The confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh began on Tuesday morning with Democrats taking aim at the lack of transparency from the White House and other Republicans concerning the rush to confirm Kavanaugh before October, according to The Washington Post.
Democratic senators were able to delay Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-IA) from delivering his opening remarks for more than an hour as they fought to delay the confirmation hearing due to a last-minute document dump sent more than 42,000 pages to the Senators concerning his time in the George W. Bush White House.
More than 20 protesters, predominantly women, were arrested during the morning's hearing, most shouting during the hearing about the dangers to abortion rights and healthcare posed by Kavanaugh.
Democrats said the documents being withheld on Kavanaugh's career cover a number of important issues he took action on during his tenure as a Bush staffer.
Senators have already viewed 200,000 pages that cannot be disclosed to the public, while the Trump administration revealed late last Friday night they would withhold another 100,000 from Congress completely due to presidential privilege.
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont questioned: “What are we trying to hide? Why are we rushing?”
“It’s not only shameful, it’s a sham,” Leahy said. “This is the most incomplete, most partisan, least transparent vetting for any Supreme Court nominee I have ever seen.”
Democrats repeatedly invoked the name of former President Barack Obama's nominee Merrick Garland, who was denied a hearing by Republicans in 2016 from replacing the late justice Antonin Scalia.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed the Democrats would be "held in contempt of court" if they continued with their behavior which he described as "mob rule."
Sen. Grassley claimed Kavanaugh was "one of the most qualified nominees — if not the most qualified nominee — that I’ve seen,” since his "extensive record demonstrates a deep commitment to the rule of law.”
Democratic senators publicly vowed to press Kavanaugh on his views concerning abortion, the Affordable Care Act, gun control, and executive power.
Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said she would push for an answer from the judge on whether or not he believed the landmark Roe v. Wade decision is "settled law" but also "whether you believe it is the correct law."
She also pointed to Kavanaugh's role in the recent case where he disagreed with his colleagues of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit who ordered the Trump administration had to allow a pregnant immigrant teen in federal custody access to abortion services.
Kavanaugh's dissent said the court was making “a new right for unlawful immigrant minors in U.S. government detention to obtain immediate abortion on demand.”
She also said his views were "outside the mainstream on guns," pointing to his 2011 dissent against an opinion delivered by his colleagues which upheld Washington's ban on semiautomatic rifles.
“Gun bans and gun regulations that are not long-standing or sufficiently rooted in text, history, and tradition are not consistent with the Second Amendment individual right,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Feinstein also said Fred Guttenberg, who became an activist against gun violence after losing his 14-year-old daughter Jaime in the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting earlier this year, was present for the hearing.
Guttenberg attempted to approach Kavanaugh when the hearing dismissed for a break, introducing himself and his experience as a parent who lost their child to gun violence before the nominee turned and walked away without acknowledging him.
-WN.com, Maureen Foody
Photo:
AP / Andrew Harnik