WASHINGTON, D.C. - As soon as the room was gaveled to order on day one of the Senate’s confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a circus ensued.
Democrats interrupted the proceedings, protestors erupted and were escorted from the audience, and it went on for more than an hour.
Judge Kavanaugh, if confirmed, would replace what was a powerful swing vote and push the Court into conservative control -- so both parties have plenty at stake.
Coordinated Attack?
According to NBC News, the chaos was all part of a coordinated effort plotted and planned over the long holiday by Democrats.
https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/1036978029275308033
It was cited by Senator Thom Tills in his question to committee Democrats over its truthfulness – but he didn’t receive an answer about the planning. The opening scenes were so chaotic that even the C-SPAN transcript could not identify who was talking for the first 15 minutes with Democrat after Democrat interrupting over the lack of time to release documents.
Amid the quarreling and confusion, we heard a few highlights that will no doubt punctuate the days of testimony on the part of Judge Kavanaugh and grilling on the part of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The Documents
Around 488,000 of Kavanaugh’s professional documents have been released, 28,000 pages submitted by Kavanaugh himself.
More than any Supreme Court nominee in history.
The majority of interruptions and accusations were aimed at the 100,000 documents withheld by the White House, and the 42,000 released to the committee confidentially only the night before.
The documents cover the time that Kavanaugh served time as staff secretary under former President George W. Bush. Some of which were withheld by Senator Grassley, citing that they lacked important information on the candidate and that as staff secretary Judge Kavanaugh served as “The inbox and the outbox of the oval office.”
Speaking of Chairman Grassley, he cried foul on Democrats claim that the 42,000 was too much to digest -- calling the number “fuzzy math."
Grassley noted, “My colleagues keep saying we only have 6-percent of Kavanaugh’s White House records but that 99 percent of Justice Kagan’s White House records were made public before the hearing. This is fuzzy math.”
Kavanaugh's Children
In the early going of the contentious hearing, Judge Kavanaugh's two young girls, Margaret and Liza were quickly hustled out the Hart Senate Building by their mother, Ashley, as rhetoric and language ratcheted up to a level inappropriate for the children.
What do we have to look forward to now? Starting Wednesday at 9:30 in the morning, each senator will have thirty minutes for the first round of questions, to be followed by the second round of twenty minutes for each. This process is set to carry on into next week.