Last Updated Sep 28, 2018 8:34 AM EDT
Mere hours after Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, offered their emotional, riveting testimony on Capitol Hill Thursday, Senate Republicans are looking to push Kavanaugh through to confirmation. Following Ford’s insistence that she is “100 percent” sure Kavanaugh assaulted her, and Kavanaugh’s insistence that he is “innocent,” many on the Senate Judiciary Committee seemed to come away with the opinions they espoused before.
Most Republicans on the committee stood by Kavanaugh, and most Democrats stood by Ford and want to stop or slow his confirmation. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on Kavanaugh at 9:30 a.m. Friday.
Follow along for live updates as they develop.
American Bar Association urges committee to slow down process
The American Bar Association has urged the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate to slow down the confirmation process for President Trump’s Supreme Court pick, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, until the FBI has time to do a full background check on the claims made by Ford and other women.
During hours of emotional testimony before the committee on Thursday, Kavanaugh vehemently denied ever having sexually assaulted Ford or anyone else, and cited as evidence his multiple background checks and clearances by the ABA during various stages of his career at the highest level of the U.S. judiciary system.
Sarah Sanders: All of America thought Ford’s testimony was compelling
Sarah Sanders, speaking to reporters Friday morning, said she thinks “all of America” though Ford’s testimony was compelling, although she wouldn’t specifically say whether Mr. Trump thought her testimony was compelling.
Sanders said Ford was wronged by someone, “but not at the hands of Judge Kavanaugh.”
Sanders also blasted how Democrats handled the allegation against Kavanaugh initially.
Kellyanne Conway says Kavanaugh will call “balls and strikes” fairly
Top White House officials took to television Friday morning to defend Kavanaugh and urge his swift confirmation to the highest court. Kellyanne Conway, appearing on “CBS This Morning,” was pressed how Kavanaugh could be a neutral figure on the court when he berated the accusations against him as political.
Conway claimed that once Kavanaugh is on the court, “he will call the balls and strikes” fairly, as he has for more than a decade.
Conway said she did find Ford “very compelling and very sympathetic,” adding that she believes Ford “was wronged by somebody.” But Kavanaugh, she said, was not that somebody.
“It seems that she absolutely was wronged by somebody … it may turn out that they’re both right,” she said. “That she was sexually assaulted but that he had nothing to do with it.”
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