Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley goes from zero to “screaming 85-year-old” quickly. On Thursday afternoon, at a press conference alongside other Republican leaders, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee let slip some of the rage he has accumulated over a process that he believed had hit “almost rock bottom.” And since the media was sitting in front of him, he took it out on the media.

“I would never use the word fake news, ” he said, “but I want to show you where some of you have bias.” He talked about the demonstrators “in his office for two weeks now, both for Kavanaugh and against Kavanaugh.” Some reporter allegedly told a pro–Brett Kavanaugh demonstrator that they were only interested in interviewing those opposed to the Supreme Court nominee.

“That’s a bias that none of you should be proud of!” he said.

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It was a victorious press conference, fueled by a sense of euphoric retribution. The last time I had seen all of these senior senators assembled together—including Grassley, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Majority Whip John Cornyn, and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch—in this particular TV studio was at about 2 a.m. the night they passed the tax bill last December. Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination hasn’t passed yet, though. The votes, at the time of the press conference, weren’t even in place. But just about everyone believed they would be by Friday morning’s procedural vote and the confirmation vote on Saturday.

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What does the FBI report, which is being kept in a secure reading room in the Capitol Visitors Center, even say? We don’t know. There aren’t any juicy anecdotes flying around. Despite murmurs from some leading Republicans earlier in the week that they hoped a “public statement” or “summary” that didn’t infringe on confidentiality could be released, Grassley said during the press conference that protocol barred him from doing anything of the sort. (“The chairman was clear,” a McConnell aide told me when I followed up.)

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Instead, we were left to gauge the report by analyzing the feelings of senators. It wasn’t a difficult job. Both Republican and Democratic faces told the same story: There wasn’t much there, there.

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Republicans, ranging from fence-sitting Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake to a more-determined-than-ever McConnell, all said that there was no corroborating evidence within the roughly 50-page report of interviews with about 10 witnesses. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who apparently had been harboring some doubts, said that he felt much more comfortable with Kavanaugh now. Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said that he wished the press could read the report because he found himself getting “angry” reading it.

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, on whom this all hinges, said very little following several trips to the reading room—beyond a remark in the morning that the investigation appeared to be “thorough.” Every word she says is an earthquake. That’s probably why the following time she left the room, she kept her silence for several minutes as reporters chased her and her police escort halfway across the back halls of the Capitol complex. Around 6 o’clock, after her third visit, she told reporters that she had finished her review. She would have no statement until the morning.

Advertisement It’s gotten a little raw around here.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the most unreadable of the trio of undecided Republicans, also said very little. She needed to read more.

Democrats couldn’t muster the energy to pretend that they had seen something explosive and opted to criticize the process instead. At a press conference Thursday morning following a Democratic senators’ briefing, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, dead-faced, told reporters that they would issue brief statements but not take questions.

“It looks to be a product of an incomplete investigation that was limited, perhaps by the White House,” Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, said. “I don’t know.”

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Schumer tried his best to suggest that maybe there was something interesting in there but didn’t really put his shoulder into it. He merely said that he “disagree[d] with Sen. Grassley’s statement that there was no hint of misconduct” within the report. He then returned to the process, which he did not trust.

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“We had many fears that this was a very limited process that would constrain the FBI from getting all the facts,” Schumer said. “Having received a thorough briefing on the documents, those fears have been realized.”

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But what can Chuck Schumer do about it now? Nothing. That helplessness, the recognition that Democrats’ ability to delay had reached the end of its course, was the force animating Republicans throughout Thursday. Empirical data has been trickling in over the past couple of days that the Kavanaugh saga had poked the bear, awakening complacent Republicans. That’s consistent with what I’ve seen from senior-citizen Republican senators over the past week, as well. It’s gotten a little raw around here.

Cornyn, the whip, dealt a message to the remaining fence-sitting senators, a tally that would be down to four—Collins, Murkowski, Flake, and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin—by late Thursday afternoon.

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“A vote against Judge Kavanaugh tomorrow will be an endorsement of the mishandling of this confirmation process,” Cornyn said. “A vote against Judge Kavanaugh tomorrow will be a vote for abusing the confirmation process and a good person. And it will be a vote for the shameful intimidation tactics that have been employed as part of an orchestrated smear campaign.”

“What I’ve been dealing with, since July the 10^th, the downhill slope that Schumer’s put us on, is really dealing with a demolition derby. And they just about destroyed a good person,” Grassley said. “So hopefully we’re about 48 hours away from having a new person on the Supreme Court.”

Republicans are about to get what they want. But in a month, the ones who didn’t, and who will still be mad, will vote

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