In the end, Republicans were able to use their stranglehold on Capitol Hill and the White House to muscle through the confirmation in a power play that reflected the momentous importance of Trump's election victory over Hillary Clinton. Still, it was a close-run thing: Kavanaugh's nomination was nearly derailed by Christine Blasey Ford's allegations that the judge assaulted her when they were teenagers in the s, which sparked uproar and forced Republicans to delay the confirmation vote for a week to allow time for a supplemental FBI background check.
Trump took a victory lap before an enthusiastic crowd at a rally in Topeka, Kansas, on what he hailed as a "historic night. He dismissed the allegations against Kavanaugh by accusing Democrats of waging a "shameless campaign of political and personal destruction. How senators voted on Brett Kavanaugh.
Brett Kavanaugh sworn in as Supreme Court justice
Democrats furiously accused the GOP of short-circuiting efforts to examine Ford's allegations and of rushing the nomination through while ignoring the changed political dynamics surrounding complaints of misconduct against powerful men ushered in by the MeToo movement. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the nomination "one of the saddest moments in the history of the Senate," and said, "this chapter will be a flashing red warning light of what to avoid.
Republicans "conducted one of the least transparent, least fair, most biased processes in Senate history, slanting the table from the very beginning to produce their desired result," he added. How Kavanaugh maneuvered to win his confirmation fight. McConnell, who stalled Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the court in his final year in office and for whom the new conservative majority represents a defining achievement, predicted that Democratic tactics during confirmation battle would electrify Republican voters in November.
President Donald Trump's winning streak. Kavanaugh's confirmation leaves the Senate traumatized with Republicans and Democrats as estranged as at any time in recent memory, reflecting the cavernous divides in the country itself during a presidency that has ignited rare political passions.
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It represents the culmination of a decades-long project by the conservative movement to construct a like-minded majority on the Supreme Court which has been a defining and unifying cause in successive congressional and presidential campaigns. The new profile of the court immediately makes Trump a consequential president, for all of the chaos and discord that rages around his White House, and means his legacy will include an achievement that eluded previous Republican presidents -- all of whom had more authentic conservative credentials. The ferocious nature of the confirmation battle could also have an impact on the Court itself, as Kavanaugh's vehement and politicized defense of his own behavior raised questions about his temperament and whether he could genuinely be a honest broker and implementer of the law in the most sensitive cases.
The path to Kavanaugh's confirmation cleared on Friday when two wavering Republicans, Susan Collins of Maine and Jeff Flake of Arizona, said they would vote for Kavanaugh after concluding that Ford's allegations, voiced by her in an emotional hearing last week, could not be corroborated. Their move meant that McConnell could forge the narrowest of majorities to clear Kavanaugh, despite the fact that another Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, opposed him.
Joe Manchin, a Democrat facing a tough re-election fight in West Virginia, a state where the President rolled to victory in , also supported Kavanaugh.
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Murkowski ultimately withdrew herself from the final tally as a gesture of goodwill toward her Republican colleague, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, who supports Kavanaugh but was in Montana to walk his daughter down the aisle at her wedding. But the move did not affect the ultimate result of the vote. Murkowski to vote 'present' on Kavanaugh so Daines won't have to leave daughter's wedding.
That resulted in U.
Manafort Is Convicted. Now He Must Prepare For An Even Bigger Trial.
Manafort's legal team called no defense witnesses in Virginia, focusing the bulk of their strategy on undermining the star prosecution witness: Rick Gates, who was Manafort's chief deputy. Gates pleaded guilty to charges similar to those against Manafort earlier this year and agreed to testify for the prosecution. Prosecutors had originally sought to have just one trial for Manafort, in Washington. But his defense lawyers refused to allow the case in Virginia -- where Manafort's primary residence is and where many of the financial fraud allegations stem from -- to be consolidated.
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Buell says it's likely prosecutors will have more flexibility to introduce evidence and question witnesses in the D. Ellis, the judge in Virginia.
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Bombshells are unlikely," Buell adds. But "anytime you get a witness on the stand and Manafort's conviction also gives his defense lawyers a powerful tool to delay the D. The newspaper headlines and television reports might make it hard to form an impartial jury in Washington, meaning the judge might be open to delaying the trial or moving it to a new location. For Democrats and Trump's most vehement critics, the hope has long been that Mueller uncovers evidence indicating that Trump and his associates colluded with Russian agents to help influence voters in the presidential election that Trump won.
Just as in Virginia, that isn't likely to happen in the next trial, predicts Ken White, a Los Angeles criminal defense lawyer who served as assistant U. The timing of the trial scheduled for Washington is also noteworthy given that, like in Virginia, it is expected to stretch over several weeks, meaning a verdict could come close to the November 6 midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake. In a tweet on August 20, Trump repeated his earlier assertions that Mueller was trying to time the trial to affect the opinions of U.
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Like many veteran prosecutors and legal experts, Buell rejecteds that assertion, but notes that such an argument could be used by Manafort's defense lawyers to sway the jury. They're supposed to do their jobs," he says. Not much you can do about that. White notes that in the context of the upcoming election, Trump might consider pardoning Manafort.
Constitution, presidents have sweeping authority to issue pardons, not only for those who have been convicted, but also for those who have yet to be charged. If Trump were to pardon Manafort for his conviction in the Virginia trial or in advance of the D. Regardless of whether Trump takes such a step, the Manafort trials and the entire Mueller investigation has created what some term an unparalleled political storm.
We're beyond the point when we can realize we're in uncharted waters politically," Buell says.