Democrats, facing their last day to publicly question Trump’s nominee, upped their ante on Thursday, threatening to release confidential White House emails and accusing Supreme…
Democrats, facing their last day to publicly question Trump’s nominee, upped their ante on Thursday, threatening to release confidential White House emails and accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of lying to senators.
The Judiciary Committee hearing went off the rails almost immediately when Sen. Cory Booker (D-N. J.) sparked a political firestorm by announcing that he was going to release “confidential” documents from Kavanaugh’s time as a White House lawyer.
Several Democrats then used a batch of emails publicly released on Thursday to imply that Kavanaugh had lied to the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) at one point told Kavanaugh of his testimony, “Judge, I was born at night but not last night.”
The contentious third day of Kavanaugh’s hearings before the Judiciary committee began with Booker announcing early on that he would be “knowingly violating the rules” in order to “release the email about racial profiling, and I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.”
The White House 2020 contender was quickly backed in releasing email by his colleagues, who released or threatened to release additional emails that had been marked “committee confidential.”
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) tweeted out two pages that had the “committee confidential” stamp.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) — characterizing Democrats as attending the hearing “under protest” — warned he could release private documents before Kavanaugh’s floor vote later this month.
“I hereby reserve the right to release documents before any confirmation vote, so that my colleagues can see what the truth is,” Blumenthal said.
Republicans suggested the antics were Democratic attempts at grandstanding in an effort to drum up the progressive base that is watching how senators perform in the days-long hearing.
“We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker’s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly,” said Bill Burck, the George W. Bush lawyer who led the review of Kavanaugh’s records related to his time as a White House lawyer, in a statement to The Washington Post.
A GOP Judiciary spokesman on Thursday confirmed the emails had already been cleared for release and Booker’s office notified before the senator’s announcement.
But tensions didn’t calm as senators began their questioning of Kavanaugh, with several Democrats piling on to accuse Kavanaugh of lying in previous testimony.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Leahy both seized on an email regarding Bill Pryor’s judicial nomination. Pryor is controversial because of his stance against Roe v. Wade.
“Brett Kavanaugh was asked in 2004 about whether he was involved in the nomination of Bill Pryor. He said ‘I was not involved in handling his nomination,’” Feinstein said in a tweet.
She added that “newly released emails show that’s not true. Asked about how Pryor’s interview went, he replied “CALL ME.”
Kavanaugh previously said in 2004 that he was not involved in the nomination proceedings, but on Thursday, could not rule out that he might have questioned Pryor.
Asked by Leahy if he interviewed Pryor, he said he didn’t “believe so, but it’s possible.”
“I don’t believe so but if I did it would have been part of the general process,” he said. “It’s possible; we interviewed hundreds of nominees.”
Asked later by Grassley, who argued Democrats were trying to misrepresent the email, Kavanaugh added that he was not the “primary person” on Pryor.
Leahy also seized on a 2002 hack of Democratic files, some of which may have made their way to Kavanaugh. Leahy said the emails released this week indicated Kavanaugh accessed stolen files.
In a tweet Leahy said that Kavanaugh’s claims that he didn’t receive stolen information or didn’t “suspect anything ‘untoward’ is SIMPLY NOT CREDIBLE.”
Leahy’s accusation comes after he had a heated exchange with Kavanaugh where he grilled the nominee about his knowledge of Manny Miranda, who as a GOP aide hacked Democratic files.
“Mr. Miranda sent you several pages of talking points that were stolen verbatim—stolen verbatim—from Democratic files,” Leahy told Kavanaugh on Thursday. “Why would you ever be asked to keep secret Democratic talking points if they were legislatively obtained?”
“I don’t know why that—” Kavanaugh began to say, before Leahy interrupted: “But look how you received it.”
Leahy then grilled Kavanaugh on the email from Miranda, who was then a GOP-Senate aide, that mentioned a “confidential letter” that Leahy had sent.
“Did any of this raise a red flag in your mind?” Leahy asked.
But Kavanaugh said it seemed like “standard Senate stuff.”
“It did not, senator, because it all seemed consistent with the usual kinds of discussions that happen,” he added.
Leahy then pivoted to an email Kavanaugh got from Miranda that was entitled “spying” and talks about having a “mole,” adding “that is not overly subtle.”
But Kavanaugh dismissed that, saying staffers had “friends across the aisle who they talk to.”
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also accused Kavanaugh of lying to the committee during his 2006 confirmation hearings when he told the committee he was not involved in crafting the George W. Bush administration’s interrogation and detention policies.
“We have found at least three specific examples where you were, three,” he said, noting documents have shown Kavanaugh had discussions about access to counsel for detainees, was involved in the Hamdi and Padilla cases, and was involved with President Bush’s signing statement on the John McCain torture amendment.
“Judge Kavanaugh, you say that words matter, you claim to be a texturalist when you interpret other people’s words, but you don’t want to be held accountable for the plain meaning of your own words,” Durbin said.
