Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley vowed late Monday that he wouldn’t allow Democrats to stall the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by making unprecedented demands for documents on his record in the White House.
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Grassley said Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York have already decided to oppose Kavanaugh anyway. That makes their demands for millions of pages of documents from his time in the Bush White House a move aimed at stalling a nominee they will never support.
“Democratic leaders are demanding access to every page from every email and every paper record from every one of the hundreds of White House aides who came and went during the entire eight years of President Bush’s time in office,” Grassley wrote. “This includes records that merely mention Judge Kavanaugh’s name and records he’s never seen.”
“That is not reasonable,” added Grassley, R-Iowa. “As I have made clear, I will not put taxpayers on the hook for a fishing expedition.”
Grassley said documents related to Kavanaugh’s time as a White House staff secretary under President George W. Bush are “decidedly less revealing” about his judicial philosophy than his 12 years as a judge on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He also said those documents would be millions of pages that include sensitive information, which would take years to sort through. But he said that’s just what Democrats want.
“Their objective is to delay the confirmation process until after the midterm elections, with the hope of taking control of the Senate,” he wrote.
“The next time you hear complaints about the Senate Judiciary Committee’s vetting process—the most extensive and transparent in history—remember Mr. Schumer’s pledge to oppose Judge Kavanaugh with everything he’s got,” Grassley said. “How much more do Democratic leaders need to know when they’re already voting no?”
Grassley and Senate Republicans are aiming to confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court by September, so he can sit for the court’s new term that starts Oct. 1.
