boost from President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Minnesota, appeared aimed at winning over the three wavering senators from the slim GOP majority \u2014 Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska \u2014 and one Democrat, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who has yet to announce his position.
Ahead of Friday\u2019s voting, Republicans emerged confident that an FBI investigation into the allegations unearthed no new corroborating details, they said. But a level of uncertainty lingered as Collins and Flake spent hours Thursday pouring over confidential FBI documents in the secure basement briefing room long after others had left seemingly satisfied with the findings.
Even without locking in support, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pushed ahead with trying to move Trump\u2019s nominee forward in what would be an election year win for his party. The Republican leader has little room for error with his party\u2019s slim 51-49 hold on the Senate, even if Vice President Mike Pence is called in to break a tie. A final vote is expected Saturday.
Tensions have been high at the Capitol with opponents of Kavanaugh, including survivors of sexual assault, confronting senators in the halls and holding vigil across the street at the Supreme Court. Supporters of Kavanaugh also turned out.
Trump said the protesters\u2019 \u201crage-fueled resistance is starting to backfire at a level nobody has ever seen before.\u201d He was referring to polling that shows some improvement for Republicans heading into the midterm election.
Friday\u2019s vote is a procedural one to end the debate, and some fence-sitting senators could conceivably vote to advance Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination but still hold out their support ahead of a final confirmation roll call over the weekend.
Two of the undeclared Republicans emerged from the secure briefing facility Thursday accepting the FBI report as \u201cthorough,\u201d bolstering GOP hopes for confirmation.
Flake told reporters that \u201cwe\u2019ve seen no additional corroborating information\u201d about the claims against Kavanaugh.
Collins also expressed satisfaction, calling it \u201ca very thorough investigation.\u201d She paid two visits to the off-limits room where the document was being displayed to lawmakers.
Murkowski said she was \u201cstill reviewing\u201d her decision.
Democrats complained that the investigation, running just six days after Trump reluctantly ordered it, was shoddy, omitting interviews with numerous potential witnesses. They accused the White House of limiting the FBI\u2019s leeway.
Those not interviewed in the reopened background investigation included Kavanaugh himself and Christine Blasey Ford, who ignited the furor by alleging he\u2019d molested her in a locked room at a 1982 high school gathering.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the Judiciary Committee\u2019s top Democrat, said while her party had agreed to a weeklong FBI probe with a finite scope, \u201cWe did not agree that the White House should tie the FBI\u2019s hands.\u201d
A hefty police presence added an air of anxiety, as did thousands of anti-Kavanaugh demonstrators. U. S. Capitol Police said 302 were arrested \u2014 among them comedian Amy Schumer, a distant relative of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N. Y.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, issued a statement late Thursday that said the FBI reached out to 11 people and interviewed 10. Six of the witnesses involved Ford\u2019s claims, including an attorney for one of them, and four were related to Deborah Ramirez, who has asserted that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were Yale freshmen. Grassley said the FBI concluded \u201cthere is no collaboration of the allegations made by Dr. Ford or Ms. Ramirez.\u201d
Senators said the documents they examined totaled about 50 pages.
The underlying material from the FBI included text and Facebook messages, said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N. C., including screenshots that \u201cwere very helpful\u201d in understanding the communications between various people discussing the situation.
Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said nine of the pages were about Mark Judge, the Kavanaugh friend who Ford said also jumped on her while Kavanaugh assaulted her. Judge has said he doesn\u2019t recall the incident.
White House spokesman Raj Shah rebuffed Democrats\u2019 complaints, saying, \u201cWhat critics want is a never-ending fishing expedition into high school drinking.\u201d
Barring leaks, it was unclear how much if any of the FBI report would be made public.
___
AP reporters Mary Clare Jalonick, Matthew Daly, Kevin Freking, Padmananda Rama, Juliet Linderman, Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo, Catherine Lucey and Zeke Miller in Washington and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, contributed.<\/p>\n

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