Senate Democrats repeatedly interrupted the opening of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination hearing Tuesday morning in a failed bid to delay proceedings.
Democrats cited the release of approximately 42,000 pages of documents Monday evening from Kavanaugh’s work in the George W. Bush White House, and a further 100,000 pages that have not been produced because the White House asserted executive privilege.
Before Monday, 415,000 pages from Kavanaugh’s White House service were produced to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The D.C. Circuit Court judge worked in the Bush White House Counsel office from 2001 to 2003, and then as staff secretary from 2003 to 2006.
As protesters shouted in opposition to Kavanaugh, Democratic senators spoke over Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who shut down requests for a roll call vote on delaying the proceedings.
“I appeal to your sense of fairness, decency, and the commitment you’ve made to transparency. This violates what you have said and called for, sir,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told Grassley.
Grassley fired back: “You spoke about my decency and integrity. And I think you are taking advantage of my decency and integrity.”
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., also pushed for a delay, saying: “I think we ought to at least have a National Archive finish it and to have for the first time certainly in my 44 years here to have somebody say there is a claim of executive privilege when the president hasn’t made such a claim just puts everything under doubt. What are we trying to hide? Why are we rushing?”
Grassley defended his decision to continue the hearing.
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“I can answer all the questions that have been raised but I think if I answer those questions it is going to fit into the effort of the minority to continue to obstruct and I don’t think that that’s fair to our judge, it is not fair to our constitutional process,” Grassley said.
The committee chairman continued: “My colleagues on the other side are accusing the administration of using executive privilege to hide documents from the I want to say why they’re wrong. … Judge Kavanaugh was a senior lawyer in the White House. He advised the president on judicial nominations, provided legal advice on separation of powers issues, and handled litigation matters. … because of attorney-client privilege, everybody has a right to keep communications from their lawyers out of government hands.”
Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif, Chris Coons, D-Del., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also advocated for a delay.
“I think you would be hard pressed to find a court in the country that would not give a party litigant a continuance when the party on the other side did a 42,000-page document dump after close of business the night before trial,” argued Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, responded to Whitehouse, saying: “I would just say that Sen. Whitehouse suggested we handle this hearing like a court of law. I would suggest if this were a court of law that virtually every side — every member on the dais would be held in contempt of court because this whole process is supposed to be a civil one where people get to ask questions and we get to get answers.”
Grassley told senators that Tuesday’s hearing would feature 10-minute statements by committee members and introductory remarks for Kavanaugh. On Wednesday and Thursday, he said, each senator on the committee would have a total of 50 minutes to question the judge, with 30 minutes on a first round and 20 minutes in a second.
