Flake: ‘I Plan To Support [Kavanaugh] Unless They Turn Up Something—And They Might’

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 28: Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) listens to fellow committee members debate the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh during a mark up hearing in ... WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 28: Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) listens to fellow committee members debate the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh during a mark up hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 28, 2018 in Washington, DC. Flake was crucial in getting the committee to agree to an additional week of investigations into accusations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh before the full Senate votes. A day earlier the committee heard from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who who has accused Kavnaugh of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told The Atlantic in an interview Friday night that he’d asked for a one-week pause in Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process — so that the FBI can look into sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh — in an attempt to preserve the credibility of “two institutions”: the Senate and the Supreme Court.

“The Supreme Court is the lone institution where most Americans still have some faith,” Flake said. “And then the U.S. Senate as an institution—we’re coming apart at the seams. There’s no currency, no market for reaching across the aisle. It just makes it so difficult.”

The magazine’s McKay Coppins asked Flake if he planned to continue supporting Kavanaugh’s confirmation “unless the FBI finds something in the next week that changes your mind?”

“Yes,” the senator, who’s retiring at the end of this term, replied. “I’m a conservative. He’s a conservative.”

“I plan to support him unless they turn up something—and they might,” Flake added.

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  1. Avatar for krux krux says:

    Looks like Flake has found the fence he can sit on for the moment.

  2. One step forward, two steps back. You schmuck.

  3. Turn up something. Huh.
    There sure was a big fat something in that hearing.

  4. Avatar for marby marby says:

    He seems to be in that position quite often (which makes all of yesterday’s praise of Flake a bit hollow) This is in contrast to the two women who confronted Flake - I consider them the real heroes of yesterday.

  5. They already DID turn up something, you jackass. He and Collins (and formerly McCain) and Corker (and once upon a time Graham) and even Sasse like to pretend they have concerns, but they NEVER buck the party. Never. They have sold country for party (and I assume they have also been threatened, blackmailed, or their children’s futures threatened with destruction). It’s bribery and extortion from top to bottom in the GOP.

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