and we need to act with the kind of courage they are showing tonight by being here. mr. president, i want to say thank you to you, and i also want to thank my colleague from ohio for his indulgence. i have gone over about five minutes. i apologize for that. but with that, i yield the mr. portman: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from ohio. mr. portman: tonight i rise to talk about my vote on the confirmation of judge brett kavanaugh to serve on the supreme court. sadly, over the past couple of weeks, the confirmation process has become a bitter partisan fight. it has deeply divided this body, and it's divided our country. in the midst of all the passion, the anger, and the emotion, from both sides. tonight i want to talk about something else. i'm going to talk about the facts. i want to talk about the facts

as i know them. first, i know brett kavanaugh. i have known brett and his wife ashley for more than 15 years, since we worked together in the george w. bush white house. i have seen them in tough situations. i have seen them tested. i have seen their character. i have known brett not so much as a legal scholar or a judge or a professor, but as a colleague and a friend and a father and a husband, and i have known him as someone who is smart, thoughtful, and compassionate. among white house colleagues, i know that he is universally viewed that way. he was at the time and he still is today, as we have seen from the testimony of so many men and women who have worked with him. i also know that brett kavanaugh has been a widely respected public servant for nearly three decades, including the last 12 years as a judge on the d.c.

circuit court. what most view as the second highest court in the land. i know that he has received praise from his fellow judges, his many law clerks, the majority of whom have been women. the students in his classes at harvard, yale, and georgetown law schools. students from across the political spectrum. also the litigants who have been before him, including lisa black, a self-described liberal who has argued more cases before the supreme court than any other woman. when lisa blatt joined condoleezza rice and me in introducing brett kavanaugh before the committee, she said he is unquestionably qualified by his extraordinary intellect, experience, and temperament. all this seems to have been lost in the past couple of weeks. i also know that brett kavanaugh is highly qualified to serve on the supreme court. in fact, frankly, i have heard

that from a number of my democratic colleagues who are quick to say they don't support him for other reasons, but they don't question his legal experience and his qualifications. and you really can't. the american bar association, not known for being very friendly to conservatives, has given brett kavanaugh its highest rating, unanimously. i know that in more than 20 hours of testimony -- in fact, i think it was 32 hours of testimony before the judiciary committee, he showed an encyclopedic knowledge of the constitution of supreme court cases and appreciation for supreme court precedent and an overall impressive grasp of the law. only a couple of weeks ago, he had successfully navigated the arduous process of meetings, interviews, tough questions during 32 hours in front of the senate judiciary committee. as a result, he had the votes in the committee, and he seemed

headed toward confirmation here on the floor of the senate. after 12 weeks of consideration and five days of hearings -- by the way, more days of consideration and more days of hearing than we have had for any confirmation of any judge for the supreme court in recent history -- the committee was ready to vote. just before the vote in committee came the allegations of sexual assault and calls for delay. as wrong as it was for members of the u.s. senate to keep the allegations of dr. ford secret until after the normal process had been completed, then spring ton the committee, the senate, and the country, i thought that because of the seriousness of the allegations, it would also have been wrong not to take a pause and to hear from dr. ford and judge kavanaugh, and we did. chairman chuck grassley of the judiciary committee was accused by some on my side of the aisle

of bending over backwards when he should have pushed ahead, but he reopened the process and he allowed the painful ordeal to play out, as i think we were compelled to do. painful for dr. ford, painful for brett kavanaugh, the senate, and the country. i believe sexual assault is a serious problem in our nation, and many women and girls, survivors, victims, choose not to come forward, choose not to report it for understandable reasons. therefore, i think we should take allegations seriously. we must take allegations of sexual assault very seriously, and i do. dr. ford deserved the opportunity to tell her story and be heard, and of course judge kavanaugh deserved the opportunity to defend himself. that's why i support it, not only having the additional committee investigation and

hearing but also taking another week to have a supplemental f.b.i. investigation after the normal judiciary committee process was completed. i watched that additional judiciary committee hearing, and i listened carefully to both drs testimony. i'm sure many americans did. and i have now been briefed on and read the supplemental f.b.i. report which arrived early this morning. i went to a secure room here in the capitol. to do so, i went three times today to be able to be sure that i could be fully briefed on it and read it. again, my job, my obligation is to assess the facts. and the facts before us is that no corroboration exists regarding the allegations. no evidence presented before or in the supplemental f.b.i.

investigation corroborates the allegations, none. judge kavanaugh, of course, has adamantly denied the allegations. his testimony is supported by multiple other statements. simply put, based on the hearings, the judiciary committee investigation, and the f.b.i. supplemental investigation, there is no evidence to support the serious allegations against judge kavanaugh. of course, there had been six previous f.b.i. investigations also in his 25 years of public service. in america there's a presumption of innocence. when there's no evidence to corroborate a charge, there's a presumption of innocence that we must be very careful to pay heed to. just one day after dr. ford's allegations were made public, 65 women who knew judge kavanaugh in high school sent a letter to

the judiciary committee in dense of his character -- defense of his character. these 65 women put this letter together with a day's notice. the letter stated, and i quote, through the more than 35 years we have known him, brett has stood out for his friendship, charter, and integrity. in particular he's always treated women with decency and respect. that was when he was in high school and that has remained true to this day. end quote. these are women who knew brett kavanaugh. they knew him in high school. importantly, that's the brett kavanaugh i have known these past 15 to 20 years. this confirmation debate could have and should have unfolded very differently. the process has become poisonous and it's up to us in this chamber to change it.

it's going to take a while for the senate and the country to heal from this ugly ordeal, but for now let me make a modest suggestion. let's step back from the brink. let's listen to each other. let's argue passionately but let's lower the volume. let's treat disagreements like disagreements, not as proof that our opponents are bad people. let's see if we can glorify quiet cooperation at least every once in a while instead of loud confrontation. some may say this is trite or naive, but my colleagues, we have crossed all these lines in recent weeks. and for the state of this institution and the country, we have to step back from the brink and we have to do better. the way this process unfolded risk candidates with the kind of qualifications and character we would all want deciding to think

twice before entering public service. if the new normal is 11th hour accusations, toxic rhetoric like calling a candidate evil and those who support him complicit in evil and guilt without any corroborating evidence, who would choose to go through that? how many good public servants have we possibly already turned away by this display? how many more will we turn away if we let uncorroborated allegations tarnish the career of a person who is dead -- who has dedicated 25 of the past 28 years to public service and done so with honor. again, based on the testimony of so many people across the spectrum, men and women. these are questions the senate is going to have to grapple with for possibly years to come, but again right now, i want to focus on something that hasn't gotten as much attention in the last couple of weeks.

and that's what is known. i know judge kavanaugh as someone with a deserved reputation as a fair, smart, and imed judge -- independent judge. i know him as someone universally praised for his work ethic, intelligence and integrity by his colleagues. i know someone who respects women, someone's first introduction to law came to listening to his mom practicing closing arguments at the dinner table and perhaps most importantly, most importantly i know him as someone who has the humility to listen, something we need more of in this country and on the court during turbulent times. in following facts, as i'm obligated to do, i will support this nomination. and i will be proud to vote to confirm brett kavanaugh as the next associate justice of the supreme court.

mr. president, i note t