President Trump, with his hands tied by a few Republican senators, has ordered the FBI to reopen a limited investigation into his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Senate Republican leaders, bowing to a last-minute demand from Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona, agreed to postpone the vote one week to allow time for an F.B.I. investigation into accusations of sexual assault against the nominee.
“I’ve ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file. As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week,” said Trump in his statement.
It is a stunning move, and rare reversal, by Trump who had refused this request earlier in the week.
Republican senate leadership had insisted for days that no additional F.B.I. investigation was necessary, pushing for a Tuesday vote. But that fell apart after Flake demanded the extension.
Mark Judge, a writer and high school friend of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, said he’d cooperate with any law enforcement organization that leads an investigation “confidentially” into Kavanaugh, the AP reports.
Judge was a key witness in Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony against Kavanaugh. Ford claimed Judge was in the room when the assault occurred and she remembered him laughing about it with Kavanaugh. To this point, Judge provided a written statement denying any involvement in the situation.