this is "nightline." >> tonight, confirmation confrontation. >> that's what you're telling all of these women. >> a senator cornered by sex assault survivors. >> look at me when i'm talking to you, you're telling me that my assault doesn't matter, that what happened to me doesn't matter. >> his bold move triggering an fbi probe into sexual assault allegations against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh from dr. christine blasey ford. >> this country is being ripped apart here. >> is one week enough time to dig up the truth from 36 years ago? plus the record-breaking free solo climber scaling the unimaginable in just hours. >> it does feel good to feel perfect. >> his heart-pounding climb up

yosemite's el capitan, no ropes, no harness, all caught on camera. what drives him to risk his life and conquer the impossible? >> people who really know exactly what he's doing are freaked out. >> but first the "nightline 5." 98% of us don't get enough omega 3s. which is why mega red advance 4 in 1 packs power into one gel. it supports heart, brain, eyes, and joints. mega red. when nighttime nasal congestion closes in breathe right strips are designed to simply open your nose right back up. breathe better, sleep better, breathe right. >> number one in just 60 seconds.

good evening and thanks so

much for joining us. i'm linsey davis. tonight the fbi launching its probe into sexual assault allegations against supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. the result of yet another stunning day on capitol hill. a power play by one politician after last-minute pleas from the people. >> i was sexually assaulted and nobody believed me. i didn't tell anybody. you're telling all women that they don't matter that they should just stay quiet, because if they tell you what happened to them, you're going to ignore them. >> reporter: the lasting pain of sexual assault laid bare for one senator to see. >> that's what you're telling me right now, look at me when i'm talking to you, don't look away from me. look at me and tell me it doesn't matter what happened to me. >> reporter: jeff flake, the republican from arizona, cornered in the elevator, unable to avoid hearing the raw pleas of anna may roo yeah archilla and maria gallagher who say they're survivors of sexual

assault. >> what you are doing is allowing someone who actually violated a woman to sit in the supreme court. this is not tolerable. >> reporter: senator flake, a key swing vote, was on his way to the judiciary committee, planning to vote to confirm judge kavanaugh to the nation's highest court when the two women implored the senator to take a stand against the supreme court nominee. >> you have children in your family -- >> reporter: anna maria spoke by phone to abc news. >> we weren't really willing to let him go without actually looking at us and forcing him to listen to our stories and making him understand the gravity of the message that he was sending to the country. >> i'm going to call on senator flake -- >> reporter: hours later in a moment no one saw coming, flake put the brakes on kavanaugh's confirmation. >> i think it would be proper to delay the floor vote. >> reporter: calling for an fbi investigation into accusations by dr. christine blasey ford that kavanaugh locked her in a

bedroom and drunkenly attacked her when they were both teens. >> we ought to do what we can to make sure that we do all due diligence with a nomination this important. this country's being ripped apart here. >> reporter: it was a breakthrough in a bitter battle that has divided the senate. and the country. and reached a fever pitch after yesterday's emotional testimony. >> what degree of certainty do you believe brett kavanaugh assaulted you? >> 100%. >> i've never sexually assaulted anyone, not in high school, not in college, not ever. >> reporter: republicans stunned by flake's decision, but had little choice but to agree with only a two-vote majority in the senate. senate majoritier mitch mcconnell needs every republican vote to confirm kavanaugh to the court. >> mitch mcconnell is an incredibly powerful guy but he's only as powerful as the votes. the fact is that he did not control the votes here. if he does not have 50 senators ready to support brett kavanaugh on the floor on a vote, he

doesn't have any power at all. >> reporter: shortly after the senate judiciary committee formally requested that president trump order the fbi to conduct a limited investigation into the allegations defense kavanaugh, to be completed within one week. a request president trump granted. >> i just want it to work out well for the country. if that happens, i'm happy. >> reporter: they want this vote to happen immediately. but they were back the into a corner on this one. they had to order the fbi to investigate. as for a possible replacement pick, president trump says it's not happening, he is not even thinking about one. after the day's dust settled, senator flake commented on his surprising move. >> try to bring people together a little, do something that republicans and some democrats, at least, could agree to. >> reporter: all along, dr. ford has made it clear she welcomes an fbi investigation. >> you specifically asked for an fbi investigation, did you not? >> yes. >> reporter: adding that an investigation could help fill in

the gaps in her memory. >> you were still not just willing but insistent that the fbi should investigate your recollection and your claim? >> yes, i feel like i could be more helpful if that was the case in providing some of the details that maybe people are wanting to know about. >> reporter: during yesterday's hearing the democratic senators pressed kavanaugh about the need for an investigation. >> why would you resist that kind of investigation? >> sir, i welcome -- i wanted the hearing last week. >> i'm asking about the fbi investigation. >> the committee figures out how to ask the questions. i'll do whatever. i've been on the phone multiple times with committee counsel -- >> dr. kavanaugh, will you support an fbi investigation right now? >> i will do whatever the committee wants -- >> personally do you think that's the best thing for us to do? you want to answer?

>> reporter: in a statement brett kavanaugh said, i've done everything they have requested and will continue to cooperate. do you think that the move to reopen the background investigation and to try to get to the bottom of the allegations against judge kavanaugh, i think holds up a promise of delivering a result that does feel like it's about more than just politics, right, it's about running down serious accusations, trying to figure out if there's corroborating evidence, then allowing a vote to be taken on judge kavanaugh with full information. >> reporter: for now it's in the hands of the fbi. >> you have to do new interviews with dr. ford and judge kavanaugh. you have to recreate their life 36 years ago. because it's the only way you're going to determine who were around them on a regular basis and can you actually get to the house where maybe this occurred? >> reporter: dr. ford herself would be the key person for trained fbi investigators to interview. her testimony contained several vivid and precise details, for

instance, she says she made eye contact during the alleged attack with brett kavanaugh's friend, mark judge, who she says was in the room. >> what is the strongest memory you have? the strongest memory of the incident, something that you cannot forget? >> the laughter. the laugh -- the uproar yus laughter between the two and their having fun at my expense. >> reporter: dr. ford also offered specifics that could easily be checked, including that she saw judge shortly after the alleged attack working at a local supermarket. >> i certainly would feel like i could be more helpful to everyone if i knew the date that he worked at the safeway so that i could give a more specific date of the assault. >> you would obviously interview him, you'd then pull the records to see when he worked there, and see what that possibly triggers for her. >> reporter: judge, a recovering

alcoholic and cancer survivor, also wrote a book, "wasted: tales of a gen-x drunk." one of the characters, a high school student passed out drunk. the character's name, bart o'kavanaugh. >> are you bart o'kavanaugh? yes or no. >> you'd have to ask him. >> reporter: now the fbi just might do that. in a letter mark judge wrote that he will cooperate. so far no one has been able to corroborate the details of what dr. ford says happened that night 36 years ago. and the fbi has only been given one week for the investigation. >> you're going to learn very little in one week. and the problem is that you'll get to the end of that week and you may have just got started as far as figuring out -- even finding people in one week. so you may have very limited or no new information at the end of one week. >> reporter: with the clock now ticking and a fact-finding mission under way, the stakes

couldn't be higher. and dr. ford, judge kavanaugh, and the entire country must wait. next, a gripping performance. the record-breaking free solo climber. how he reaches such impossible peaks. following you everywhere? it's time to take back control with stelara®. for adults with moderately to severely active crohn's disease, stelara® works differently. studies showed relief and remission with dosing every 8 weeks. woman: stelara® may lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. some serious infections require hospitalization. before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flu-like symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. these may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition.

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it's known as free soloing. climbing up the sheer face of a mountain without ropes or safety gear. at 33, alex honald has become one of the most celebrated free climbers of all-time. he set sights on yosemite's

elcapital, bringing cameras along to catch every grip of that death-defying climb. here's abc's t.j. holmes. >> reporter: imagine 3,000 feet in the air. no ropes. no harness. no safety net. just you and the mountain. this is the world of free solo climbing. and in this world, one climber is on top. alex honald. >> if you're seeking perfection, free soloing is as close as you can get. >> reporter: at 33 years old he's broken records around the world. last year he set his sights on the impossible, el capitan, a 3,000-foot vertical granite rock face in yosemite national park. >> el cap is the most impressive wall on earth. 3,200 feet of sheer granite. it's the center of the rock climbing universe.

obviously i get interview questions about it all the time work, you like to do that? yes, for sure. >> reporter: his epic journey is the subject of a new national geographic film, "free solo." >> the people who really know exactly what he's doing are freaked out. >> put that in better perspective for me if you can. a lot of people might know your name, might have heard el cap before. >> the empire state building, it's 2 1/2 times as big. >> it's not just that, you're talking about sheer size. you're climbing up almost a flat sheet of rock. >> yeah. so how far back would we have to go to you got to a point you thought, okay, this actually might be something i can do? >> as a kid when i would go camping, looking at the wall, it looks immense, unfathomably huge. it took years to wrap my head around the idea of that being possible. a moment in 2015, actually, the first time i was climbing el cap, hm, i could imagine doing this without rope. >> reporter: he spent two years

prepping, practicing the route with ropes, every detail, every hand and foothold meticulously planned. one wrong move on the climb could mean certain death. >> then you drive up off the left foot into the thumb press. that's the worst hold on the entire route. in some ways it makes more sense to do the big two-handed jump because you're jumping to a good edge, there's actually something to catch. >> reporter: inevitably adding to the stress of the climb, alex agreed to do it all with cameras rolling. how much of that preparation was also getting used to camera crews? >> on the actual day of the solo, we had all sort of refined our processes to the point it was sort of perfectly done. >> reporter: for husband and wife filmmaking duo, it wasn't just a technical challenge, it was a personal one. >> i've been conflicted about shooting free soloing because it's so dangerous. >> reporter: the film pulls back the curtain on the danger and the tension of the endeavor.

>> the foremost challenge is the risk, the risk of death. >> when he told us, i want to free solo el cap, we took a step back. we had to answer tough questions for ourselves. >> what was the first moral question you had? >> what's the effect of the filmmaker on the subject? >> and if it causes him to die, or pushes him to do something he wouldn't normally do because there's a camera rolling? >> everybody knows what to do if something goes wrong, who should mikey call? >> 911, and that wheel will get kicked into gear, and tell them what you know. >> all right. no mistakes tomorrow. >> how did you deal with that question, can we live with ourselves if something happens? >> it comes down to that idea of a life well lived. >> i'm a professional climber. i know the mindset. we believed in his ability to do it. but we also knew that if we were going to do this, we also had to execute perfectly. >> reporter: while training, alex also enlisted the help of

friend and fellow professional climber tommy caldwell. >> everybody who has made free soloing a big part of their life is dead now. i've had 30, 40 friends that have died. >> you describe breaking off a handhold and a little slip. those things would have resulted in your death. you call it risk and consequence. >> yeah. >> right? you describe that. explain that to us. >> i like to separate risk and consequence. consequence being, you know what will actually happen if you fall. people say that the free soloing is risky, well, not all free soloing is risky, some of it's as easy as walking on the sidewalk. but it's all very high consequence. >> so that's what you do, you mitigate the risk as best you can? once you're up there, you feel pretty confident -- >> yeah, ideally, yeah. i think that's part of the appeal is taking something that seems fundamentally scary and make it feel comfortable and controlled. >> reporter: the film explores whether alex is built

differently than the rest of us, able to make the impossibly dangerous impossibly northern. normal. >> several ex-girlfriends ended up with personalities disorders and things like that. is my brain intact? >> your brain is intact. you have no activation in your amygdala. >> do you think it doesn't work? >> your amygdala works. it just needs a much higher level of stimulation. things that are typically stimulating for most of the rest of us are not really doing it for you. >> i took that to mean that basically over time i've sort of desensitize myself to a certain stimulus. i've been climbing over 20 years. it used to be -- a lot of things in climbing used to be more scary, and over time i've gotten used to it and now feel quite comfortable. >> reporter: the emotional toll in alex's friends and family in the leadup to the climb is at times difficult to watch, especially when it comes to his girlfriend soni. >> awesome, makes life better in

every way. >> it's really hard for me to grasp why he wants this. what if something happens? >> how did you prepare differently? did you find that it was a different experience being in such a serious relationship this time around? >> the reason it sort of worked out is soni, my girlfriend, told me, you don't need to break up with me to climb. she was like, you can have both. in some ways it was the first time that had really been presented to me. really? can i do that? >> one part that stands out when is your girlfriend is sitting by herself in the car, she's in tears. why does he have to do this? >> that's hard to watch for sure. it is really hard to do something if you know that somebody that you care about deeply is going to be so affected by it. certainly when i watch the film i'm like, oh, i didn't know it was that hard for her. >> reporter: in the end, against all odds, alex overcomes heartache and injury and accomplishes the impossible. and he does it in less than four hours.

will you ever give up free soloing? thought about retirement at all? >> yeah, if i'd never do anything more grand than el cap, i'll still be honored. >> is this the greatest feat ever accomplished in climbing? >> well -- i mean, i think -- yes. i think it's one of the greatest feats of any kind, ever, really. i mean, perfection or death. it's very unbelievable. >> you got a front row seat for it. >> yeah. >> beautiful. it was absolutely beautiful. >> "free " iow in theaters. we'll be right back. right back.

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be sure to tune into gma in the morning for all the latest developments in the brett kavanaugh investigation, plus live interviews with senator chris coons, and one of the women who confronted senator jeff flake in that elevator.

that's "nightline" for tonight. thanks so much for watching and have a wonderful weekend.

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