Molly Prince on October 1, 2018
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake admitted on Sunday that had he been running for re-election in Arizona, requesting the FBI to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brett Kavanaugh would have made him unelectable to the Senate.
The Arizona senator voted “yes” to advance Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and into the full Senate on Friday with the condition that an FBI probe would briefly investigate Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation of sexual abuse against the judge.
Flake notably announced that he would not be running for re-election in October 2017. CBS News’ Scott Pelley asked Flake if he had been seeking to hold his Senate seat, would he have been able to demand an investigation.
“No,” Flake responded on “60 Minutes.” “Not a chance.”
“There’s no value to reaching across the aisle,” Flake continued. “There’s no currency for that anymore. There’s no incentive.”
“There’s a chance [that we are going to be in exactly the same place a week from now] and we know that. And some of our colleagues said that,” Flake said. “We’ll be back here one week from now, it’ll be worse.”
“There will be other outrageous allegations that come forward. The FBI will talk to people that won’t want to talk anymore. We won’t be any better off,” Flake continued. “There is a chance that that will happen. I do think that we can make progress.”
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