IF sen jeff flake r AZ and sen bob corker r TN and sen orrin hatch r UT are all retiring from the U.S. Senate because of varying degrees of disgust of the state of politics in America and NOT MY pres drumpf/trump they would be working their fellow senators to join them in voting against brett kavanaugh to become the next drumpf/trump-pence fascist justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. THE truth is all three of these republican tea-baggers are hypocritical liars who have voted with drumpf/trump-pence 83.1%, 83.6% and 96%. Don't be surprised to see them surface at companies who paid for them while they were in office or at neo-con fascist "think tanks" operated by the 1%. From Business Insider
Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing starts with a bang as Kamala Harris leads Democrats in trying to stop the hearing
- Democrats motioned to adjourn Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearing within seconds of its start Tuesday.
- Protesters swarmed the room to oppose Kavanaugh as President Donald Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy.
- The committee continued with the hearing, with Chairman Chuck Grassley insisting everything would go on as planned.
Senate Democrats moved to adjourn Judge Brett Kavanaugh's first confirmation hearing for his nomination to serve on the Supreme Court on Tuesday seconds after the Judiciary Committee panel began.
The moment Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley began his opening remarks, Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, interrupted to take issue with lawmakers' access to documents from Kavanaugh's tenure as a staffer in the George W. Bush White House.
When Grassley did not allow it, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut called the hearing "a charade and a mockery of our norms" while motioning to adjourn the hearing as protesters opposing Kavanaugh erupted in applause and chants.
Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey then began asking for postponement while Grassley banged his chairman's gavel and called for regular order.
"What is the rush? What are we trying to hide by not having the documents out front?" Booker asked. "What is with the rush? What are we not hiding by not letting those documents come out? Sir, this committee is a violation of the values that we as a committee have striven for."
But Grassley would not have any of it, instead insisting the hearing would continue as planned.
"Maybe it isn't going exactly the way the minority would like to have it go, but we have said for a long period of time that we were going to proceed on this very day," Grassley said. "And I think we ought to give the American people the opportunity to hear whether Judge Kavanaugh should be on the Supreme Court or not."
While Grassley was pleading for regular order, a protester began screaming loudly in the hearing room. Sen. Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican senator, could be overheard on camera saying, "Get her thrown out of here, my God."
Eventually, the fight among senators calmed down and Grassley proceeded with his opening remarks.
In hearing showdown, Democrats push for Kavanaugh documents
t took just 10 seconds for the Brett Kavanaugh hearing to get contentious. One by one, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee derailed the plan for opening statements and demanded more time to review the judge's massive public record. Meanwhile, a barrage of protesters kept interrupting the proceedings. Lisa Desjardins joins Judy Woodruff to discuss the dramatic start.
Read the Full Transcript
- Judy Woodruff:It is showdown time in the United States Senate over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.His confirmation hearings opened today with a donnybrook over unreleased documents and repeated protests from observers.Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins our coverage.It took just 10 seconds for the hearing to get contentious.
- Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa:I welcome everyone to this confirmation hearing on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve as associate justice of the Supreme Court to the United States.(CROSSTALK)
- Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.:Mr. Chairman, I would like to be recognized for a question before we proceed.Mr. Chairman, I would like to be recognized and ask a question before we proceed.The committee received just last night, less than 15 hours ago, 42,000 pages of documents that we have not had an opportunity to review or read or analyze.
- Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa:You’re out of order. I will proceed.
- Lisa Desjardins:One by one, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee derailed a plan for opening statements and demanded more time to review Brett Kavanaugh’s massive public record.
- Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.:We believe this hearing should be postponed.(CROSSTALK)
- Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.:Mr. Chairman, if we cannot be recognized, I move to adjourn. Mr. Chairman, I move to adjourn.(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
- Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.:Mr. Chairman, I move to adjourn.
- Lisa Desjardins:The melee continued for more than an hour.Republicans pushed back.
- Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa:How ridiculous it is to say that we don’t have the records that it takes to determine if this person qualified to be on the Supreme Court, when all the documents we have add up to more than we have had for the last five Supreme Court nominees.
- Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas:I would suggest that, if this were a court of law, that virtually every side, every member on the dais on that side would be held in contempt of court.
- Man:At some point, are we going to get to hear from the nominee?
- Lisa Desjardins:All this amidst a barrage of interrupting protesters inside the room. Capitol Police escorted them out, leaving empty seats in the back and openly frustrated Republicans in front.
- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah:Frankly, these people are so out of line, they shouldn’t even be allowed in the doggone room.
- Lisa Desjardins:There were more protesters outside the room. This group’s outfits referencing the television show “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a symbol of women’s rights and the drama at the hearing itself.
- Judy Woodruff:And let’s talk to our own Lisa, who was in the hearing room.Lisa, it wasn’t what everybody expected.
- Lisa Desjardins:No, it wasn’t. It was really remarkable.Judy, I have been to a lot of contentious hearings, especially in the last one-and-a-half years. And this sort of outranks them all, and this is just day one.
- Judy Woodruff:That’s right.I think, starting from the beginning, as you saw, the hearing barely got under way, when the Democratic senators — and we knew that there was unrest among Democrats about the failure of the White House to release some documents of a lawyer representing President George W. Bush, in whose administration Brett Kavanaugh worked.But what we didn’t realize, that we were going to see all 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee ultimately express extreme unhappiness and call for the hearing to stop.
- Lisa Desjardins:That’s right. They took turns. They were clearly unified. They had spent a lot of time strategizing, Judy.And in the end, what they were talking about today most specifically where those 40,000-plus pages of documents that they just got last night, but really the bigger issue is just the massive amount of paper in Brett Kavanaugh’s history.Democrats especially would like to see documents pertaining to the time he spent as White House staff secretary. That’s when he saw perhaps millions of pages of documents cross his desk. He may have rung in on them or not. But they do not have access to that at all.And they’re complaining about that. Those documents will be eventually made public, but they haven’t yet.Meanwhile, Judy, it was also contentious, of course, in the crowd. And Capitol Police just e-mailed us, said that overall they made some 61 removals from that room. That’s really remarkable, because there were just 40 seats for the public.So what was happening, protesters were coming in, being taken out, and the next people in line were often other protesters.
- Judy Woodruff:At one point, it looked like virtually everybody who was there to watch the hearing was being…
- Lisa Desjardins:I think that’s right.
- Judy Woodruff:Was being taken away who wasn’t part of the — part of the Kavanaugh group or the press.So the day did move on. It moved on to statements by the senators, which is what was planned. And let’s take a listen to what happened next.Here’s more of Lisa’s report.
- Lisa Desjardins:Democrats pressed on specific issues, often the most controversial issues in American life.
- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.:I want to talk a little bit about one of the big decisions that we have, the belief that, although you told Senator Collins that you believed it was settled law, the question is really, do you believe that it’s correct law? And that’s Roe v. Wade.The president that nominated you has said, “I will nominate someone who is anti-choice and pro-gun.”And we believe what he said.
- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.:The NRA has poured millions into your confirmation promising their members that you will break the tie. They clearly have big expectations on how you will vote on guns.
- Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill.:You are aspiring to be the most decisive vote on the Supreme Court on critical issues. Over and above all of those things is this. You are the nominee of President Donald John Trump. This is a president who has shown us consistently that he’s contemptuous of the rule of law.And it’s that president who’s decided you are his man, you’re the person he wants on the Supreme Court. You are his personal choice. So are people nervous about this? Are they concerned about it? Of course they are.
- Lisa Desjardins:Kavanaugh listened attentively, but silently. Republicans tried to speak for him, charging that Democrats were inflaming partisan emotions.
- Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas:And I sincerely hope this week we can all take a deep breath. We’re not doing very well so far. And get a grip and treat this process with the respect and gravity it demands.
- Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah:Go ask anyone who practices regularly before the Supreme Court who doesn’t have a partisan agenda, and they will tell you Judge Kavanaugh is exactly the kind of person we should have on the court.
- Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah:You are independent. You have written that — quote — “Some of the greatest moments in American traditional history have been when judges stood up to the other branches.”Everyone knows that you served in the Bush administration. And yet when you became a judge, in only two years, you ruled against the Bush administration a total of eight times. For you, it simply doesn’t matter who the parties are.
How Trump factored into Day 1 of Brett Kavanaugh's hearing - Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation hearings opened Tuesday with an uproar. What was notable in opening remarks, and how did President Trump loom over the discussion? Judy Woodruff gets analysis from Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal, former solicitor general Paul Clement, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal and Lisa Desjardins.
Read the Full Transcript
- Judy Woodruff:That’s just a taste of what we heard today from the 21 senators who serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee.Joining me now to consider this dramatic day one in the hearing room are three people who have followed the Supreme Court and appellate judges like Brett Kavanaugh for years.“NewsHour”‘s regular Marcia Coyle covers the high court for “The National Law Journal.” Paul Clement was the U.S. solicitor general, who is the government’s lead lawyer before the court. That was during the George W. Bush administration. And Neal Katyal, he served as the acting solicitor general under President Obama. He joins us from New York.All three of you, we say welcome.And as we have been saying, Marcia, because you joined us for our live coverage during the day, the day got off to a wild start. It did eventually settle down. But what did that wild start tell us about the atmosphere as Brett Kavanaugh begins this confirmation process?
- Marcia Coyle:Well, it’s a very highly charged, partisan divide right now.And the Democrats have seized on documents that they feel would be relevant from the judge’s time when he served as staff secretary to President George W. Bush. That’s what they want. They want to see them. They’re apparently not going to get them in time at least for these hearings, if at all.So that’s what we heard for a good part of the day’s hearings, that Democrats continued to push the need for documents, even to the point of suggesting to Judge Kavanaugh that he move to delay the hearings until those documents were produced.
- Judy Woodruff:Paul Clement, how — how justified are the Democrats in asking for what they say is something that would be provided under other normal, ordinary circumstances?
- Paul Clement:Well, I think there’s a healthy debate about which documents are really necessary and relevant to evaluate a Supreme Court nomination.There is certainly no precedent that says that every document that a nominee got anywhere near during their career, that the committee would have their documents, that — Justice Kagan, when she was a staffer to Senator Biden, those weren’t widely distributed.So there’s room to debate about the precedents of where documents should be given and where they shouldn’t be given. But I don’t really think in some respects that the documents are going to make a big difference on this. And I think in some respects the document fight is really a broader fight and a broader frustration about kind of where the votes are and how this nomination is likely to sort out in the end.
- Judy Woodruff:Neal Katyal, what about you? Do you — do you see this document fight as significant, that it’s going to matter in the long run?
- Neal Katyal:I do. And I love my friend Paul, but I couldn’t disagree more with what he just said.I mean, nobody is calling for every document to be released. With respect to Justice Kagan, I had a firsthand seat to that. I was her deputy when she was nominated. And her documents were turned over, except for a very small number. None of them got executive privilege, which is what’s being asserted here, and not for a couple of documents, but for 100,000 documents, and then 42,000 pages dumped last night.It was no less than Senator Grassley and Senator Cornyn who, during the Kagan nomination, said, no, we need to see the documents before the hearing. They complained about the hearing date. As I understand it, the hearing date was pushed back in time for Kagan, for the Kagan documents to come out.And the worst part about this is that it really hurts Judge Kavanaugh and it hurts the court. We should have an open debate about this with the documents read, and so the American people can see them.
- Judy Woodruff:I just want to quickly turn back to Lisa Desjardins, who is still with us.Lisa, do we know whether the Democrats plan to pursue this again tomorrow?
- Lisa Desjardins:We don’t know. I asked several Democrats, including Senator Blumenthal, who’s sort of one of the leaders here of the kind of opposition, whether they plan to again ask for an adjournment, a delay.And they’re not putting their cards on the table yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if the hearing starts out in a similar way. It may not last as long, because the truth is right now everyone is changing their mind-set, getting ready for very serious one-to-one mental combat with Mr. Kavanaugh, if you’re a Democrat.They’re getting their questions ready. They’re trying to anticipate his response. That’s what they’re focusing on tonight.
- Judy Woodruff:So, Marcia, back to you.As we consider what each senator had to say, I think, for Republicans, it was pretty uniformly they were praising Brett Kavanaugh, praising his record, asking, how could anybody not consider this man qualified?For Democrats, it was — it was pretty much a list of their concerns about him.
- Marcia Coyle:Yes, that’s true.The Republicans, their role in a hearing like this, where the nominee is from their own party, they play basically defense. Whatever the Democrats will put forward, they will be trying to push back against.Today, since it’s early, they were laying groundwork for all of his qualifications, trying also as well to show him more as a human being and what he — the kind of person he is.On the Democratic side, there’s almost a laundry list of issues that they are concerned about, because they see this seat that he will fill as so — it has been so pivotal, pivotal in so many cases.It was Justice Kennedy’s seat. And so we heard about abortion, the Second Amendment, the environment, net neutrality, and on and on. And we will hear more of that tomorrow.
- Judy Woodruff:And before I go once against to Paul Clement and Neal Katyal, let’s listen to just a part of what Brett Kavanaugh finally did have to say when it was his time to speak to introduce himself to the committee.
- Brett Kavanaugh:My judicial philosophy is straightforward. A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law. A judge must interpret statutes as written. A judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.
- In deciding cases, a judge must always keep in mind what Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist 83:The rules of legal interpretation are rules of common sense.Our independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional republic. In our independent judiciary, the Supreme Court is the last line of defense for the separation of powers and for the rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution.The Supreme Court must never, never be viewed as a partisan institution. The justices on the Supreme Court do not sit on opposite sides of an aisle. They do not caucus in separate rooms.My law clerks come from diverse backgrounds and points of view.A majority of my 48 law clerks have been women. More than a quarter of my law clerks have been minorities.I see the day that is coming, not the day that is gone.I am optimistic about the future of America. I am optimistic about the future of our independent judiciary. I revere the Constitution. If confirmed to the Supreme Court, I will keep an open mind in every case. I will do equal right to the poor and to the rich.I will always strive to preserve the Constitution of the United States and the American rule of law.
- Judy Woodruff:So, Paul Clement, listening to what Brett Kavanaugh had to say — and we just heard — we were just playing just a part of it there — does that give us a good sense of who he is and the kind of arguments — or, rather, opinions that he’s written as a judge?
- Paul Clement:Well, I think it gives you some insight to it.I mean, there are some things that Judge Kavanaugh said that I think Judge Sotomayor would have said at her hearing and Justice Kagan would have said at her hearing. So there’s some statements about the role of a judge in our system that are pretty noncontroversial and any nominee is going to say.The two things that struck me about it that maybe you wouldn’t hear from just any nominee, I don’t think it’s an accident that Judge Kavanaugh mentioned the separation of powers, because, particularly on the D.C. Circuit, where a lot of cases involving executive power and the branches of government are at issue, that’s something that he’s been very focused on.That’s a subject he’s taught at Harvard Law School. So I think that’s one thing that’s a little bit different.And then he did mention the number of his law clerks who were female or who were racial minorities. And that really is a striking fact about Judge Kavanaugh. I mean, I don’t know how much you can really learn from a judge’s hiring of law clerks. But it really is striking that he had so many female law clerks.I think he was the first judge in the history of the D.C. Circuit to have four female law clerks, basically have a whole chamber’s full of female law clerks.
- Judy Woodruff:Neal Katyal, what did you take away from Brett Kavanaugh’s statement?
- Neal Katyal:Well, you know, this is the most consequential Supreme Court nomination in our lifetimes.And I guess I agree largely with what was said, which is, we didn’t actually learn very much about Judge Kavanaugh today. We don’t learn very much about the nominee at all. We learned a lot about the nominator. And maybe that was the Democrats’ strategy, because this is an unusual nomination, not just because of the penchant for secrecy and hiding of documents that we have been talking about, but also the fact that the president has been fingered by his own personal lawyer as under criminal investigation.So you have got these kinds of things that the Democrats kept on returning to as themes and the anomaly of kind of a president nominating someone to our highest court when that person very — very well may sit in judgment of him.So you have these oddities. But, really, I don’t think we have learned too much about the judge. And I feel bad for Judge Kavanaugh. He is a lovely man. He’s been one of the most hardworking judges on the D.C. Circuit. But he has in some sense the misfortune of being nominated by this particular president at this moment in time.
- Judy Woodruff:Marcia, how much does the fact that he was nominated by Donald Trump, being in the controversial position that he’s in at this moment in American history, how much — how different is that, I want to ask, than the typical Supreme Court nomination?
- Marcia Coyle:Well, it’s very different because of all that is surrounding the Trump administration right now.Donald Trump wasn’t the invisible elephant in the room. I mean, he was the visible elephant in the room today. His tweets about the Justice Department and the attorney general came up several times by Democratic senators.I will say this, that very similar to Justice Gorsuch’s position, when a presidential candidate — and we saw it from both in 2016 — promises to appoint someone to the Supreme Court who will overturn certain very high-profile decisions, like Roe or Citizens United, then whoever that president nominates is going to take into that hearing room the question of how independent that nominee is going to be.And that’s going to be part of the questioning behind the questioning. There’s a lot of suspicion on the Democratic side as to how independent Judge Kavanaugh will be.
- Judy Woodruff:So, Paul Clement, is there an additional burden on this nominee, on Brett Kavanaugh, because of the person who appointed him?
- Paul Clement:I don’t think there should be.And I think, because of who Judge Kavanaugh is in particular, I think, at the end of the day, I don’t know that a strategy of trying to apply a different standard because of the president who nominated is going to work.And the reason I say that is because Judge Kavanaugh is somebody who would have been on the short list of every candidate in the Republican primaries. He’s an incredibly well-respected judge. I mean, if you had a nominee who was an outlier, and could have only been nominated by this president, then maybe it’d be a different situation.But this is exactly the kind of candidate you would expect to be nominated to the Supreme Court.
- Judy Woodruff:And, just very quickly to you, Neal Katyal, how do you see the — President Trump as he looms over these hearings?
- Neal Katyal:Well, I think it’s a huge deal.And we even saw it Senator Cruz tried to make lemon out of lemonade — lemonade out of lemons by saying, look, this is someone who has been ratified effectively because, in 2016, Trump put out a list as a candidate of people he would nominate. He won the presidency. Therefore, Judge Kavanaugh is ratified by the American people.The only problem with that claim was Judge Kavanaugh was put on the list in November of 2017, after the whole criminal investigation of Mueller and stuff became public. So it does look really odd.I agree with Paul. This is a very qualified person, deserves to be on every short list, as does, by the way, Paul Clement. But the timing and the circumstance of this nomination are a bit odd.
- Judy Woodruff:Neal Katyal, Paul Clement, who just received a very nice compliment…(LAUGHTER)
- Judy Woodruff:… from your friend, and Marcia Coyle, thank you, all. Thank you, all three.And, Lisa Desjardins, thank you so much for covering it for us from the Capitol.
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