Sen. Dick Durbin provoked anger from Republicans trying to jam through alleged sexual assaulter Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court when he asked Kavanaugh to ask the White House counsel to suspend the confirmation process in order to have a full FBI investigation into the allegations against him.
Sen. Durbin: Turn to your left in the front row. To Don McGahn, counsel to President Donald Trump, ask him to suspend this hearing and nomination process until the FBI completes its investigation of the charges made by Dr. Ford and others, and goes to bring the witnesses forward and provides that information to this hearing. I'm sure that the chairman at that point will understand that that is a reasonable request to finally put to rest these charges if they are false or to prove them if they are not. You spent two years in the White House office that approved judicial nominees. You turned to the FBI over and over and over again for their work. Let's bring them in here and now. Turn to Don McGahn and tell him it's time to get this done, an FBI investigation is the only way to answer some of these questions.
At this point, old ornery windbag and constitutional degrader Sen. Chuck Grassley stopped the clock to chastise Durbin for pointing out that this kangaroo court is not the same as an actual FBI investigation into these and the many other allegations against Kavanaugh. That led to this fiery exchange between Sen. Durbin and Kavanaugh.
Sen. Durbin: I'll just say this. If you, Judge Kavanaugh, turned to Don McGahn and to this committee and say, For the sake of my reputation, my family name and to get to the bottom of the truth of this, I am not going to be an obstacle to an FBI investigation, I would hope that all the members of the committee would join me in saying we're going to abide by your wishes and we will have that investigation.
Kavanaugh: I welcome whatever the committee wants to do because I'm telling the truth.
Sen. Durbin: I want to know what you want to do.
Kavanaugh: I'm telling the truth.
Sen. Durbin: I want to know what you want to do, Judge.
Kavanaugh: I'm innocent. I’m innocent of this charge.
Sen. Durbin: Then you're prepared for an FBI investigation.
Kavanaugh: They don't reach conclusions. You reach the conclusions.
Sen. Durbin: No, but they do investigate questions.
Kavanaugh: I'm innocent.
Sen. Durbin: And you can't have it both ways, Judge. You can't say here at the beginning, I welcome any kind of investigation.
Kavanaugh: Thing was sprung on me. This thing was sprung at the last minute after being held by staff. And I called for a hearing immediately.
Sen. Durbin: Judge, if there is no truth to her charges, the FBI investigation will show that. Are you afraid that they might not?
That elicited angry murmuring from the Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee—the same guys that refused to hold hearings for Merrick Garland.