Senate Dems sue Archives to try to force release of Kavanaugh documents

A group of Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee has filed suit against the National Archives in an attempt to gain access to records related to President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. 

Six Democrats, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) Cory Booker (N.J.), Kamala Harris (Calif.), Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), Patrick Leahy (Vt.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), filed the lawsuit on Monday. The senators, who say they are being denied access to documents from Kavanaugh’s time in the George W. Bush White House, additionally filed papers asking for a court to take immediate action to order the release. 

The suit comes as Kavanaugh’s nomination is also under increasing scrutiny over an allegation of sexual assault against the judge from decades ago.

{mosads}”The Senate and the American public have a brief opportunity to sift the record of Judge Kavanaugh’s public career before the Senate is expected to make an effectively irreversible decision that would shape the federal judiciary for decades, and the individual Senators have a unique platform to probe and publicize Judge Kavanaugh’s record,” lawyers for the senators at the watchdog group American Oversight wrote in the filing. 

The requests before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia were first made in August to National Archives, the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum and the CIA. 

The Freedom of Information Act gives agencies up to 20 days to either approve or disapprove a request for documents. It also offers 10 days to conclude if a demand for an expedited process will be granted.