The White House responded to reports Friday that top Democrats are willing to meet with President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying the requests from the White House to meet with the judge have gone unanswered for weeks.
“Despite published reports, the White House’s requests for meetings between Judge Kavanaugh and Senators Schumer and Feinstein remain unanswered after over three weeks,” White House spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are expected to meet with Kavanaugh when the Senate returns from a weeklong break on Aug. 15, according to a senior Senate Democratic aide.
Senate Democrats have demanded files relating to Kavanaugh’s work in the White House during the George W. Bush administration. The National Archives informed lawmakers this week that reviewing all the requested documents could take until October.
The senators intend on asking Kavanaugh to support releasing the documents, the Democratic aide said. Shah called their efforts disingenuous.
“While we look forward to potential meetings, both of these Democratic senators and many of their colleagues have publicly opposed Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination, while continuing to disingenuously demand millions of pages of documents from former President Bush that are irrelevant to evaluating the Judge’s judicial thinking,” he said.
