Jeff Flake looked like a hero to Progressives and moral Republicans on Friday when he stopped the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation train for one week. We should remember that ultimately Flake still voted Kavanaugh out of the Judiciary Committee for an FBI investigation he had no control over nor one where he demanded a minimum scope.
Jeff Flake is foolhardy to believe that an FBI investigation whose parameters are controlled solely by a corrupt President, will find any wrongdoing. Let me first be objectively clear. I am relatively confident Christine Blasey Ford story is true with an over 90% confidence when inferring from many ancillary stories. A few days ago I wrote the following Facebook post.
We have a sexist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic, racist predator in the White House. It is no surprise that he would nominate a man with his same predilection for the Supreme Court. As I listen to Dr. Christine Blasey Ford at the hearing it is clear her credibility will be hard to puncture. While at the University of Texas I used to deliver pizzas to frat houses. The drunken behavior and abuse of women at the parties were like a sport in those places. The level of privilege and entitlement always amazed me and I think that was partially responsible for my egalitarian beliefs.
It was telling that after Senator Jeff Flake made his appeal in the Judiciary Committee, the ranking member, Senator Dianne Feinstein, was not sure what Democrats were happy about as she seemed confused. She wanted a more specific vote on Jeff Flake’s proffer. She would not get it as the Judiciary Committee Chair, Chuck Grassley, abruptly called a party-line vote that moved the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation forward to the full Senate unconditionally, with the ‘yes’ vote from Flake. Grassley abruptly adjourned the Judiciary Committee under some two-hour pretext. When Feinstein balked, Grassley said it was just a gentleman, gentlewoman agreement.
I angrily posted the two tweets immediately following Jeff Flake’s stunt.
I think @JeffFlake just got conned by his own party for his vote. #BrettKavanaugh
— Egberto Willies, Politics Done Right host 🇺🇲🇵🇦 (@EgbertoWillies) September 28, 2018
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are con men and @JeffFlake got conned.
— Egberto Willies, Politics Done Right host 🇺🇲🇵🇦 (@EgbertoWillies) September 28, 2018
Later on, other Republican Senators would join Flake to demand an FBI investigation. Mitch McConnell and the President were forced to acquiesce to their demand. But given that within Flake’s request, there were no specifics to what the president should investigate, the President would have to make that call as he saw fit. And then we get this gem today that illustrates the fraud. NBC News reported the following.
WASHINGTON — The White House is limiting the scope of the FBI’s investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, multiple people briefed on the matter told NBC News. While the FBI will examine the allegations of Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, the bureau has not been permitted to investigate the claims of Julie Swetnick, who has accused Kavanaugh of engaging in sexual misconduct at parties while he was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s, those people familiar with the investigation told NBC News. A White House official confirmed that Swetnick’s claims will not be pursued as part of the reopened background investigation into Kavanaugh.
Instead of investigating Swetnick’s claims, the White House counsel’s office has given the FBI a list of witnesses they are permitted to interview, according to several people who discussed the parameters on the condition of anonymity. They characterized the White House instructions as a significant constraint on the FBI investigation and caution that such a limited scope, while not unusual in normal circumstances, may make it difficult to pursue additional leads in a case in which a Supreme Court nominee has been accused of sexual assault. The limited scope seems to be at odds with what some members of the Senate judiciary seemed to expect when they agreed to give the FBI as much as a week to investigate allegations against Kavanaugh, a federal judge who grew up in the Washington DC area and attended an elite all-boys high school before going on to Yale.
Of course, reality does not comport with Donald Trump’s lie.
President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the FBI has “free reign” in the investigation. “They’re going to do whatever they have to do,” he said. “Whatever it is they do, they’ll be doing — things that we never even thought of. And hopefully at the conclusion everything will be fine.”
Jeff Flake’s stunt may impress many. But it should not. Flake is a man who voted with Trump way north of 90% including for the Tax Cut Scam, Affordable Care Repeal, and much more damaging bills to the poor & middle-class. Attempting to soften the blow to his reputation for a flawed Supreme Court Justice he will likely support in the end should earn him no brownie points. He will probably vote for a potential rapist and woman abuser to ensure at the end of his Senate job his lobbying career is guaranteed.
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Gee whiz! These experts needed to wait until the White House limited the investigation to come up with the conclusion that giving the FBI a week to look into things is just a face-saving ploy for the likes of Jeff Flake, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. As soon as the investigation was announced, I thought to myself, “Well they’ll mess around for a week, come back with “nothing” having done nothing, and the GOP will vote Kavanaugh in. Kavanaugh will then me “cleared” and anytime people bring up his heinous behavior or his anti-woman rulings or his rulings as retribution for the “humiliation” he suffered, the GOP will claim that the Liberals are being unfair again. I knew this as it was being announced. Our punditry should be ashamed of themselves for being so slow.
I had watched part of the hearing while watching Rachel Maddow’s show on MSN and was impressed with the composure Christine Blasey Ford showed while telling them what had happened. When it came to Kavanaugh it was just the opposite! He had plenty of time while being coached at the White House by Trump and the other Republicans and came off as a mean spirited person which went against the fact he is supposed to be a Judge. Is that how he will act on the Supreme Court? He was downright nasty blaming it all on the Democrats and that it was just a smear campaign to smear his good name etc. Shouting and making faces, sneering etc made him look even more guilty. It would have been far better for him to calmly state his points and not go into attack mode. I found his actions to be highly unbecoming of a federal judge. It was nice to hear that the FBI would reopen his investigation but now with Trump tying their hands as to what they can actually investigate makes it appear that it was all a scam with Flake! I was totally disgusted with the fact the Republicans continue to ram his nomination through then complain because the Democrats want to know more about him since he has a huge paper trail with thousands of pages. They act indignant that the Democrats are acting this way but when President Obama nominated Merrick Garland it was okay for them to demand the seat stay open until after the 2016 election when they knew they would probably be able to nominate their own person since they were well aware of the Russian meddling they were encouraging to make sure Trump got elected. Now with the mid-terms so close they are in a rush to get him confirmed because they are worried they will probably lose the house and maybe the Senate and will lose their power to call the shots.
Well Willes, you just might be right, but you do not vote. Flake does. Flake still gave us a chance. Time is on our side. The more time the more chance he gets the boot.