Thanks Sen. Coons

Now that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court with the Senate vote today of Yea 50, Nay 48, we can start breaking down this whole mess of a confirmation process which I plan to do over the next couple of days here at Red State.

The crucial part of all this that just occurred in the past week with the additional F.B.I. investigation into Kavanaugh and others that were mentioned in the testimony given to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, September 27th, by Christine Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. That set in motion the “cover” needed to get Senators Collins, Flake, and Manchin to vote Aye for Kavanaugh.

Why did the GOP leadership capitulate to this investigation when they had fought against another one earlier (the 7th) of Kavanaugh? Another investigation would drag on forever and just delay the vote.

Sen. Mitch McConnell knew that he had three wobbly senators that were falling off the fence towards a no vote on Kavanaugh. Even if he did not get a party-line vote out of the Judiciary Committee he could bring the vote to the Senate as Majority Leader but that would not be a guaranteed outcome of passage.

Enter retiring Sen. Jeff Flake and Sen. Chris Coons.

On Friday morning, Sept 28th, Sen. Jeff Flake announced he was supporting Kavanaugh before the Judiciary Committee meeting. Before that meeting, he was verbally accosted by two women in the Senate elevator whom you could see on the video taken, had impacted him. Protester shouts at Sen. Jeff Flake in elevator: ‘Tell me it doesn’t matter’

When Flake arrived at the committee meeting waiting to speak, he and Sen. Coons decided after Coons’ speech deriding the whole process to talk out of chambers. This delayed the vote of the Judiciary committee over half an hour while a deal was struck.

The GOP would agree to an FBI investigation and the Dems would agree to only a one week delay.

Sen. Schumer and the higher-ups in the minority leadership were banking on the fact that President Trump and Sen. McConnell were so set on getting Kavanaugh on the court before the beginning of the new court session on Monday, October 1st, they would never agree to the delay.

Sen. McConnell and the Majority leadership were confident nothing else would show up during the additional F.B.I. check and they had a guarantee from one of the more low key Democrats that a one week delay and ONLY a one week delay would be good.

Sen. McConnell jumped on the deal within hours and Pres. Trump gave his thumbs up approval right after during a meeting with President Sebastian Pinera of Chile in the Oval Office. The President ordered the F.B.I. to immediately start the additional investigation.

The path was set.

The one talking point the Democrats had pounded into the ground successfully — “why the rush to confirm and what is Kavanaugh afraid of?” — were muted with the deal with Sen. Coons and Sen.Flake. Once the GOP agreed to the Coons deal, the tide turned and the only hope the minority had was that something would turn up.

Nothing did.

In fact, if you watched Sen. Schumer and Sen. Feinstein in the press conference they held after they read the F.B.I. report on Thursday, you could see the look of complete defeat in their faces. The report yielded nothing new and the one talking point they had was gone.

With the report out and the Democrats steaming about losing their one key talking point, this cleared the way for Sen. Collins, Sen. Flake, and Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin to vote to approve Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court.

I know that a lot of people were hating on Sen. Flake a week ago and I wrote about this here at Red State. Analysis: Slow Your Roll On Jeff Flake Hate. I know that was the easy route to go and I have to admit I was in that camp for a while.

Yet now, with the vote finished, we can start to piece together this jagged puzzle of the oddest confirmation battle in American history and how this unfolded the way it did.

A brief emotional encounter with women yelling at a United States Senator at an elevator door, opened another door to the Democrats striking a deal they never should have for purely political reasons. The Democrats never intended to give Kavanaugh a fair hearing and they almost succeeded in keeping him off the court.

President Trump, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and the entire GOP conference and last but not least, Justice Brett Kavanaugh have many people to thank for getting where we as a nation did today.

At the top of that list is Sen. Chris Coons the junior United States Senator from Delaware.

In case you missed my other post on a different subject Brett Kavanaugh Is A Better Human Being Than Senate Dems, So He Must Be Destroyed and my podcast Bourbon On The Rocks check it out and follow me on the twitters at IRISHDUKE2