Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, the Republican who has become a pivotal player in the volatile Supreme Court battle over Trump’s nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, told a crowd in Boston Monday that he wants a “real investigation” into sexual assault allegations against the judge.

“It does no good to have an investigation that just gives us more cover,” Flake said. “We actually need to find out what we can find out, and we have to realize that we may not be able to find out everything that happened.”

Flake was in Boston on Monday afternoon to speak at the Forbes Under 30 Summit. He was due later in the evening in Saint Anselm College to give another talk at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics.

The previously planned swing through New England, however, drew added attention after the retiring Arizona senator used his “leverage” on the Senate Judiciary Committee last Friday to force Republican leaders to agree to a one-week FBI probe into “current and credible allegations” against Kavanaugh.

Since then, reports about the White House limiting the scope of the FBI investigation had given rise to a new round of partisan bickering. President Donald Trump, during a press conference Monday, said he was open to doing whatever the Senate wanted, and Flake said he had been backstage on the phone speaking with staff and others about that very thing.

“We certainly want the FBI to do a real investigation and we are working to make sure that happens,” Flake said. Before Flake left the stage, there were new reports announced to the crowd that the White House had told the FBI to interview anyone it wanted. The crowd cheered.

Originally scheduled to appear with Ohio Gov. John Kasich to discuss the Republican Party in the age of Trump, Flake’s appearance was moved from Emerson Colonial Theater to the main stage at City Hall Plaza. Flake took questions from Forbes’s Randall Lane for about 15 minutes following a longer discussion betwee Lane and former Secretary of State John Kerry, who called the Kavanaugh hearings “a bad moment” for the U.S. Senate.

Earlier in the day, Democratic politicians headlined a rally outside the convention area protesting Kavanaugh’s nomination, and throughout Flake’s appearance at the summit protestors could be heard outside intermittently shouting, “Vote no.”

“I guess I want to say, ‘Thank you,’ “ Walsh said during the protest rally, referring to Flake. “But that’s your job. That’s your job to vet the nominee.”

Flake addressed the hearing last Thursday where the Judiciary Committee heard testimony from Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of forcing himself on her at a high school party in 1982.

Flake said Ford offered “compelling, credible testimony,” but he also found Kavanaugh’s “impassioned, very raw defense” to be effective. He did say he didn’t like “some of the more partisan references and tone” from Kavanaugh, including the judge challenging Sen. Amy Klobuchar on her own drinking habits, for which Flake said Kavanaugh apologized during a break.

“I said the day before on the floor of the Senate, we may not have any more certainty after the hearings, and that’s how I felt. There was a lot of doubt still,” Flake said.

The morning after Ford and Kavanaugh both testified, Flake issued a statement indicating that he would support Kavanaugh. He was subsequently confronted by two women as he entered a Capitol elevator, including one woman who shared her own story of abuse.

Flake said that experience was one of many similar exchanges he and other members of the Senate have had during the Kavanaugh confirmation process that convinced him to do what he did next – force a week-long FBI investigation by threatening to vote against Kavanaugh.

“I had been troubled for awhile. I felt that we weren’t doing due diligence with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court,” Flake said.

Before Flake spoke, Kerry was asked about the Kavanaugh hearings. “I felt very sad for the United States Senate. I thought it was a bad moment in many different ways,” he said.

The former five-term senator from Massachusetts also called it incomprehensible” that the Judiciary Committee had not sought to speak with Mark Judge, the friend of Kavanaugh’s who Ford identified as the only other witness to her assault.

“You don’t let that person disappear to the beach, with their clothes stacked in a car, and hide from process. You have to talk to everybody,” Kerry said, adding, “There is no reason in the world to be bum-rushing this nomination.”

Asked about another run for president in 2020, Kerry demurred: “The only thing that anyone should be talking about right now is the election in about 40 days.”

Flake, who has bemoaned the partisanship of Washington and said Monday “could never warm to the president” because of the way Trump insulted his political opponents and contributed to the divisiveness in Washington, also got the 2020 question.

“I do hope somebody else runs in the Republican primary. I don’t see that happening in my case,” Flake said.