For those who care about having there be consequences for your actions, no matter who you are and who your friends are, this matters, but that's one of those moral type of things. Statute of limitations means that the worst that can happen to "Brett" (let's just call him by his dudebro name) is that he doesn't become one of the nine members of the Supreme Court. Ooooh. Consequences. Yeah, that'll impress me. I suppose being remembered as the rapist version of Harriet Miers in history books is something, but "Brett" will still basically get away with it.
So, what are the other stakes? What is the difference between how "Brett" would rule and how any non-"Brett" Trump nominee would rule? Let's distinguish between two types of issues. Normal issues, and Trump-related issues. By Trump-related issues, I mean issues of executive power, presidential immunity from prosecution, etc. On normal issues, any subsequent Trump pick after a "Brett" defeat would be identical to "Brett." There is a clone factory called "The Federalist Society," and they crank out "Bretts" like the telomere problem just never existed. They look alike, they sound alike, they rule alike, and that's why Gorsuch plagiarized! Zing! Nope, still not over that one. Trump had a... what's the opposite of a "black list?" Oh, right. A "white list." As in, all white. A bunch of white dudes. They're all pre-cleared. Except they don't like pre-clearance. Sorry, still not over that one either (look up Shelby County...). Tangents and minor rants aside, Trump could just pick another name from the Federalist Society's "white list" of pre-cleared names, and he'd get a nearly identical white dude who'd rule the same way as "Brett" on any substantive issue.
And then, there are those Trump issues. Executive power, immunity from prosecution, etc. There is a high likelihood that this is the real reason "Brett" jumped to the top of the list. Donny-boy found out that "Brett" doesn't like the idea of presidents having to face any legal consequences for their actions and decided that he had found his white boy. And they probably had a great, little chat about all the things they'd like to do to Ivanka, or something. With most other non-"Brett" Federalist Society nominees, Trump could be reasonably sure they would side with him, but with "Brett," he could be more certain. So, that is a consideration. What does that mean?
Not a lot. None of this is likely to make it to the Supreme Court because none of this is going to make it past Congress. Remember that Mueller's operating assumption is that he can't indict. His plan is to run his investigation and leave it to Congress to decide how to respond with respect to Donny-boy. The Senate is in play at the moment, but the chances of the Democrats getting 2/3 in the Senate is a mathematical zero, and the chances of Republicans turning on Trump is a mathematical zero. Add to that the potential for a self-pardon, Trump's capacity to fire Sessions and Rosenstein and replace them with Trumpkins who then fire Mueller before anything more dangerous happens to him... this doesn't go anywhere. Yes, Trump would rather have "Brett" there than a more generic "Federalist Society" clone, but even there, the stakes are low.
What, then, are the stakes here? What outcomes will be different if "Brett" is forced to recognize that this time, no means no? If you believe in consequences for powerful people, watching a rapist shitbag get put on the Supreme Court is an ugly thing, but be pragmatic here. Trump's people missed this in the vetting process. Since there was no written record anywhere, it would have been hard to catch, but they missed it. The reason Trump doesn't want to... withdraw... is that he hates losing. That's the biggest thing here, politically. Pride. The biggest thing here is point-scoring. At the end of the day/week/month, whatever, someone who will rule exactly like "Brett" will wind up on the Supreme Court. And that's why I still think "Brett" makes it. Republicans don't want to lose. That overwhelms any sense of moral justice. I'd be happy to be surprised here, but in the end, I doubt any rulings would be different.