Republicans will insist that no amount of time spent on an investigation and no number of witnesses interviewed in the FBI’s inquiry into the allegations of sexual assault against Trump’s SCOTUS nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, would have pleased Democrats. Surely, though, they can do better than this.
Undecided Dem Sen Manchin tells reporters he has been "thrown out" of the room where he'd been reading the only copy of the FBI report because it was the "Republicans' turn" to read it. He says he has to come back tomorrow to finish, then will make a decision on Kavanaugh.
— Emma Dumain (@Emma_Dumain) October 4, 2018
After 100 U.S. senators were given one hour to read only one copy of a 1000-page report, the only remaining undecided Democrat says he was “thrown out” of the room when it was the Republicans’ turn to review the report that resulted from a one week-long investigation. All democratic senators other than Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) had already said they would not confirm Kavanaugh.
My statement on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh: pic.twitter.com/exZcK78JtF
— Archive: Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (@SenatorHeitkamp) October 4, 2018
Heitkamp announced that she would be voting no on Thursday, but Manchin is still undecided and has not yet been allowed time to read the FBI’s report. Manchin said he would return on Friday morning before the vote to finish reading the report, but he’ll only have until 10:30 AM EST.
R's trying to make Manchin the deciding vote to hurt his re-election chances. Sen. Joe Manchin says he was 'thrown out' of the room while reading the FBI's Brett Kavanaugh report https://t.co/bcGicKEkn5 pic.twitter.com/3E7n6iFoyy
— ???Halli Casser-Jayne Podcast??? (@TheHalliCJShow) October 4, 2018
There have been no answers so far about why the investigation was so stymied to begin with (Trump says he did not restrict the FBI in any way, but dozens of people who contacted the bureau with relevant statements have gone ignored), or why Republicans like Susan Collins (R-ME) or Jeff Flake (R-AZ) called 1,000 pages of reporting that they were only allowed to review for an hour a “thorough” report.
Now, there will be no answers as to why the report is being guarded so closely or why senators are not being allowed to review it properly. It looks, once again, like the right just has something to hide.
Key undecided Sens. Susan Collins and Jeff Flake call Kavanaugh FBI investigation "very thorough" https://t.co/P3HRkLpv6N pic.twitter.com/2qq4hruAZU
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 4, 2018
Featured image via Flickr by Third Way Think Tank under a Creative Commons license