Orrin Hatch: Partisanship over Kavanaugh nomination ‘dumbass’
Senate Republicans are returning fire in an escalating battle over documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s work in the Bush-era White House.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said on Thursday that was “sick and tired” of the partisanship surrounding the Supreme Court fight.
“We can’t keep going down this partisan, picky, stupid, dumbass road that has happened around here for so long,” the normally mild-mannered senator said as Republicans stood in front of dozens of empty boxes labeled “Kavanaugh files.”
{mosads}
GOP Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) quipped that Democrats were on the “great paper chase.”
The battle over the documents request has emerged as a lightning rod in the now weeks-old Supreme Court fight.
Though senators estimate Kavanaugh’s paper trail will amount to roughly a million pages, Democrats want to see papers and emails from his time as staff secretary, which they say could show Kavanaugh’s thinking on issues like torture and surveillance.
“The National Archives has confirmed that Senate Republicans are keeping a large majority of Judge Kavanaugh’s White House records hidden from the public. … What are President Trump and Senate Republicans hiding?” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) asked in a statement on Thursday.
Kavanaugh has been on the federal bench since 2006 and has decades-long ties to Washington, including work as a White House lawyer and staff secretary for Bush, as well as serving as a prosecutor on Ken Starr’s Clinton-era probe.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) added that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) was willing to negotiate on potentially asking for documents tied to Kavanaugh’s time as staff secretary but couldn’t get an agreement.
“We feel that asking for them is not anything but a point of delaying the confirmation of Kavanaugh,” Grassley added.
Republicans argue that, even without documents from his time as staff secretary, Kavanaugh’s nomination will have the most extensive document production of a Supreme Court nominee.
Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) initially tried to negotiate a deal on documents, but those talks appeared to derail last week when Grassley sent a letter to the National Archives asking for documents just from Kavanaugh’s time as a White House lawyer.
Republicans want to hold a confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh next month and vote on his nomination before November’s midterm elections.
But the fight over documents could potentially throw a wrench into that plan.
The National Archives wrote back to Grassley this week warning it wouldn’t be able to fulfill his request until October.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed..
