Things have gotten chaotic….
The Senate Judiciary Committee is delaying a vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until next week.
Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said at the start of a committee business meeting on Thursday that Kavanaugh’s nomination would be held over.
“[We’re] holding over the nomination of Kavanaugh,” Grassley said.
The committee voted 11-10, along party lines, to hold a vote at 1:45 p.m. next Thursday.
The move was widely expected. Under committee rules, any one member can delay a nomination the first time it appears on the panel’s agenda, as Kavanaugh’s nomination was on Thursday.
But the meeting quickly threatened to go off the rails, with Democrats arguing the committee was supposed to vote to adjourn before Grassley held over Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) argued that his motion to adjourn should have been the first thing that took place on Thursday.
“We lack the time, we lack the documents and we need witnesses before we can proceed further with this meeting,” Blumenthal said.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) added that she did not understand Republicans’ “rush to judgment” on Kavanaugh….
Update….
Sen Feinstein (D-Ca) has announced she is turning info from a letter to the FBI about Kavanaugh…
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has turned over a letter concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to the FBI.
“I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court,” Feinstein said in a statement Thursday. “That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.”..
More on the info sent to the FBI on Kavanaugh….
Multiple sources have told HuffPost that the document in question is a letter sent to Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) that concerns a decades-old incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman. Eshoo’s office has also declined to comment, saying the letter was considered casework ― and thus wouldn’t be made public ― since it came from a constituent.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who chairs the judiciary committee, said Thursday he was aware of the matter, but declined to comment because he had not seen the document in question.
“All I know is what I read, and I wouldn’t make any judgment of it until I get more information,” Grassley told reporters outside a Senate judiciary committee hearing concerning Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told BuzzFeed Thursday that the matter had been referred to the FBI. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A lawyer who is reportedly representing the woman was spotted leaving the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday evening shortly after the Intercept report was published….
The contents of the letter to the FBI points to sexual misconduct almost 25 years ago…
Democrats alerted the FBI on Thursday to decades-old sexual misconduct allegations against President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, according to reports and a person familiar with the matter.
The potentially damning claims, which come as the Senate prepares to vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the highest court of the land, were made in a letter obtained by Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein, a Democratic source told the Daily News.
Two officials briefed on the letter’s contents told the New York Times the allegations relate to possible sexual misconduct between Kavanaugh and an unidentified woman when they were both in high school.
The specific nature of the allegations were not immediately known. Kavanaugh, 53, graduated from Georgetown Preparatory, an all-boys Jesuit high school in North Bethesda, Md.