Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took steps Wednesday that will set up a Saturday afternoon vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
McConnell filed a motion to end debate on Kavanaugh’s nomination, and that motion will get a vote on Friday. Assuming at least 50 senators agree to end debate, Kavanaugh’s final confirmation vote will come Saturday.
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McConnell has pledged that Kavanaugh would get an up or down vote this week.
“It looks like we have to be here this weekend,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters Wednesday.
Four key lawmakers remain undecided, including three Republicans, two of which are needed to get Kavanaugh through.
McConnell set up the vote as lawmakers await a supplemental FBI background report on Kavanaugh. The report, which will be secured in a Capitol Hill basement room for senators to come and read, includes interviews pertaining to two sexual misconduct claims against Kavanaugh which allegedly occurred more than three decades ago.
Kavanaugh denies the claims.
The FBI has not interviewed either Kavanaugh or accuser Christine Blasey Ford, who said Kavanaugh attempted to sexually assault her while they were at a party in high school.
Both Kavanaugh and Ford were questioned at a Judiciary Committee hearing last week. But Feinstein said Wednesday that Ford “should be interviewed.”
A counterpart on the panel, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said there is no need to interview either Kavanaugh or Ford, who have each given one media interview and faced questions from the Judiciary panel.
“They pretty well know what both of them are going to say,” Hatch said.
