The Senate should delay its floor vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until a one-week FBI investigation can take place, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said Friday, just hours after saying he would vote in favor of Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

“I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to, but not more than, one week in order to let the FBI… do an investigation limited in time and scope to the current allegations that are there,” Flake said Friday afternoon.

Flake suggested Friday that at least some of his Republican colleagues agree with his demand for an investigation.

“I have spoken to a few other members on my side of the aisle that may be supportive as well,” he said. “But that’s my position. I think that we ought to do what we can to do all due diligence with a nomination this important.”


Not long after the committee vote and Flake’s statement, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) — considered a pivotal vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation as one of the only pro-choice Republicans in the Senate — told reporters that she agreed with Flake’s call for a delay and investigation.

NEWS: Murkowski, entering the Capitol “on the way to talk to her colleagues,” said she supports @JeffFlake proposal for a one week delay and an investigation. — Leigh Ann Caldwell (@LACaldwellDC) September 28, 2018

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the Senate’s most conservative Democrat and another pivotal vote, voiced his support for the decision as well.

JUST IN: Sen. Joe Manchin supports Sen. Jeff Flake's call for a delay in Kavanaugh vote for FBI background investigation. “I applaud Senator Jeff Flake’s decision to rise above the partisan circus on display during this entire process." https://t.co/xP6e3SjxqB pic.twitter.com/PQbQ8BKDki — ABC News (@ABC) September 28, 2018

During his statement, Flake also defended the Judiciary Committee’s work up to this point.

“This committee has acted properly. The chairman has bent over backwards to do investigations from this committee and to delay this vote in this committee for a week so that Dr. Ford could be heard,” Flake said.

Because of that, Flake said he will vote to advance the bill to the floor, but he said he would not support a floor vote until the FBI has completed a short investigation into the sexual assault allegations that have been made against Kavanaugh in recent weeks.


His announcement that he supports delaying the vote until an FBI investigation is completed came after he was confronted by rape survivors in an elevator Friday morning shortly after he announced he would vote yes.

Breaking: Jeff Flake is a YES on Kavanaugh pic.twitter.com/VOO2fHYW6u — Kate Nocera (@KateNocera) September 28, 2018

“Senator Flake, do you think that Brett Kavanaugh is telling the truth?” one woman asked him Friday morning. “Do you think that he’s able to hold the pain of these countries and prepare it, that is the work of justice, the way that justice works is you recognize harm. You take responsibility for it and then you begin to repair it.”

She continued, saying, “You are allowing someone unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions and willing to hold the harm he has done to one woman, actually three women and not repair it. You are allowing someone who is unwilling to take responsibility for his own actions.”

After he was confronted by activists on his way to the committee vote, Flake left the room and talked to a number of senators on both sides of the aisle before announcing his decision.


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can, however, still call for a full vote, though the vote will fail should Flake and one other Republican vote no.

Flake’s call for an investigation comes just one day after Kavanaugh and one of the women who has accused him of sexual assault testified under oath Thursday.

Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh, says Kavanaugh attempted to rape her at a “gathering” in high school. She says Kavanaugh forced himself on her, groped her over her clothes, and tried to pull off her clothing. When she tried to scream, he then covered her mouth with his hand and turned up the music in the room to muffle her cries. She said during her testimony that she believed Kavanaugh might accidentally kill her.

The second woman who came forward, Deborah Ramirez, told The New Yorker that, at a party in college, Kavanaugh thrust his penis to her face against her wishes. And a third woman, Julie Swetnick, says she was gang raped at a party where Kavanaugh was present.

She did not directly implicate Kavanaugh in the attack, but she wrote in a sworn affidavit that Kavanaugh was among a group of boys with whom she associated and that he frequently spiked women’s drinks or drugged them in order to rape them.

Kavanaugh has denied all the claims.