Move from controversy to confirmation or so they hope for Supreme Court nominee federal judge Brett Kavanaugh. Tonight, the Senate Judiciary committee scheduled a vote on kavanaugh to take place friday morning. That would be one day after the hearing in which he and dr. Christine blasey ford who accused him of Sexual Assault are both testifying. T the committee which has a majority of 11 1 republicans, men, hired a woman attorney to question ford and kavanaugh. Moments ago the Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley confirmed what the Washington Post was first to report tonight. That the committee has, indeed, selected rachel l mitchell, an arizona county sex crimes prosecutor. Mitchell is officially the Sex Crimes Bureau chief for Maricopa County, arizona, of Sheriff Joe Arpaio fame. While all of this is going on, Brett Kavanaugh is also facing another allegation related to Sexual Misconduct. Deborah ramirez told the new yorker that kavanaugh exposed himself to her when they were freshmen s
No matter how this whole thing ends, professor ford does not deserve to be laughed at. Not again. Made the punch line to a joke thats not at all funny. Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter, the uproarious laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense. Kind of what happened tonight isnt it at that rally . And were learning more about Brett Kavanaugh. As the fbi expands its investigation tonight, heres what the New York Times has published. A copy of a 1983 letter written by kavanaugh. And he writes his High School Buddies should warn the neighbors that were loud, obnoxious drunks with prolific pukers among us, which sounds pretty different from what Brett Kavanaugh said about drinking beer in his testimony to the Judiciary Committee last week. I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes i had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer. And theres more, kavanaugh signed that letter bart. Hmm. Where have i heard that before
For now the schedule is procedural vote until tomorrow morning. If they do get 50 final vote by late saturday. Its hard to imagine republican senators relish holding this open any longer than they absolutely have to. But every day something new comes up, and whatever happens well all be here covering it tonight. Now its time for last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, rachel. And theres this thing weve seen many times in the senate where some people will stand up there and say im voting for closure, meaning i am voting to end the debate, but it does not mean i am going to vote positively at the next stage. That pretty much never happens in confirmations, but weve seen a lot of firsts in this one so far. Could you imagine any senators im trying to imagine the argument that would lead a senator to do that. The argument is the belief that the nominee or the bill in some cases deserves an actual up and down vote. And i am willing to proceed it to a nonvote. In fact, a lot of senato
It stands tonight. But first, lets briefly recap the whiplash that weve gone through over the past few days. On friday, at the moment that the Senate Judiciary committee was expected to vote quickly along party lines to advance kavanaughs nomination, the process was suddenly thrown into disarray when republican senator jeff flake made an unexpected lastminute deal with the Committee Democrats to secure a oneweek delay in the full senate vote, during which the fbi would look into dr. Fords allegations and possibly into other allegations, too. It was not really clear at the time. Later that day, we learned that the white house had indeed ordered the fbi to reopen kavanaughs background investigation. But on saturday, nbc news was first to report that the white house had sharply limited the scope of the fbis investigation, telling the fbi it could investigate Christine Blasey fords claims and those of Deborah Ramirez, who has publicly accused Brett Kavanaugh of shoving his genitalia in her
Due diligence. I think this committee has done a good job, but i do think that we can have a short pause and make sure that the fbi can investigate. The investigation that flake requested into credible Sexual Misconduct allegations against kavanaugh is now under way. The white house has said it will be, quote, limited in scope and completed in less than one week. But on that scope question, its not entirely clear what that means. Will the investigation be confined to the allegations from dr. Christine blasey ford . Or will it include the allegations made by any of the other women who have accused Brett Kavanaugh of Sexual Misconduct . Michael avenatti, who by now should be very familiar to you, represents a woman who could potentially be interviewed by the fbi as a witness. Julie swetnick claims she witnessed kavanaugh participating in Sexual Misconduct when he was a High School Student at Georgetown Prep tore school in the 1980s. The allegations are disturbing, alleging gang rape of w