Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court has been delayed as the FBI carry out a "limited" additional background check after Republicans were blind-sided by one of their senators who said his vote for the nominee was dependent on such a probe.
Donald Trump later said it "wouldn't bother me at all" if the scope of the investigation was 'expanded' to include interviews of all three of his nominee's accusers and Mr Kavanaugh himself.
Last week's explosive testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee of Dr Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges a drunken Mr Kavanaugh sexually abused her at a college party in 1982, was hotly contested by Mr Kavanaugh in his counter-testimony.
He appeared angry and had several tense exchanges with committee Democrats, accusing them of doing this as a matter of "revenge" and simply to smear his name.
Hello and welcome to The Independent's coverage of Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination process!
Follow along here as the FBI conducts its investigation of sexual assault allegations against the man who is seeking a lifetime appointment on the country's highest court.
There was a lot of drama last week on Capitol Hill as Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's second nominee for the US Supreme Court, was supposed to be voted on to the bench.
However, the country heard the powerful testimony of one of the women accusing him of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford.
Here was our play-by-play of the day Dr Ford and Mr Kavanaugh - who appeared angry, emotional, and had tense exchanges with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee - both testified.
As if that was not enough of an emotional, tense day for the Senate as well as sexual assault survivors around the country, the next day was the deliberation between committee members about when to vote on Mr Kavanaugh's appointment.
Read our live recap here:
The Senate ultimately decided to ask the Trump administration for a week-long, "limited scope" FBI investigation into Dr Ford's allegations.
One of the points of contention from late last week: Mr Kavanaugh's characterisation of his drinking habits.
He repeatedly said "I like beer" during his testimony and claimed he never "blacked out" from drinking as he refuted Dr Ford's allegations.
However one of his Yale classmates, Chad Ludington, said Mr Kavanaugh was lying about that. He called the nominee a "belligerent and aggressive" drunk.
The FBI investigation may never have happened if it were not for the request from Republican Senator Jeff Flake.
Mr Flake may have been influenced by a pair of women who had confronted him earlier in an emotional exchange as he boarded the lift on his way to the hearing room.
One women held the door open and screamed in his face "you have children" and said he would be putting a man on the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment who had been accused of "violating a young girl".
The investigation is set to last no longer than one week, meaning it will likely conclude at the end of this week.
The "limited scope" does not include an interview with Dr Ford, however - one of the many points Democrats have decried.
It will, however, include four interviews, one of them with Mark Judge, the man Dr Ford said was in the room during the alleged assault.
Republicans and Mr Kavanaugh all painted a picture of Mr Judge as a recovering addict who suffers from major depression in a possible bid to discredit him according to some legal experts who spoke with The Independent late last week.
Read about the decision not to interview Dr Ford here:
Mr Ludington, the Yale classmate, who said Mr Kavanaugh had been lying to Congress about the nature of his drinking habits, has a challenger however.
Chris Dudley is a former NBA player and close friend of Mr Kavanaugh’s who attended Yale and played basketball with Mr Ludington.
Mr Dudley told the New York Times he “never, ever saw Brett Kavanaugh black out” from drinking, and “never, ever saw him act inappropriately toward any woman in the 35 years that I’ve known him".
Mr Dudley told the New York Times he “never, ever saw Brett Kavanaugh black out” from drinking, and “never, ever saw him act inappropriately toward any woman in the 35 years that I’ve known him".
While some may have considered the initiation of an FBI investigation a victory of sorts, many readers were taken back to the 1991 case of Anita Hill.
Ms Hill, a lawyer, had accused Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment while she worked for him at the US Department of Education and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
His confirmation hearing had actually concluded when President George HW Bush reopened it and requested a full FBI investigation within four days of Ms Hill's allegations.
The Senate had also heard from dozens of witnesses at the time, unlike what happened last week when only Dr Ford testified.
You can read more about Ms Hill, who called the Kavanaugh hearing "a mockery," here:
Protesters outside of Capitol Hill last week also remembered Ms Hill. Our Andrew Buncombe reported on the women wearing teal, in honour of the suit she wore during her testimony 27 years ago.
Senate Republicans last week had brought in an outside sex crimes prosector from Arizona, Rachel Mitchell, to question Dr Ford during her testimony.
Ms Mitchell, according to legal experts who spoke to The Independent, said she was unable to get into a rhythm in questioning Dr Ford as she would normally do in a trial setting.
She came forward today to say in a memo to the GOP: "A ‘he said, she said’ case is incredibly difficult to prove. But this case is even weaker than that. I do not think that a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee. Nor do I believe that this evidence is sufficient to satisfy the preponderance-of-the-evidence standard.”
She indicated she could only provide her unsolicited assessment "in that legal context,” not a political one given her position as a prosecutor.
"There is no clear standard of proof for allegations made during the Senate’s confirmation process," she wrote.
Ms Mitchell wrote in the nine-page document she believed Dr Ford “has not offered a consistent account of when the alleged assault happened" and “struggled” to identify Mr Kavanaugh as the alleged assailant.
She also wrote Dr Ford had “no memory of key details” regarding the event.
However, given the Senate hearing process has "no clear standard of proof" and Ms Mitchell's inability to get into a consistent questioning of Dr Ford, it is unclear how she arrived at the assessment, according to legal experts.
Ms Mitchell was also not allowed to question any other witnesses because Senate Republicans had rejected Dr Ford's lawyers' request to allow more witnesses to testify in front of the committee - primarily Mark Judge, the man Dr Ford alleges was present during the incident.
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Republican Senator Orrin Hatch is tweeting out portions of Ms Mitchell's assessment memo regarding Dr Ford's testimony.
Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor and CNN legal analyst, tweeted Ms Mitchell's assessment is indeed "a political statement, not a prosecutorial statement" as she asserted in the memo.
As the investigation is carried out, Mr Trump is not happy with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
About a week before the drama unfolded in the hearing room on Friday when Senator Jeff Flake - and later other Republicans like Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski - supported the investigation and week-long delay in the vote, Mr Trump "unleashed an expletive-filled tirade" on Mr McConnell.
According to the New York Times, the president felt - in the wake of Dr Ford coming forward about her allegations - the Senate leader had let the confirmation process get out of control.
Mr Trump, according to the newspaper, also said Senate Republicans should have immediately held a vote on Mr Kavanaugh's nomination after the committee had voted along party lines to send it to the Senate floor for a full chamber vote.
He estimated Mr Flake, Ms Collins, Ms Murkowski, and the few "red state" Democratic Senators like Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, would have been forced to vote to put Mr Kavanaugh on the court.
Publicly, Mr Trump had initially responded in an uncharacteristically somber tone when he heard about the delayed vote while in the Oval office.
On Friday, the president had said he would go along with what the Senate decided.
He called Dr Ford "a very credible witness" and a "very fine woman," just days after saying she was running a "con game".
He also tweeted the same of Mr Kavanaugh, calling his testimony “powerful, honest, and riveting." Mr Trump added he thought Democrats were simply trying to "delay, obstruct, and resist.”
He then tweeted similar sentiments on Sunday.
Part of the president and Republicans' opposition to an FBI investigation may have stemmed from the recent contentious relationship after the sacking of former agency director James Comey.
Mr Comey weighed in on the confirmation hearings as well, criticising the "flawed" limiting of the bureau's investigation into Dr Ford's allegations.
Read more about the ousted director's thoughts here:
Mr Trump is currently giving a press conference on the new US-Mexico-Canada trade deal, a replacement to the North American Trade Agreement (Nafta), and refusing to answer questions about his Supreme Court nominee.
For more information on what is going on with the trade deal, check our coverage here:
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In the latest twist in the story, Chad Ludington, a former Yale classmate of Mr Kavanaugh, has accused him of seriously misrepresenting his drinking as a student, calling him a “belligerent and aggressive” drunk.
The FBI's investigation is to last no longer than a week from the day from when the original vote on the nominee was supposed to take place, meaning it will conclude at the end of this week.
It is unclear if the investigation could be expanded should more accusers come forward.
Democrats and Dr Ford are particularly keen on Mark Judge to be interviewed, the man she claimed was present in the room during the alleged assault. Two other women have also accused Mr Kavanaugh - Julie Swetnick and Deborah Ramirez.
