I hope Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., receives a massive gift basket from CNN and MSNBC after he just guaranteed them massive more airtime for Michael Avenatti.

Flake fell for the trap the national media and Democrats (I’m sure that's just a happy coincidence) have been trying to lay for two weeks over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination.

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough placed it again after Senate testimony Thursday from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assaulting her more than 30 years ago: “It makes no sense that [Kavanaugh] and every Republican are afraid to have an FBI investigation,” Scarborough said on his show Friday. “They can talk about delay. It’s [just] a week.”

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The New York Times editorial board made the same case: “Pressed over and over [during the hearing] by Democratic senators, Judge Kavanaugh never could come up with a clear answer for why he wouldn’t also want a fair, neutral F.B.I. investigation into the allegations against him.”

So did the Washington Post editorial board: “The logical next step would be to take the time to see if an investigation can bolster either contention [of Ford’s accusation or Kavanaugh’s denial]. Yet Republicans on the committee seemed more aggrieved by the Democrats’ delay in forwarding Ms. Ford’s allegation than interested in getting to the bottom of it.”

And so did Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.: “What is he afraid of if we just spend one week looking at the evidence?”

For all the accusations of Republicans setting an arbitrary deadline for a confirmation vote, can anyone explain what a week’s more of investigations is supposed to accomplish, other than serve as a massive window for Avenatti to raise his bald head and for even more bunk allegations to come out?

Oh, wait, that’s what it’s solely intended to accomplish.

The media and Democrats have sneakily suggested over and over again for two weeks that there’s something suspect about Kavanaugh declining to voluntarily and indefinitely hold up his nomination by calling for more investigations into accusations; accusations for which there is almost no evidence and absolutely no corroboration. And yet, Democrats are falling over themselves to label these allegations "credible."

We know the havoc the media brought to Kavanaugh when his committee vote was delayed by one week.

Ronan Farrow found a woman (again with no corroborating witnesses) to say that Kavanaugh flashed his penis at her during a freshman year party at Yale; Avenatti found a woman to imply that Kavanaugh was in a rape gang; the New York Times parsed the sophomoric language in one of Kavanaugh’s high school yearbooks; and the Washington Post investigated whether Kavanaugh as a teenager ever got blackout drunk.

Imagine what the media can do with another seven days.

Right before the Judiciary Committee was set Friday to vote to clear Kavanaugh for the Senate floor, Flake said he was a yes but wanted the final vote postponed for a week so that the FBI can conduct a “limited” investigation. (No one knows what “limited” means.)

"This country is being ripped apart here, and we've got to make sure we do due diligence," said Flake.

But calling for another investigation has never been about whether another investigation was appropriate. It’s been about whether or not the media should be afforded more time to sling mud at Kavanaugh and hope that some Republican senators get uncomfortable enough to abandon him.

Flake, backed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, wants to give it to them.