Unprecedented secrecy. Just hours before Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, Senate Republicans dumped 42,000 pages of documents that were pre-screened by a Republican lawyer who used to work for Kavanaugh.
Washington Post: “Hours before the start of hearings on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the lawyer for former president George W. Bush turned over 42,000 pages of documents from the nominee’s service in the Bush White House, angering Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, who issued what is certain to be a futile call to delay the proceedings.”
Unprecedented obstruction. Trump made the decision to withhold more than 100,000 pages of Kavanaugh’s records. No president before Trump has withheld documents.
Associated Press: “The Trump administration is withholding more than 100,000 pages of Brett Kavanaugh’s records from the Bush White House on the basis of presidential privilege ahead of the Supreme Court nominee’s confirmation hearing.”
BuzzFeed: “In that situation, when Rehnquist had been nominated to become chief justice, Mark Rozell details in his 2010 book on executive privilege that two Republicans joined with Democrats in threatening to subpoena the documents if the White House wouldn’t back down. It did, and senators were allowed to review the relevant documents. Since then, presidents of both parties have declined to invoke executive privilege to shield documents of Supreme Court nominees from Senate review.”
What are Republicans hiding? The American people have seen only a very small percentage of Kavanaugh’s record one million-plus pages of documents. Republicans have still not released any records from his time as White House staff secretary.
Associated Press: “In all, 267,000 pages of Kavanaugh documents from his Bush years are being made public.”
USA Today: “Senators have begun the deepest dive ever into the writings of a Supreme Court nominee, digging into a record 1 million-plus pages of legal opinions and emails from Brett Kavanaugh’s career as a federal judge, White House attorney and assistant to the prosecutor who investigated President Bill Clinton.”