Brett Kavanaugh: Senate to get FBI report within hours
The US Senate is expected to
receive the FBI's report on allegations of sexual misconduct against President
Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, in the next few hours.
Its conclusions will not be
made public, but Senators will be able to review the report on Thursday.
Republicans and Democrats
remain bitterly divided on whether to approve Mr Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court
judge.
The judge has vehemently
denied all allegations against him.
Republican Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell wants a final Senate vote on the nomination on Saturday,
after an earlier procedural vote on Friday.
The FBI reopened its
background check into Judge Kavanaugh last week, after Professor Christine
Blasey Ford testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he had assaulted
her when they were teenagers in the 1980s
If he joins the Supreme
Court, Judge Kavanaugh, 53, would be expected to tilt its ideological balance
in favour of conservatives.
The court's nine justices are
appointed for life and have the final say on some of the most contentious
issues in US public life, from abortion, to gun control, to voting laws.
What's in the report?
Senators are not meant to
reveal what the FBI says, but it remains to be seen whether that secrecy will
hold.
The FBI has interviewed Mr Kavanaugh's former
Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez, who says he exposed himself to her at a college
party.
Reuters reported that
investigators spoke to Ms Ramirez for more than two hours on Sunday, and that
she provided a list of more than 20 possible witnesses.
However, lawyers for his first
accuser, Prof Ford, said that she had not been contacted by the agency.
Democrats have raised
concerns that the investigation has been too narrow in scope, and that key
witnesses have been omitted.
Will Kavanaugh be confirmed?
Mr Kavanaugh's confirmation
depends on Republican Senators voting strictly along party lines.
The party has only a 51-49
Senate majority. That means that if all Democrats vote against confirming Mr
Kavanaugh, Republicans can only afford one defection - since in a tie,
Vice-President Mike Pence would get the casting vote
Three Republican Senators -
Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski - are being closely watched, as
they have not yet said how they will vote.
Two Democrats, Joe Manchin of
West Virginia, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, are yet to declare their
intentions.
President Donald Trump has consistently backed Mr Kavanaugh,
tweeting late on Wednesday that he was a "fine man".
End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump
In contrast to the
president's enthusiasm, a coalition of US Christian churches with 40 million
worshippers has urged Mr Kavanaugh to withdraw his nomination.
The National Council of
Churches said in a statement that he had shown "extreme partisan
bias" during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and lacked
the temperament to be a Supreme Court judge.www.bbcnews.comwww.bbc.com
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