President spoke glowingly of the nominee on Monday as confusion swirls over the scope of the FBI investigation

Donald Trump on Monday firmly backed his supreme court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh as confusion swirled over the scope of an FBI investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct against the judge.

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But the president left open the possibility that he could change his mind about Kavanaugh, should the FBI find something disqualifying in its work, which was ordered on Friday and is scheduled to conclude just a week later.

On Monday evening, the New York Times reported that in 1985 Kavanaugh was involved in an altercation at a local bar during which he was accused of throwing ice on another patron, and he and four other men were questioned by the police, according to a police report.

Earlier, Trump spoke at a White House Rose Garden press conference that was staged to tout his new trade deal with Canada and Mexico but which turned into a freewheeling and at times confrontational hour-long exchange with reporters. His comments come as Democrats and Republicans clash over whether the bureau will have enough time and scope to conduct a thorough investigation before a high-stakes vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination, which the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said would happen by the week’s end.

Answering questions about the FBI inquiry, the president told reporters he supported a “comprehensive” investigation and had no problem if the bureau interviewed Kavanaugh and a third accuser, who was not included in the initial list of four witnesses whom agents were instructed to question. Yet he said he would allow the Republican majority in the Senate to define its remit.

“My White House will do whatever the senators want,” he said. “I’m open to whatever they want. The one thing I want is speed.”

He added: “I’m guided by the Senate. I want to make the Senate happy because ultimately they’re making the judgment.”

On Monday, the New York Times reported that the White House had authorized the FBI to expand its investigation as long as the bureau finished its work by the end of the week. In a letter addressed to the White House and the FBI, Democrats on the Senate panel identified more than two dozen witnesses, including the third accuser, Julie Swetnick, Kavanaugh, as well as his classmates and friends in college.

Trump spoke glowingly of the judge and lamented the “trauma” he said the allegations had inflicted on Kavanaugh’s wife and daughters.

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The president attacked two Democrats on the committee, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Cory Booker of New Jersey, and even suggested that he had seen an unidentified Democratic senator in “very, very bad” and “somewhat compromising” situations. He did not elaborate, other than to say: “I think I’ll save it for a book like everybody else.”

Trump said he had “no plan B” if the nomination failed to pass the Senate but he insisted he had an “open mind” should federal investigators determine Kavanaugh lied to the committee.

On Sunday, FBI agents interviewed Deborah Ramirez, one of three women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied all allegations against him.

Ramirez alleges Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party at Yale in the early 1980s.

Another Yale classmate accused Kavanaugh of being untruthful in his testimony. On Sunday, Charles Ludington, who now teaches at North Carolina State University, said he was “deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale”. Ludington said he was a friend at Yale, when Kavanaugh was “a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker”.

“On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer,” Ludington said. “When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive.”

On Monday, answering reporters’ questions, Ludington went on to say that “Brett has not told the truth” about his past drinking habits and that the judge had “downplayed to a great degree” that he could have drunk to the point of not remembering “what went on”.

Asked if he would pull Kavanaugh’s nomination if it was found to have mischaracterized the extent to which he drank, Trump, a teetotaller, said: “I don’t think he [lied] … He was really strong on the fact that he drank a lot.

“I watched him,” he added. “I was surprised at how vocal he was about the fact that he liked beer. And he’s had some difficulty as a young man with drink.”

Trump continued: “I’m not a drinker. I can honestly say I never had a beer in my life. It’s one of my only good traits: I don’t drink.”

Drawing laughs from the audience, he said: “Can you imagine if I had – what a mess I’d be? I’d be the world’s worst.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Lawrance Hall, the dormitory where Deborah Ramirez says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when she was a first-year student in the 1980s. Photograph: Josh Wood/The Observer

At the Senate judiciary committee hearing last Thursday, the first woman to accuse Kavanaugh, Dr Christine Blasey Ford, detailed the attempted rape she said happened at a house party in 1982.

Ford has not been contacted by the FBI since then, according to a member of her team. On Monday morning Michael Avenatti, Swetnick’s lawyer, said his client had not been contacted either.

Posting a portion of the statement in which Swetnick says Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were present at parties in the same early 1980s years at which drunken girls were gang-raped, Avenatti said Trump was “purposely preventing the truth from being known”.

“This is a threat to our very democracy,” he said.

Judge, who Ford said was present during her alleged assault, denies the accusations.

At the White House, Trump said he would be fine if FBI agents interviewed Kavanaugh and all of the accusers, including Swetnick.

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In Boston, protesters gathered ahead of a speech by Jeff Flake, the Arizona Republican who demanded the FBI investigation after voting for the nomination to proceed. He is touring New England while exploring a possible run for the White House.

Ed Markey, the junior Massachusetts senator, said: “Dr Ford was empowered and she was courageous. She had nothing to gain and everything to lose. She stepped forward to tell her story. Now others are stepping forward to tell their stories about Brett Kavanaugh.”

Melissa Tully and Mary Power, both from Hingham, Massachusetts, were holding “#StopKavanaugh” signs. Tully said she had experienced sexual harassment in college, but “nothing compared to what Ford experienced”.