Earlier Friday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., made another motion that the committee subpoena Mark Judge, whom Ford had identified as a witness to Kavanaugh’s alleged assault. The motion was defeated on an 11-to-10 party-line vote.
When Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, then immediately called for a 1:30 p.m. vote, allowing no debate, Democrats were visibly frustrated, angry and upset. When Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J. and Kamala Harris, D-Calif., were called to vote, they sat in their chairs in silence.
“They’re not answering because this is so unfair,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
The senators then began speaking on Kavanaugh’s nomination, with Democrats taking issue with the nominee’s partisan tone in his testimony Thursday, as well as with the lack of an FBI investigation to investigate Ford’s allegation.
“In the 25 years on this committee, I have never seen a nominee for any position behave in that matter. Judge Kavanaugh used as much political rhetoric as my Republican colleagues,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said. “She (Ford) was poised, she was credible and she should believed.”
Kavanaugh, 53, a federal circuit court judge who was nominated by Trump in July, sharply denied Ford’s allegation, blasted lawmakers for their handling of the process and remained adamant about not withdrawing.
“I never sexually assaulted anyone. Not in high school. Not in college. Not ever,” he said. “You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit. Never.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., excoriated the committee as derelict in its duty, instead acting as an “arm” of President Donald Trump’s White House.
“This Judiciary Committee is no longer an independent branch of government,” he said. “We are an arm, and a very weak arm, of the Trump White House. Every semblance of independence has disappeared.”
Republicans continued to express outrage at their Democratic colleagues and the timing of Ford’s allegation becoming public. Some, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that while they believe something traumatic had happened to Ford in the past, they also believed that Kavanaugh had nothing to do with it.
“I know I am a single white male from South Carolina and I’ve been told shut up, but I will not shut up,” said Graham, who put his fury on display during the hearing less than 24 hours earlier.
Graham suggested his party has the right to nominate, and confirm, a nominee of their choosing.
“Elections do matter,” he said. He later signaled he wanted to be the committee’s next chairman, and that if he were in that position, he would hold a grudge against Democrats.
“If you try to destroy somebody you will not get away with it,” Graham added.
As Graham spoke, Democrats at times mumbled to themselves and shook their heads, clearly frustrated with the senator’s partisan tone. Klobuchar seemed in disbelief while listening to Graham.
During his remarks, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., read a letter sent late Thursday by the president of the American Bar Association urging the committee to postpone the vote until the FBI could conduct an investigation, and asked again for such a delay.
Grassley responded by dismissing the request, claiming that the president of the American Bar Association doesn’t necessarily “represent the members of the Bar.”
Moments later, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called the ongoing confirmation process “one of the darkest days for the United State Senate” since “the McCarthy hearings back in the 1950s.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., acknowledged her Republican colleagues’ dissatisfaction with the fact that Ford’s allegations were made public late in the process, but urged them that the response to the accusation was far more important than the timing of it.
“The question is, what do you do when it happens, when you’re in a position of power,” she said. “You may not like that it came in in the final minutes … the question is what do you do when it happens.”
“And when it happens, you don’t just put it under the rug,” she added.
Rebecca Shabad reported from Washington, and Adam Edelman from New York.