Our live, non-stop coverage of today’s emotional Senate Judiciary Committee hearing is ending for the evening, but stick with CNN Politics as we continue our reporting into the night.
Here are a few things to read:
And here are two things to watch:
Christine Blasey Ford’s full testimony | Brett Kavanaugh’s full opening statement
Sens. Roy Blunt and Bill Cassidy just said the plan, as laid out in the closed door meeting is Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on the Kavanaugh nomination, and the first procedural vote is set to take place on the floor Saturday at noon.
Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley repeatedly declined to answer questions as he repeated over and over again, “We’re meeting at 9:30” – a reference to the committee meeting scheduled to take place tomorrow morning.
The only other clue he gave about the state of affairs came was he asked when will the nomination come to the floor and said, “depends on what happens tomorrow.”
A GOP source close to the Kavanaugh nomination process conceded White House and Senate Republicans aren’t yet sure if they have the votes to push the nominee across the finish line.
Vice President Pence tonight said, “I stand with Judge Kavanaugh…take the vote.”
He tweeted:
Mark Judge is the third individual who Christine Blasey Ford claims was in the room when Brett Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted her.
In response to Ford’s testimony, Judge’s lawyer Barbara Van Gelder said Judge “does not recall the events described” by Ford.
Leaving the meeting with Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake, Joe Manchin said, “There have been no decisions. We meet all the time … I think you all know we trust each other. We are friends. Which is so hard to find around here.”
“We are still talking. There are no decisions on anything. There are some concerns that people have and we’re going to try to close the loop,” he said.
About the hearing, he said, “both were credible.”
Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement today, a fiery, scorched-earth speech that may well have salvaged his bid for the Supreme Court, was not only aimed at the Senate Judiciary Committee. It carried an even bigger goal: to keep President Donald Trump from losing faith in his nomination.
Kavanaugh was being urged by some — including old friends from Bush world — to take a softer approach today. But in the end, he tuned out the advice, and sat down to write a speech with a sole aide. An overarching goal: please Trump and, in turn, circle the conservative wagons behind him, an official close to the process said.
Two White House officials said that while the President never seriously considered asking Kavanaugh to withdraw, he did discuss the idea — publicly and privately — that he would quickly announce another nominee and use the rejection of Kavanaugh to rally conservatives in the mid-term elections.
It didn’t come to that, but there were “incredibly tense moments” in the White House after Christine Blasey Ford finished her testimony. A White House official said the president found Ford “compelling” and “very credible” and had serious questions about how Kavanaugh would perform.
The President was publicly silent throughout the day, but his hand was guiding nearly every pivotal move – from Sen. Lindsey Graham’s boisterous speech to the decision to shut down the Republican-selected special prosecutor.
A GoFundMe campaign set up on for Christine Blasey Ford raised more than $200,000 in the wake of her testimony Thursday.
As of 7:30 p.m., the campaign had raised more than $410,000. Before Ford’s testimony, the total amount raised was “approximately $175,000,” according to a spokeswoman for the website.
The organizers of the campaign, who set an original goal of $150,000, said all additional funds will “cover travel costs as well as security” for Ford while the initial $150,000 will go entirely to security for Ford and her family.
A Twitter account that tracks anonymous Wikipedia edits that are “made from IP addresses in the US Congress” detected edits on the pages of three Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday evening, while the committee was questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The edits appeared to post street addresses and phone numbers belonging to Sen. Orrin Hatch, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Sen. Mike Lee.
There was also an edit on the term “Devil’s Triangle,” which Kavanaugh described as a drinking game similar to Quarters.
The developer who created the tracker said that the edits could have been made by anyone on the Capitol complex — including visitors using public WiFi.
Wikipedia has removed the information.
The four key centrist votes on Judge Brett Kavanaugh — Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Jeff Flake and Joe Manchin — are huddled privately in a Capitol office.
Staff left the room as they gathered minutes after the Kavanaugh hearing ended.
Murkowski angrily tried to order a reporter from the hallway when she arrived.
“Go,” she shouted out pointing to the end of the hallway.
The three Republicans are planning to attend the GOP conference meeting at 7:15 p.m., per an aide.
Sen. John Kennedy, who did not let GOP-hired prosecutor Rachel Mitchell use his time to question Brett Kavanaugh, came over and shook Mitchell’s hand.
“Great job, counsel,” he said.
All 11 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee used Mitchell to ask their questions to Kavanaugh’s accuser Christine Blasey Ford. But many of them chose to speak directly to Kavanaugh.
Mitchell stayed in the room the whole time, though. Here’s footage of her sitting while Republicans questions Kavanaugh:
President Trump, clearly pleased with Brett Kavanaugh’s performance, tweeted his praise.
“Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting,” he tweeted. “Democrats’ search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!”
See the tweet:
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, one of the key senators who could make or break Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, was given one minute to address the hearing. He apologized to Kavanaugh — and to his accuser Christine Blasey Ford.
He also said there is still, likely “as much doubt as certainty.”
Watch more:
Responding to a question from California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, Judge Brett Kavanaugh said he did not watch his accuser’s testimony prior to his own.
Harris, a potential Democratic presidential contender for 2020, ended her own line of questions by asking “a direct question.”
He later added that although he had planned to watch, he did not because he was preparing for his own.
The plan was for Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona sex crimes prosecutor, to ask questions of both Ford and Kavanaugh on Republicans’ behalf. But halfway through Kavanaugh’s hearing, it was abandoned when Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas used their time to assail Democrats.
The tone shifted drastically as Mitchell was left sorting through papers and taking notes while Republican senators spoke directly over her.
Speaking during a break in the proceedings, CNN’s Dana Bash said, “The whole reason why the male Republicans on this committee brought a female prosecutor in to do the questioning was because of the optics of these men asking questions of this woman who says that she was attacked by Brett Kavanaugh.”
“But they completely undermined the attempt to correct the optics by pushing Rachel Mitchell aside and asking the questions themselves when it came to Brett Kavanaugh, because things were getting very down and dirty.”
Bash added, “If the whole point is to have somebody who is impartial who understands these questions to ask the questions of both, boy did they undermine that.”
Watch:
A Senior White House official said the President is happy with Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony today.
Where is Trump? As the hearing winds down, President Trump will head to the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. He is going for two fundraising events that are closed to press.
After the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing ends, the GOP will hold a conference meeting.
Sources say the meeting is being held to reassure Senators that the Republican staffers on Senate Judiciary conducted its own investigation into Kavanaugh’s past.
They will discuss what they found, and what they did not find.
However, it’s ultimately an attempt to calm the concerns that a handful of key Republican senators hold.
Michael Avenatti, who represents another woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh, tells CNN that Christine Blasey Ford is “very credible.”
Asked if his own client is prepared to do that? “We have yet to receive a response to the correspondence we sent this morning. She wants to testify.”
And he said this about Kavanaugh: “Judge Kavanaugh’s conduct during the hearing today demonstrates that he has no business being on the Supreme Court.”
Judge Brett Kavanaugh said the person he spent the most time with at Yale was Chris Dudley, former basketball player and 2010 GOP gubernatorial candidate in Oregon.
Dudley, speaking to CNN on Monday, said he has had a very hard time watching the allegations about his friend surface.
Dudley says he met Kavanaugh freshman year. The two men often played basketball together. Kavanaugh played JV, but JV practiced or played practice games with Varsity, Dudley remembered. The two men were also in DKE together. Dudley joined later and said it wasn’t a primary social activity for him because he was so involved with the basketball team.
Kavanaugh and Dudley have stayed in close touch in the years since. The men ran in the same social circles, and they often went to sporting events like football games together.
Dudley remembers Kavanaugh as “very humble” and “smart.”
Dudley said that he did see Kavanaugh drinking, but that he never saw Kavanaugh get out of control. Dudley said there was drinking at Yale, but that it was “not crazy.”
Dudley said he saw Kavanaugh when Kavanaugh was first nominated, but that he has not spoken to him since all of the allegations broke. He said he texted Kavanaugh something along the lines of “hang in there” more recently.
In college, Dudley said Kavanaugh was not a big dater. He had friends who were women, but he said Kavanaugh was shy and when he drank, he did not get aggressive.
“He wasn’t that type of person,” Dudley said.
In a fiery statement, Republican Nebraska Sen. Benjamin Sasse asked why Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s staff hadn’t handled the allegations earlier, rather than let them “do crap to his (Kavanaugh’s) family.”
“I think Dr. Ford is a victim and I think she’s been through hell, and I’m very sympathetic to her,” Sasse said.
However, he continued, “None of these things were asked. But then once the process was closed, once the FBI investigation was closed, once we were done meeting in public and in private, then this was sprung on you.”
Seeming to speak to the Democrats in the room now, Sasse said, “You could have handled all this. We could have had this conversation in a private in a way that didn’t – not only do crap to his family….” he then stopped the thought.
“I yield my time.”
Watch it here:
