The Senate Judiciary Committee's vote on Brett Kavanaugh will only proceed if a "majority of the members" of the 21-member committee are ready to vote on Friday. The committee's chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he had to announce the vote on Tuesday due to Senate rules. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images White House Senate panel schedules Kavanaugh vote for Friday The move comes after Republicans hire a female attorney to question Kavanaugh's accuser.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court on Friday morning, less than 24 hours after Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford appear before the panel to discuss Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her more than 30 years ago.

According to committee rules, Judiciary must schedule a committee vote three days in advance. But the committee said the vote will proceed only if a "majority of the members" of the 21-member panel are ready to vote on Friday.


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can bring Kavanaugh to the floor whether the nominee gets a favorable or unfavorable recommendation. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is undecided on Kavanaugh's nomination and is the key swing vote on the panel; Flake has not voted in the Senate this week and has not commented on his current thinking about Kavanaugh.

“For Republicans to schedule a Friday vote on Brett Kavanaugh today, two days before Dr. Blasey Ford has had a chance to tell her story, is outrageous," Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the committee's ranking member, said Tuesday. “First Republicans demanded Dr. Blasey Ford testify immediately. Now Republicans don’t even need to hear her before they move ahead with a vote."

Senate Republicans on Tuesday night announced they had hired Rachel Mitchell, on leave as a deputy county attorney in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix and the Division Chief of the Special Victims Division, as an attorney to use as a questioner at Thursday's high-stakes hearing on a sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh. Earlier in the day, the GOP had declined to release her identity, with Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) telling POLITICO that "we aren't announcing the name for her safety."

Asked whether Republicans have received any indication of threats to the attorney they're preparing to use, Grassley said: "I don’t know, but I guess we’re just being cautious."

The GOP’s secrecy immediately came under fire from Senate Democrats, who mockingly pointed out that all 11 Republicans on the Judiciary Committee are men.

“No one can find that out; it’s a mystery,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday afternoon of the questioner. “It’s interesting that our Republican colleagues, who want to rush this [nomination] through, are afraid to question Dr. Ford themselves and have to put a surrogate there.”

The committee has given senators, or a counsel if they wish, five minutes to question Ford and one round of questioning, according to internal guidance. Kavanaugh will appear after Ford and receive the same treatment.

The back-and-forth over the GOP’s female counsel was part of a day of bitter partisan sniping as both sides prepared for Thursday’s blockbuster hearing. And it could get only more heated. As the committee pressed ahead with a planned vote on Kavanaugh, an attorney representing Deborah Ramirez charged that Republicans on the panel "have refused to meet all scheduled appointments" to discuss her allegation against the judge further.

"Ms. Ramirez is ready to swear to the FBI under penalty of perjury. Why won’t the Senate Judiciary Committee welcome that?" Colorado-based attorney John Clune tweeted on Tuesday.

Appearing later on CNN, Clune accused Republican staffers of “playing games” during negotiations about whether and how Ramirez might come forward. A committee aide for the majority said Grassley had tried seven times in the previous 48 hours to follow up with Clune about what evidence Ramirez could provide.

President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders began the day by angrily lashing out at Feinstein and other Democrats over their handling of the Ford allegation. Schumer responded by attacking Kavanaugh’s credibility, suggesting the federal appeals court judge may have lied during his confirmation hearings.

The stakes couldn't be higher for Kavanaugh, the future of the Supreme Court and both parties as they head into the midterm elections. Republicans, though, clearly have more to lose. A failure to get Kavanaugh’s nomination through the Senate confirmation process would bring heavy criticism from Trump and the conservative base, and would leave Republicans scrambling to push through a different nominee during a lame-duck session, which would carry big political risks.

With that in mind, McConnell — described by one Republican as “fired up” — was already warning his colleagues that he would keep the Senate in all weekend in order to have a final confirmation vote on Kavanaugh by early next week. The new Supreme Court term starts Oct. 1.

“I’m confident we’re going to win; I’m confident that he will be confirmed in the very near future,” McConnell told reporters on Tuesday.

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McConnell has been lobbying undecided GOP senators to back Kavanaugh. He met for 45 minutes on Tuesday afternoon with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a critical undecided GOP moderate. Murkowski declined to say what message she delivered to the GOP leader, refusing to answer questions about whether she will vote for or against Kavanaugh.

“We’re going to have this hearing on Thursday, and that’s the next step. I think it’s a very important step,” Murkowski said.

Other undecided Republicans — including Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee and Flake — also say they want to see Ford and Kavanaugh testify Thursday before making a decision.

The issue of who will lead the Republican questioning of Ford and Kavanaugh during that session is a critical one. Republicans are haunted by the images of male senators grilling Anita Hill during the 1991 confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. The backlash from women over the treatment of Hill was enormous, and Republicans are fearful of the optics of doing this 40 days before the midterm elections.

In a personal letter on Monday, Grassley told Ford, a 51-year-old California-based professor, that he is "committed to fair and respectful treatment of you" during Thursday's make-or-break hearing.

Although Ford's attorney wrote to Grassley on Monday night that his staff "still has not responded to a number of outstanding questions" about the hearing, including more details on how the female attorney would be engaged to speak on behalf of Judiciary Republicans' all-male roster, the Iowa Republican has made clear that he views the hearing as locked in.

Heeding Ford's desire to avoid a "circus-like environment," Grassley has agreed to limit the press presence in the hearing room and give her security protection via the U.S. Capitol Police. "I don't know what else we can do," Grassley said, adding that "I don't know of any problem" remaining.

However, even before Ford comes to Capitol Hill, Democrats slammed the GOP leadership’s plan to keep the Senate in session to confirm Kavanaugh as proof that Republicans had already made up their minds to ignore Ford’s accusations.

Republicans, however, said the nominee’s confirmation shouldn’t be pushed back further.

"There’s no reason to delay this more, unless something new comes out of the hearing on Thursday," said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas. "As you can tell, people are coming out of the woodwork making incredible, uncorroborated allegations, and I think you can just expect that kind of nonsense to continue."

Trump on Tuesday mocked claims by Ramirez, who told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh exposed himself while they were both students at Yale University more than 30 years ago. Kavanaugh has denied Ramirez's allegation, and other news organization have not been able to corroborate her claim.

During an appearance at the United Nations General Assembly with Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez, Trump launched into a defense of Kavanaugh and called the allegations against him “unsubstantiated.”

"Charges come up from 36 years ago that are totally unsubstantiated? I mean, you as watching this, as the president of a great country — Colombia — you must say, ‘How is this possible?’ Thirty-six years ago? Nobody ever knew about it? Nobody ever heard about it? And now a new charge comes up,” Trump said.

“And [Ramirez] said, well, it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up. And she doesn’t know it was him, but it might’ve been him. ‘Oh, gee, let’s not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that.’ This is a con game being played by the Democrats.”

With Kavanaugh’s nomination in trouble, the White House P.R. offensive is designed to shift the blame for the debacle onto Democrats while trying to shore up GOP support. Yet right now, Kavanaugh doesn’t have the votes to be confirmed, Republicans privately admit.

Sanders singled out Feinstein for harsh criticism, blaming the California Democrat for the entire controversy. “I find that to be disgraceful and disgusting, and she certainly needs to shoulder a lot of the blame for what’s going on right now," she said.

Yet despite Trump’s tweet, Sanders said the White House is open to Ramirez testifying. Senate Republicans have said they will determine the witnesses and said repeatedly they would limit it to Ford and Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh himself gave an extraordinary interview to Fox News on Monday night, an unprecedented move for a nominee still under consideration by the Senate.

Feinstein, Schumer and other Democrats have countered the GOP push on Kavanaugh by demanding the White House allow the FBI to investigate Ford’s allegations, which the Trump administration has refused to agree to.

“The best way the process is fair and gets to the truth in a respectful manner is an FBI background check investigation,” Schumer said. “If you want the truth, you ask for an FBI background check investigation. If you’re afraid of the truth, you avoid an FBI background investigation.”

Schumer also demanded an apology from McConnell for labeling Ford's allegation against Kavanaugh "‘a smear job.’ He should apologize to her, and he should do it immediately.”

The FBI has said it has completed its background investigation of Kavanaugh and has no further role in this nomination fight.

Brent D. Griffiths contributed to this report.