4 Things to Look for at Trump Supreme Court Nominee Kavanaugh's Senate Hearing

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor Monday, September 03, 2018

Complaints Over Process

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) arrives to talk to the media on the president's FY2018 budget proposal, June 25, 2017. | (Photo: Reuters/Yuri Gripas)

When Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced on Aug. 10 that the committee hearing on Kavanaugh would be on Sept. 4, many Democrats objected over what they viewed as a rushed process.

Democrats sent several requests to the National Archives to view the full records of Kavanaugh's five years in the Bush administration, arguing that they do not have sufficient information on the nominee.

"We need these documents to do our job," stated Committee member Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, as quoted by Roll Call in August. "We will be ready to go to court. I still have hope that they will in fact comply."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York claimed that Republicans were trying "to make this the least transparent, most secretive Supreme Court nomination in history."

"They seem to be more frightened of this nominee's record and history than any we've ever considered," stated Schumer, as quoted by Politico.

For his part, Grassley has stated that the committee already has nearly a quarter of a million documents about Kavanaugh's work in the Bush administration, and have both sufficient time and resources to prepare for the Sept. 4 hearing.

"Most are already publicly available, and we're working to make the vast majority of them publicly available as quickly as possible," stated Grassley, according to Roll Call. "We have plenty of time to review all these materials before the hearing."