Rachel Mitchell, the Arizona prosecutor who conducted yesterday’s Judiciary Committee examination of Christine Blasey Ford, provided a 30-minute analysis of her findings to Republicans Thursday evening. According to multiple reports, Mitchell heard nothing from Ford that she found worthy of prosecution. According to a Politico report, “She told them that as a prosecutor she would not charge Kavanaugh or even pursue a search warrant.” This echoes a similar report by Brooke Singman of Fox News who tweeted:

#RachelMitchell told Republican senators in a members mtg last night that she wouldn’t charge #Kavanaugh. People briefed on the mtg said Mitchell was very clear with senators that based on evidence presented, she couldn’t bring the case “anywhere near a court room.”

The Washington Post also reported that Mitchell was underwhelmed by the testimony provided by the California Democrat who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault:

After the hearing, Republican senators were privately briefed by Rachel Mitchell, the career prosecutor tapped by the GOP to lead the questioning. Mitchell said that based on the evidence she heard, she would not have prosecuted Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with her comments.

This afternoon the Senate Judiciary Committee approved Judge Kavanaugh in an 11-10 vote, but Senator Jeff Flake said his vote was contingent on a delay that would give the FBI time to conduct another investigation of Kavanaugh. Flake has no authority to cast conditional votes, but the GOP leadership has decided to accede to the request after Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined Flake in asking for the delay. The Hill reports:

Senate GOP leaders have agreed to temporarily delay Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination to allow the FBI to investigate sexual assault allegations against him, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said on Friday.Asked how long the FBI would have to investigate, Cornyn said not more than a week.

The good news is that Kavanaugh has already been so thoroughly vetted that the FBI is unlikely to find anything new that will hurt his chances of being confirmed in the near future. Combined with Rachel Mitchell’s conclusion that Ford’s accusations aren’t even worthy of a search warrant, another clean FBI report will convince any objective observer that the Kavanaugh smear was just another Democratic dirty trick. The frustrating farce is almost over.