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Senate Judiciary Committee receives FBI background file on Kavanaugh

Posted at 6:43 AM, Oct 04, 2018
and last updated 2018-10-04 06:43:05-04

The Senate Judiciary Committee has received the supplemental FBI background file for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“Supplemental background file for Judge Kavanaugh has been received by @senjudiciary Ranking Member Feinstein & I have agreed to alternating EQUAL access for senators to study content from additional background info gathered by non-partisan FBI agents,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted early Thursday morning.

The White House also said early Thursday that they received the FBI’s file, which they subsequently sent to the Senate. In a statement, White House spokesman Raj Shah said: “With Leader McConnell’s cloture filing, Senators have been given ample time to review this seventh background investigation.”

“This is the last addition to the most comprehensive review of a Supreme Court nominee in history, which includes extensive hearings, multiple committee interviews, over 1,200 questions for the record and over a half million pages of documents,” the statement read. “With this additional information, the White House is fully confident the Senate will vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”

Senators will review the FBI’s report Thursday before a procedural vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination on Friday that would possibly lead to a final vote as early as the following day.

Kavanaugh’s nomination hangs in the balance a week after Christine Blasey Ford testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about her allegation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh when they were both in high school. Both Kavanaugh and the White House have repeatedly denied the allegation.

A further FBI investigation into Kavanaugh’s background was put into motion last week when Republican Sen. Jeff Flake voted to move Kavanaugh’s nomination out of the committee but called for the FBI to further investigate Ford’s claims.