President Donald Trump said Monday he supports the FBI investigation of Brett Kavanaugh, his nominee to the Supreme Court, but also said he does not want to subject him to a witch hunt.
“We don’t want to go on a witch hunt, do we?” Trump said to reporters in the White House Rose Garden on Monday.
The president said he was willing to allow the FBI to conduct a thorough investigation of Kavanaugh before the final confirmation vote was held in the Senate.
“I’d like it to go quickly and the reason I’d like it to go quickly, very simple. It’s so simple. Because it’s unfair to him at this point,” Trump said, expressing sympathy for Kavanaugh’s wife and children.
He said he understood Kavanaugh’s drive to be the best student at his high school and Yale.
“I think he’s a fine man,” Trump said. “I think he’s a great scholar … he focused on being number one at Yale, on being number one in high school, at being number one at law. I can so understand that.”
Trump also said he believes Kavanaugh was honest about his college and high school drinking and pointed out a double standard from senators and members of the media.
“I really believe that he was very strong on the fact that he drank a lot and — so I don’t know where there’d be big discrepancy,” he said, referring to Kavanaugh’s testimony.
But Trump stated his support for Senate Republicans’ efforts to answer all necessary questions.
“Just so you understand, my White House will do whatever the senators want. I’m open to whatever they want,” he said about the scope of the investigation. “The one thing I want is speed.”