Democrats press Kavanaugh to delay hearing

Democrats on Tuesday are urging Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to postpone his own confirmation hearings until committee members can review his full record.

A number of senators directly appealed to Kavanaugh during the first day of his Senate hearings to support their argument that senators deserve more time to consider his nomination before a vote.

{mosads}Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) urged Kavanaugh to call for his hearing to be suspended after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) refused to hold a vote on motions to adjourn the proceedings.

“Judge Kavanaugh, what may be going through your mind right now is to simply and stoically endure this hearing,” Hirono said. “But don’t you think you owe it to the American people to disclose all of the documents being requested because you have nothing to hide, because you have nothing to hide?”

“Your failure to do so would reflect a fundamental distrust of the American people,” she said.

Her comments followed similar pleas from Durbin and Blumenthal. 

“I think these proceedings have been a great disservice to you as well as this committee and the American people,” Blumenthal said. “If you are confirmed after this truncated and concealed process, there will always be a taint, there will always be an asterisk after your name.”

The senators urging Kavanaugh to delay his own proceedings represented a shift from the Democrats’ previous attempts on Tuesday to urge Grassley to adjourn the hearing, as well as a previous request by Blumenthal for a vote to overturn Grassley’s ruling. Democrats began lobbying for the hearing to adjourn immediately after it began on Tuesday morning.

Democrats argue that they haven’t had time to review the tens of thousands of pages that represent Kavanaugh’s body of work, including from his time in the George W. Bush White House.