FILE PHOTO: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) walks from a Republican Senate caucus meeting with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., September 26, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
October 2, 2018
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that each U.S. senator would get a copy of the FBI report on sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
McConnell repeated that he expected a vote this week in the full Senate on President Donald Trump’s nominee, a conservative federal appeals court judge.
“What I can tell you with certainty is we’ll have an FBI report this week and we’ll have a vote this week,” McConnell told reporters at the Capitol.
He would not elaborate on whether the vote would be procedural or a vote to confirm Kavanaugh but said he would fight any Democratic attempts to delay it.
The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, said Democrats would ask only for adequate time to review results of the FBI report before they vote.
He dismissed accusations that Democrats were trying to delay the vote, noting that it was moderate Republicans in the Senate who slowed the Kavanaugh confirmation process in the past week.
“The minority has no power to delay, none,” he said.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
