Sen. Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph LeahyBipartisan representatives demand answers on expired surveillance programs Democrats shoot down talk of expanding Supreme Court Battle over timing complicates Democratic shutdown strategy MORE (Vt.), the longest serving Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted Republicans for jettisoning their independence in their push to get Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh confirmed by next week.

“This Judiciary Committee is no longer an independent branch of Congress, and we’re supposed to be. The Senate is supposed to be,” he said.

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“We’re an arm in a very weak arm of the Trump White House,” he said. “Every semblance of independence has disappeared. It’s gone. And I think that’s something historians will look at and call it a turning point in the United States Senate.”

Leahy accused Republicans of months of breaking “precedent after precedent in a manic rush to fill a Supreme Court seat.”

He said the committee is poised to advance a nominee “credibly accused of sexual assault and the committee hasn’t even conducted a meaningful investigation.”

The panel is expected to move Kavanaugh's confirmation to the floor on Friday in a party-line vote, one day after hearing testimony from Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when the two were high school students. The committee also heard testimony from Kavanaugh, who denied the accusations in an at-times emotional speech.

Leahy grew louder and angrier as he wrapped up his comments on Friday.

He warned that the committee’s failure to take Ford’s testimony more seriously would likely dissuade victims of sexual assault from coming forward in the future.

“How this committee handles this nomination [is] a reflection of how seriously our society views credible claims of sexual misconduct,” he said.

Kavanaugh would be the second justice nominated by President Trump Donald John TrumpSteele Dossier sub-source was subject of FBI counterintelligence probe Pelosi slams Trump executive order on pre-existing conditions: It 'isn't worth the paper it's signed on' Trump 'no longer angry' at Romney because of Supreme Court stance MORE to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.