Donald Trump just ordered an FBI investigation into Brett Kavanaugh, and now all bets are off

| 5:22 pm EDT September 28, 2018
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Barely an hour ago, the Republican Senate leadership formally asked Donald Trump to order an FBI Investigation into Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a clear sign that the GOP does not currently have the votes to confirm him. Sure enough, minutes ago, the White House posted a tweet confirming that Trump has indeed ordered the FBI probe. So what happens now?

For reference, here’s the statement from Donald Trump: “I’ve ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file. As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week.” NBC News just reported that “limited in scope” does include everything that’s currently in the public eye, which would presumably mean all three women who have come forward by name. Yes, Trump will try to keep this as small as possible. But no, he can’t rig the Kavanaugh FBI investigation; we’ve seen that Trump can’t even succeed in his efforts to rig the FBI investigation into his own crimes.

What’s remarkable here is that if the FBI probe finds sufficient evidence to bring criminal charges, Brett Kavanaugh will (eventually) be held criminally liable. There’s no turning back now. We’d tend to think that Trump consulted with Kavanaugh before ordering the probe, giving him a chance to drop out first. But with Trump, you never know for sure. The question for now is what the FBI can dig up within a week.

Even if the FBI can’t find enough evidence to recommend criminal charges against Brett Kavanaugh, it could end up finding enough evidence to demonstrate his guilt in the court of public opinion. That could then prompt Trump and McConnell to decide they need to pull the nomination, which would in turn depend on how Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski plan to vote. Collins and Murkowski already decided today that they wouldn’t vote “yes” without an FBI probe, so now they’re going to be married to the results.