Michael D Crapo

For the second week in a row, no Senate Democrats made the trip back to D.C. to question a slate of President Donald Trump’s nominees for lifetime appointments to the federal bench, but their boycott is not impeding the GOP’s ability to line up those nominees for confirmation by the end of the year. 

Sen. Michael D. Crapo of Idaho presided over the hearing, which also featured an appearance by former Chairman Orrin G. Hatch of Utah. Democrats have decried the unusual recess hearings as a further erosion of senatorial courtesy and an indication of Republicans’ desire to ram through judges regardless of institutional protocol.

Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee didn’t make the trip back to Capitol Hill to question one of President Donald Trump’s federal appellate picks Wednesday.

But that doesn’t mean she got away without some tough questions.

Fresh off a divisive Supreme Court battle, Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles E. Grassley has a complicated decision to make next month that has the business world watching with keen interest: whether to make the jump over to the Finance Committee chairmanship in the 116th Congress.

“Ask me Nov. 7,” was all the Iowa Republican would say earlier this week on the topic. But the allure of returning to the helm of perhaps the most powerful committee in Congress, with jurisdiction over taxes, trade and health care policy, can’t be lost on Grassley, who was Finance chairman for part of 2001 and again from 2003 through 2006.

Senators got two irreconcilable accounts Thursday about whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually attacked a girl when he was in high school, setting up a pitched partisan showdown about whether that allegation and others that have surfaced this week are enough to derail his confirmation.

First, Christine Blasey Ford, in a soft but certain tone, told the Senate Judiciary Committee she is “100 percent” certain it was Kavanaugh who pinned her to a bed and covered her mouth as he sexually attacked her at a high school gathering decades ago.

Sen. Jeff Flake, seen as a key swing vote who could either put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court or kill his chances, is not committing to voting for the nominee at a Friday morning Judiciary Committee markup.

The Arizona Republican sounded very conflicted Thursday evening following a meeting of the Senate Republican Conference after the Judiciary panel spent nearly nine hours Thursday hearing from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her at a party decades ago when they were both in high school. 

The eyes of the world are on Capitol Hill on Thursday as Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on her accusations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when both were in high school.

We’ll post the entire day in photos here, with the most recent appearing first:

Senators are pleased to see the Trump administration doing something about election interference, but they don’t think Wednesday’s executive order will be enough.

Some of the concern comes from the fact that even if federal agencies report evidence of Russian evidence to interfere in the 2018 midterms, President Donald Trump could still waive the imposition of sanctions.

The Senate Banking Committee advanced Thursday the controversial nomination of Kathy Kraninger to be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The vote split on party lines, 13-12. 

The panel’s chairman, Michael D. Crapo of Idaho, said Kraninger was “well prepared” to lead the bureau, and that it’s no surprise her nomination is contentious because the CFPB was the most disputed aspect of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act financial overhaul. 

Only in Washington would an argument erupt over a federal agency’s acronym.

To progressives, the agency is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or the CFPB, which took on Wall Street and won compensation for more than 27 million consumers during its startup years under former Director Richard Cordray.

The chairmen of the Senate Republican and Democratic campaign committees have spoken at length about election security and the potential for Russian active measures against the 2018 midterms.

“In terms of meddling with the election ... I’ve had long conversations with Chris Van Hollen about this. This is an unacceptable activity by the Russians — or anyone, for that matter — but we certainly want to do everything we can to protect the elections of integrity coming up in 2018,” National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Cory Gardner of Colorado said. “This is not a partisan issue.”