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WASHINGTON — President Trump, ceding to a request from Senate Republican leaders facing an insurrection in their ranks, ordered the F.B.I. on Friday to open an investigation into accusations of sexual assault leveled against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, his nominee to the Supreme Court.
The decision capped a confusing day on Capitol Hill, where the Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines to advance Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, but only by agreeing to a last-minute demand by Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, to conduct a time-limited inquiry.
“I’ve ordered the F.B.I. to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week.”
The decision in the Senate, made in a hurried closed-door meeting between Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, came after a dramatic reversal by Mr. Flake, who announced he would not support final confirmation until the F.B.I. investigates the allegations.
The delay puts a cloud over what Republicans expected to be a triumphant day, but they still had reason to be optimistic: Despite adamant Democratic opposition, they were still able to muscle the nomination through committee with an 11-to-10 vote and send it to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.
Mr. Flake, an Arizona Republican and outspoken critic of President Trump, had announced Friday morning that he would vote to confirm Judge Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, less than 24 hours after a remarkable public hearing with a woman accusing him of sexual assault.
[Watch: Mr. Flake is confronted by sexual assault survivors.]
But after nearly an hour of hushed negotiations with Democratic senators in an anteroom to the chamber on Friday, calls to law enforcement officials and other undecided Republicans, Mr. Flake chose a different course. His decision threw the nomination into uncertainty just moments before the panel was set to vote.
“We ought to do what we can to make sure we do all due diligence with a nomination this important,” Mr. Flake said when senators returned to the hearing room. “This country is being ripped apart here.”
He said he was seeking an F.B.I. investigation “limited in time and scope to the current allegations that are there.” And he hoped it would lend additional credibility to Judge Kavanaugh’s denials.
Mr. Flake, who is retiring at the end of the current term, is one of the few votes for Judge Kavanaugh still in play, giving him considerable sway over the how the chamber proceeds. But he had crucial support from two Republicans and one Democrat who remain undecided: Senator Susan Collins of Maine, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and a Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia.
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It is ultimately up to the majority leader, Mr. McConnell of Kentucky, to determine when to hold a final confirmation vote and for the White House to formally ask for the F.B.I. to reopen its background investigation into Judge Kavanaugh.
After the committee vote, its somber-looking Republican members streamed into the leader’s Capitol suite. Inside, Mr. McConnell voiced frustration shared by other Republicans on the committee: More accusations — false ones — were all but certain to surface as senators waited, he said, according to a senior Republican official familiar with the conversation. And with Democrats bent on opposing Judge Kavanaugh, these Republicans felt they were unlikely to see a tangible benefit from an investigation.
But with only the narrowest of majorities, 51-to-49, Mr. McConnell had little choice but to agree.
“The Senate Judiciary Committee will request that the administration instruct the F.B.I. to conduct a supplemental F.B.I. background investigation with respect to the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court,” Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the committee chairman, said in a statement after the meeting.
He put on a good face reporters, saying it had been “a good day today by moving the nominee.”
Even before an investigation began, it appeared Republican fears could be founded. An attorney for one of the accusers, Michael Avenatti, announced on Twitter on Friday that his client, Julie Swetnick, will tell her story “directly to the American people” this weekend because Republicans have not allowed her to testify under oath.
Still, Republican senators who had insisted for days that no F.B.I. investigation was necessary said on Friday they were confident the agency could make quick work, and the Senate could be voting as early as next Tuesday. The bureau has looked at Judge Kavanaugh six times in the past, but it has never investigated the specific accusations raised in recent weeks.
“I’ve never felt better about it, quite frankly,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, citing Judge Kavanaugh’s performance on Thursday.
President Trump said that he had only just heard about what was going on with the Judiciary Committee. He said he found the testimony of the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, credible and “very compelling, and she looks like a very fine woman to me.”
He said he did not have any message for the senators considering the nomination. “They have to do what they think is right and be comfortable with themselves,” he said.
As they huddled Friday afternoon, senators could not immediately get ahold of the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, according to a person familiar with their discussions, and spoke instead to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, about whether the limited investigation could be done in a week. The White House was lobbying Mr. Flake against his call for a delay in the confirmation vote, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
After days of pleading for an F.B.I. investigation into accusations of sexual misconduct raised by Dr. Blasey, Ms. Swetnick and another woman, Deborah Ramirez, Democrats were pleased with the deal.
“What it comes down to is the Senate always reminds you in these critical moments, that one or two senators can make a difference,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and a member of the Judiciary Committee. “And in this situation Senator Flake realized that something was important to him, and if he put his vote on the line, he could get a result.”
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Judge Kavanaugh said in a statement on Friday that he would continue to cooperate with investigators to clear his name. Debra S. Katz, a lawyer for Dr. Blasey, said her client welcomed the development but not the “artificial limits” imposed by senators. Mark Judge, a friend of Judge Kavanaugh identified by Dr. Blasey and another accuser at the scene of the incidents, said through a lawyer that he would cooperate with investigators.
Mr. Flake had been a rare holdout among Republicans, as others on the panel lined up to defend Judge Kavanaugh. Democrats accused Republicans of a cover-up.
Just after Mr. Flake’s morning statement saying he would vote yes, several activists cornered him at an elevator as he was on his way to the committee meeting, telling him in impassioned terms that they had been sexually assaulted.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” one of them said. “You are telling me that my assault doesn’t matter, that what happened to me doesn’t, and that you’re going to let people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him. Don’t look away from me.”
Mr. Flake stood largely mute, his gaze mainly to the ground, as the women held open the elevator and made their case.
Even before Friday’s vote, passions around the hearing room were running high. Protesters roamed the halls of the Senate, and there was a heavy police presence. More than two dozen Democratic women (and a handful of men) from the House of Representatives marched arm in arm to the committee’s hearing room, mimicking a similar march during the 1991 confirmation hearings of Judge Clarence Thomas.
Inside the room, in a repeat of Thursday, emotions were raw even by the standards of a highly partisan Senate. Mr. Graham, a former military prosecutor whose angry outburst on Thursday made headlines, delivered a blistering encore.
“This has been about delay and destruction and if we reward this it is the end of good people wanting to be judges,” Mr. Graham said. “It is the end of any concept of the rule of law. It’s the beginning of a process that will tear this country apart.”
Democrats on the panel pointedly accused Republicans of a cover-up — and mocked Republicans’ assertions that they had been respectful to Dr. Blasey, who also goes by her married name, Ford.
“I don’t want to hear about respect for Dr. Ford when we’re not giving her the respect of having an investigation,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota.
That animosity seemed to disappear after the last-minute wrangling with Mr. Flake.
Behind the scenes, the White House and the Judiciary Committee Republicans were working to reassure other wavering senators. After watching Thursday’s proceedings, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, told Republicans that she would find it difficult to vote for Judge Kavanaugh without a sworn statement from Mr. Judge, according to three people familiar with the matter. Mr. Judge, who previously denied any involvement in a letter to the committee signed by his lawyer, figured heavily in Thursday’s hearing, and the committee’s refusal to subpoena him angered Democrats.
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Just before midnight on Thursday, staff for Mr. Grassley released just such a new sworn statement, signed by Mr. Judge himself saying that he had no memory of events described by Dr. Blasey. “I am knowingly submitting this letter under penalty of felony,” he wrote.
Ms. Collins has not yet made a decision, aides say, much less notified Senate leaders of how she will vote. But Republicans at the White House and on Capitol Hill were increasingly confident by late Thursday night that they would have the votes of Ms. Collins, Ms. Murkowski, and Mr. Manchin.
One other Democrat up for re-election, Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana, announced Friday that he would vote against Judge Kavanaugh, saying he would “gladly welcome the opportunity to work with President Trump on a new nominee.”
Mr. Grassley allowed Democrats to voice their objections, but he defended the committee. Republicans gave Dr. Blasey a hearing, he said, but it is up to the accuser to prove guilt. He also said, as he has before, that no F.B.I. investigation was necessary.
“Frankly, we’ve reached the point when it’s to end the circus,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah. “It is time to show some dignity around here.”
Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Blasey provided hours of moving testimony on Thursday, streaming live on cable news networks, as the committee and the nation heard Dr. Blasey’s trembling account of a sexual assault and Judge Kavanaugh’s enraged denial and defense of his reputation.
[Analysis: She said. Then he said. What will the senators say?]
Dr. Blasey said she was “one hundred percent” sure that Judge Kavanaugh is the teenager who tried to rape her at a small party during the summer of 1982 in a Washington suburb. Judge Kavanaugh was just as certain that the event never happened: “Zero, I’m 100 percent certain.”
Mr. Flake had given few hints in recent days about his vote. He pushed hard behind the scenes for Thursday’s hearing to happen, telling party leaders he could not vote yes without hearing from Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh. But his public remarks in recent days, focused primarily on the dignity that had been stripped from the nomination process, left fellow senators scratching their heads.
Mr. Flake met privately after the hearing Thursday night with Ms. Collins, Ms. Murkowski, and Mr. Manchin. After the meeting, Mr. Manchin, who is running for re-election in a state that supported Mr. Trump in 2016, said he had not made up his mind.
He declined to question Judge Kavanaugh on Thursday, using his brief remarks in the hearing room to chastise colleagues for their maximalist positions.
“There is doubt,” he said. “We’ll never move beyond that.”
Catie Edmondson, Michael S. Schmidt and Eileen Sullivan contributed reporting.
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