Supreme Misgivings, Con't

It's becoming clear at this point that the FBI investigation into the sexual assault allegations surrounding Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is yet another cover-up by a regime that will do anything to get him confirmed as the fifth vote to exonerate Trump from the many traps of his own creation.

The White House appears to be playing all kinds of crafty rhetorical games to obscure the answer to a simple question: Has it deliberately placed limits on the scope of the FBI’s renewed background check into allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, or not?

As of this morning, there are conflicting reports about who will now be interviewed by the FBI. The New York Times reportsthat the White House directed the FBI to interview only four people: Mark Judge, who is alleged by Christine Blasey Ford to have acted as Kavanaugh’s accomplice in the sexual assault; P.J. Smyth and Leland Keyser, who Ford claims were also in the house; and Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at Yale.

Meanwhile, The Post reports that Kavanaugh will also be interviewed, but that a third accuser — Julie Swetnick — will not be. It’s also not clear whether Ford herself will be contacted — she has not yet been, according to her lawyer.

You’ll be startled to hear that instead of providing clarity, White House officials have sowed further confusion. Press secretary Sarah Sanders told Fox News that the White House is “not micromanaging this process.” Similarly, counselor Kellyanne Conway told CNN that, while the investigation will be “limited in scope,” the White House is not setting those limits, which will be “up to the FBI” to set. Conway pointed to President Trump’s weekend tweet saying the FBI should “interview whoever they deem appropriate,” and insisted (somehow without dissolving into giggles at her own cynicism) that Trump respects the FBI’s “independence.”

Yet despite that, Sanders and Conway both also said terms arebeing dictated — by Republican Senators. But the White House has not released the precise directive it gave to the FBI, so we cannot know whether the White House is actively imposing those same limits on those Senators’ behalf. CNN reports that the White House and GOP Senators together developed those limits with the aim of making them “as narrow as possible.”

Clear now? Of course it isn’t. Because that’s exactly how the White House and Republican Senators want it.

And it's because the "investigation", as it is, really exists so that the FBI can find a way to completely discredit Kavanaugh's accusers and more importantly, stall for time to work on wavering Senate Republicans to get to 50 votes.

The uncertainty surrounding the nomination has Republicans and Democrats alike headed into the week raising the stakes of its outcome to a make-or-break moment for their chances of victory in the midterm elections.

“There’s no walking this thing back,” Steve Bannon, the former chief White House strategist, said in an interview Sunday night. “You get Kavanaugh, you’re going to get turnout. You get turnout, you’re going to get victory. This is march or die.”

POLITICO spoke to five people inside and outside the White House involved with the Kavanaugh nomination process.

Democratic activists, meanwhile, reminded voters over the weekend to keep the pressure on three Republican senators — Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine — who they noted had so far agreed only to a delay but could still vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

The aggressive pro-Kavanaugh push, however, comes as White House officials and a separate, external war room that has been formed around Kavanaugh — including Bill Burck, a former counsel to President George W. Bush, as well as Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society — are fighting what some of them conceded to be an uphill battle in which time is not on their side.

“Seven days is an eternity,” said a Kavanaugh ally, noting a growing concern that phony allegations might surface. “No good things can happen to Kavanaugh in that time except for calling the vote.”

Another person involved in the nomination fight put the odds of Kavanaugh’s being confirmed as low as 50 percent. But, this person said, the White House could not afford to set a standard that would allow unsubstantiated allegations against a nominee to knock that person out of the running to sit on the nation’s highest court.

Democrats have set off their own alarms about the process. Democratic lawmakers have complained that the White House will seek to narrow the scope of the FBI investigation, and complained about the rushed time frame. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to the White House and the FBI on Sunday asking that the directive for the inquiry be released so that its breadth could be understood.

I still believe Senate Republicans will find a way to rush this through and get the vote done as they did with now-Justice Neil Gorsuch last year.  It would take at minimum not one but two Republicans in the Senate to have the courage to say no, and they will be absolutely crucified by angry and violent Trump voters, enraged corporate donors, furious culture-war groups, the right-wing smear machine, and an increasingly unstable leader in the Oval Office.

Dr. Ford and the other women who have come forward may have that kind of courage, but there's nothing to make me think any single Republican currently in the Senate does.  That includes the retiring Jeff Flake, who, when it became clear that Mitch McConnell didn't have 50 votes, fell on his sword to buy his master another week.

That Flake somehow didn't already have this plan worked out as a contingency and that Mitch McConnell would leave anything involving this nomination to chance is ludicrous. Flake in fact gave up the game and admitted last night on CBS's 60 Minutes that if he was running for re-election, he never would have called for the FBI investigation.

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on Sunday admitted his impending retirement from Congress played a role in his decision to call for an FBI investigation into the allegations of sexual assault levied against Brett Kavanaugh in recent weeks during a dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Friday.

“No, not a chance,” Flake told “60 Minutes” on Sunday when asked if he would’ve made the same decision had he been seeking reelection. “There’s no value to reaching across the aisle, there’s not currency for that anymore, there’s no incentive.”

Worst-case scenario is that McConnell was truly caught flatfooted by Dr. Ford coming forward and either got bad information from the Trump White House, or didn't get information at all that Kavanaugh had such a hideous background.  He may have made an historic miscalculation that allowed him to get outmaneuvered by Feinstein and Schumer, or more likely, badly underestimated the rage and engagement of women voters.

Now McConnell has to hope that Trump's media allies can create a backlash to the backlash by muddying the waters enough so that Senate Republicans have cover to vote to confirm.  We already saw that over the weekend with Sen. Lindsey Graham leading the way by both saying he wants the FBI to investigate Senate Democrats who brought Dr. Ford's accusations forward and that he will basically vote to confirm Kavanaugh unless there's a "bombshell" in the FBI investigation.

At this point the plan is to stoke enough disengaged Trump voters into outrage to make Senate Republicans confirm Kavanaugh, and to stick around and vote in November too. Whether it will work remains to be seen, but so far betting against how low McConnell is willing to go to win has not paid off in the last four years, with the near singular exception of the late John McCain scuttling the Senate health care rollback.

Still, there's one certainty right now: if McConnell had the 50 votes, he would have confirmed Kavanaugh already.  He doesn't right now. It's a slim hope, but it's there.  And Americans have shifted from a plurality saying it's too soon to know if Kavanaugh should be confirmed to believing that he should not.

Americans are divided and somewhat more opposed to Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination than in favor of it after hearing Thursday from both Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused him of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford, but strong partisanship increasingly defines the public's views. Republicans have grown more in favor of his confirmation compared to last week, and nearly half say they'd be angry if Kavanaugh isn't eventually confirmed. Democrats are increasingly opposed after the hearings, with nearly half expressing anger at the idea of Kavanaugh eventually being seated on the court.

The net shift in sentiment over the week has been toward opposition. Today 37 percent of Americans do not think the Senate should confirm (up from 30 percent opposed last week) and 35 percent think the Senate should confirm (up from 32 percent last week) as partisan sentiments have hardened. Democratic opposition has gone from 60 percent to 68 percent, and Republican support has gone from 69 percent to 75 percent. Independents are more closely divided and slightly more in favor of confirmation than opposed. 

Last week's testimony did change some minds, at least.  And so far that's benefiting the Democrats.  We'll see what unfolds.