Apologies if this was already posted and I missed it.
A Tumultuous 24 Hours: How Jeff Flake Delayed a Vote on Kavanaugh
WASHINGTON — Surrounded by his colleagues in a cramped corridor behind the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Jeff Flake was in agony, getting pounded on all sides.
He had already released a statement that he would vote “yes” in the committee and advance Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court to the full Senate floor. But two angry and tearful women had confronted him soon afterward in a Senate elevator, accusing him of telling girls that “assault doesn’t matter.”
Now, as the committee was on the verge of approving the nomination, Mr. Flake, Republican of Arizona, was having second thoughts, according to a half-dozen lawmakers and Senate staff aides who witnessed the scene. Why not accept Democratic demands for a one-week delay in the confirmation vote, he asked his fellow senators, and reopen an F.B.I. background investigation into sexual misconduct accusations against Judge Kavanaugh?
Republicans crowded around him, alarmed. Senators Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas implored him not to waver. This is just a delaying tactic, they said, and would only lead to more allegations that they believed to be false, hurting the judge’s family.
Democrats were on the other side, coaxing him to put off the vote. Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, a longtime friend, broke in: This is a mess, he said, and to lift the cloud over Judge Kavanaugh, an investigation was necessary.
But what could really be done in a week? There was a scramble to call Christopher Wray, the F.B.I. director, who could not be reached. The second choice was Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general.
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Minutes later, Mr. Flake, a pained expression on his face, returned to the committee room and made the announcement ensuring that the F.B.I. investigation would go forward — and once again upending Washington.
