Sen. John Cornyn on Tuesday accused Democrats of applying “mob rule” to the first day of hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, after Democrats interrupted the opening proceedings several times.
“This is the first confirmation hearing subject to mob rule,” Cornyn said after Democrats kept interrupting. “It’s hard to take it seriously when every single one of our colleagues in the Senate Judiciary Committee on the Democrats’ side have announced their opposition to this nomination even before today’s hearing.”
Democrats on the Judiciary Committee sought to delay the hearing over claims that they had insufficient time to review records from Kavanaugh’s tenure as staff secretary in the second Bush administration, and his rulings as an appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., repeatedly demanded that the hearing be adjourned until Senate Democrats received thousands more documents related to Kavanaugh’s career.
“It’s hard to take seriously their claim that somehow they can’t do their jobs because they’ve been denied access to attorney-client or executive privilege documents when they’ve already made up their mind before the hearing,” Cornyn added. “There’s nothing fair about that.”
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, referred back to Cornyn’s comments as he pointed out that Democrats previously applauded him for running a smooth confirmation hearing for Justice Neil Gorsuch last spring.
“I’ve been accused of having a mob rule session… if we have a mob rule session it’s because the chairman is not running the committee properly,” Grassley said. “This is the same Chuck Grassley that ran the [Neil] Gorsuch hearings.”
Tuesday marked the beginning of what is expected to be a tense and lengthy confirmation battle for Kavanaugh, who is President Trump’s second nominee for the Supreme Court since taking office. The 53-year-old judge will face questions in the coming days about his rulings on several hot-button issues like abortion, the Second Amendment protections, and executive power as it relates to the ongoing special counsel investigation into Trump and his associates.
