Hill looks for FBI Kavanaugh report

Senators awaited the arrival of a new FBI report on sexual allegations that could make or break Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination Wednesday, as aggressive protesters prompted unusually strong security inside the US Capitol.

As lawmakers anticipated the report, three moderate GOP senators who could decide the conservative jurist’s fate rebuked President Donald Trump for mocking one accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, by mimicking her responses to questions at last week’s dramatic Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Their reactions left Republicans concerned that Trump had complicated their effort to cement Kavanaugh’s support in a chamber where the GOP holds a razor-thin 51-49 majority. Depending on when the FBI report arrived, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was expected to trigger a process that could lead to a crucial initial vote Friday and a climactic confirmation roll call over the weekend.

Inside the Capitol, large numbers of Capitol Hill Police officers restricted movements in corridors and formed wedges around senators walking through hallways. Some lawmakers complained of being confronted outside their homes.

On the Senate floor, McConnell claimed the protesters were “part of the organized effort” to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination and said, “There is no chance in the world that they’re going to scare us out of doing our duty.”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway on Wednesday echoed the president’s newly aggressive approach. She said Ford has “been treated like a Fabergé egg by all of us, beginning with me and the president,” and said Trump was merely “pointing out factual inconsistencies.”

The California psychology professor has testified that a drunken Kavanaugh sexually abused her in a locked room at a high school party in the 1980s and has said she believed he was trying to rape her. Kavanaugh has denied her assertions and those of two other women.

AP