After Donald Trump caves again, Jeff Flake throws him a whole new Brett Kavanaugh curveball

| 9:09 am EDT October 2, 2018
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Senator Jeff Flake is now in charge when it comes to the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination and he knows it – and he’s figured out that Donald Trump knows it too. After Trump caved to Flake’s request for an FBI probe, he caved again yesterday when Flake called for the limitations on the probe to be removed. Once Flake saw that he could get whatever he wanted, he decided to throw yet another Kavanaugh curveball at Trump last night.

Each time Jeff Flake takes things a step further, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins quickly back him up on it. Trump and the GOP leadership can only afford to lose one Republican vote, not three. So as long as this pattern continues, Flake can continue writing his own ticket. Last night, as announced by John Heilemann on MSNBC, Jeff Flake is now hinting that if he ends up feeling that the FBI investigation hasn’t been sufficiently completed within the week he originally called for, he might call for it to be extended.

Not only would an extension allow more time for the FBI to substantiate the allegations against Kavanaugh, it would also allow more time for additional accusers to come forward, more time for the media to dig up additional Kavanaugh scandals, and more time for the public pushback against the Kavanaugh nomination to reach critical mass. We’re already seeing that happening this week. If the FBI probe were to last beyond this week, things would get even uglier. That seems to be the point. Flake and the others don’t want to have to vote on this nomination at all, so they’re trying to let it fall apart before there can be a vote,.

This is part of why we’re seeing Mitch McConnell once again bluffing, this time by insisting that he’ll hold the full Senate confirmation vote this week. But he doesn’t have the votes and he knows it. He doesn’t even have control of the process anymore. The last thing McConnell needs is Jeff Flake trying to push the FBI investigation beyond the original one-week timeframe, yet that’s exactly what Flake is now talking about doing.