Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee spurned efforts by their Democratic counterparts to compel the release of more documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s tenure working in the White House.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s meeting Thursday, several of the panel’s Democratic members made motions to subpoena documents and interviews related to Kavanaugh. Each of their motions, however, were defeated in party-line votes.
“If this man is successfully nominated, he could become the deciding vote on major legal issues that Americans care deeply about,” California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the committee’s top Democrat, said. “So I think taking the time and really being able to make the assessments that are needed to be made is really critical and important.”
During the span of the hearing, Democrats made half a dozen motions to subpoena Kavanaugh’s staff secretary documents, 100,000 pages of documents withheld by the White House, and several individuals, including Manuel Miranda, a former GOP Senate aide, and Don Willett, a federal judge who worked in the White House and Justice Department, for testimony.
Among the staff secretary records specifically, Democrats sought to compel the release of records in which Kavanaugh discussed Native Hawaiians and Alaska, his involvement in torture and detention policies during former President George W. Bush’s administration, and his views on executive power.
“We lack the time, we lack the documents, and we need witnesses before we can proceed further with this meeting,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said at the start of the meeting.
But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, urged the committee not to allow subpoenas to be issued, saying doing so could slow down the nominations process.
“I believe it would be a mistake for the committee to issue a subpoena, thus setting up a court case which could go on literally for years before it was finally resolved,” he said.
Democrats have been battling with Republicans for weeks over the records made public, which stem from his time working for independent counsel Kenneth Starr during the investigation involving former President Bill Clinton and in the White House counsel’s office for President Bush.
Documents from Kavanaugh’s three years as White House staff secretary during the Bush administration, however, have not been released, which has rankled Democrats.
Senate Democrats argue those records are crucial to understanding Kavanaugh’s views on controversial policies that arose during the Bush administration. But GOP senators say the documents provide little insight into his fitness to serve on the Supreme Court and believe the requests are merely part of Democrats’ efforts to draw out the confirmation process.
Judiciary Committee Democrats have accused Republicans of bending the rules to usher Kavanaugh’s nomination through the committee quickly, with little regard for the panel’s minority members.
“We are a whisper, a shell, of what this committee once was,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. “It used to be the guiding committee in the United States Senate.”
But Durbin said the committee was “obviously in a hurried state” to approve judicial nominees as fast as possible, including those to the Supreme Court.
The Judiciary Committee was scheduled to discuss Kavanaugh’s nomination during its meeting Thursday, but Grassley held over the nomination for one week.
The panel’s 21 members will instead vote on Kavanaugh’s nomination Sept. 20 at 1:45 p.m. It’s expected to be approved by the committee along party lines, after which it will head to the full Senate for a floor vote.
