It took less than two minutes for the first protester to be ejected from Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh's opening day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Seconds later, a second demonstrator was thrown out of the hearing room, followed by another, followed by another.
"This is a mockery and a travesty of justice," yelled one protester this week. "Kavanaugh can't be trusted," shouted another. Some protesters wore shirts that read things like "I am what's at stake." Others arrived on Capitol Hill dressed as characters from The Handmaid's Tale, the story of a dystopian future in which women are treated as property of the state.
At least 227 demonstrators were arrested between the start of the nomination hearings on Tuesday and the end of testimony on Friday, according to the U.S. Capitol Police. Most of those charged this week with disorderly conduct, crowding or obstructing paid fines of $35 or $50.
Such shows of protest are nothing new on Capitol Hill. Televised hearings are open to the public, and as such, the outbursts that roiled much of the judge's testimony have become a regular feature of similar high-profile hearings. But the degree of opposition on display in the hearing room underscored the level of anger among progressive activists over a pick that would cement the Supreme Court's conservative majority for years, if not decades, to come.
"Disrupting the hearings was a way for us to go directly into the homes of the American people to say, 'We will not be silenced and you need to be as outraged as we are,' " said Linda Sarsour, a co-chair of the Women's March and one of the organizers of this week's protests.
Leaders from the Women's March were among a broad coalition of organizations, including abortion rights groups, labor unions and advocates for gun control, behind this week's activism. The Women's March partnered with the Center for Popular Democracy to help coordinate interruptions during the hearing and will assist demonstrators who are fined or arrested with legal and financial support, said Sarsour.
Sarsour said she was the first person to shout out on Day 1 of the hearing. She was one of 70 people arrested that day. That included actress Piper Perabo, known for her role on the show Covert Affairs on the USA Network.
Planned Parenthood and its political arm, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, also organized members from across the country, Dana Singiser, vice president for public policy and government affairs at Planned Parenthood, told CNN. Their efforts included sitting in the hearing room, participating in a nightly vigil on Capitol Hill, writing letters to senators, and setting up meetings between lawmakers and constituents.
The disruptions throughout the hearing rankled senators on the Judiciary Committee. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., described the protests as "hysteria," and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said, "These people are so out of line they shouldn't even be allowed in the doggone room." Many of the outbursts came with several of Kavanaugh's closest friends and family in attendance, including his parents, wife, children and even former players for the youth basketball team he coached.
In an interview with The Daily Caller on Tuesday, President Trump said, "I don't know why they don't take care of a situation like that because it's terrible ... I think it's embarrassing for the country to allow protesters, you don't even know which side the protesters were on."
Despite such criticism, Sarsour said, "the women who have been arrested over the last few days" helped generate "political will for Senate Democrats to show some moral courage." She cited the move by New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker on Thursday to release a memo on racial profiling drafted by Kavanaugh but labeled "Committee Confidential," meaning senators could review it but not make it public. "We believe the movement helped encourage that," she said.
But an aide to committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, noted that Booker's staff and other aides to Democrats who requested some of those documents be made public were informed before Thursday's session that the public release had been approved.
At least some Democrats expressed frustration with the outbursts in this week's hearings.
"I think that the average independent voter — the labor family that voted for Trump last time but is now reconsidering — people like that don't think that screaming in a hearing room is a particularly effective strategy or a signal of a party that they much want to belong to," said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., in an interview with NPR's Audie Cornish on Wednesday. "So I think it's been not helpful to any cause that I can see."
With Republicans holding a slim 51 to 49 majority in the Senate, it appears unlikely that efforts to defeat the Kavanaugh nomination will succeed. Grassley said Tuesday that he planned a committee vote on the nomination in mid-September. The full Senate confirmation vote is expected to come at the end of the month, with the aim of having Kavanaugh seated when the Supreme Court opens its next term at the beginning of October.
I have more respect for the protesters than I have for the democrats who announced they would vote against Kavanaugh within minutes of his announcement and before any of the hearings occurred.
I haven't been following this at all. Why the protests....did Kavanaugh make a joke about a pubic hair 10 years ago or something?
He lied under oath to congress.
Spoiled Children. Trump should deport them until they grow up. Venazula sounds like a good place.
sup with people like you always trying to kick people out?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
[quote=jfanent]I haven't been following this at all. Why the protests....did Kavanaugh make a joke about a pubic hair 10 years ago or something?
He lied under oath to congress.
Spoiled Children. Trump should deport them until they grow up. Venazula sounds like a good place. [/quot
sup with people like you always trying to kick people out?
And always to the worst place imaginable.
Venezuela is looking better and better every day for an American.
Should we save you a seat with Swish , OCD ,Kap and spoiled crybaby Democrats?
I like how mouth breathing GOPers think they are the 'true' America and everyone else should move away or be deported. Last I checked I was an American, born and bred, who served his country. Who the hell is dogpile to tell me I should move?
how come you never go "if you dont like it, move to norway"?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
how come you never go "if you dont like it, move to norway"?
Norway is having problems now and of course is blaming the right. Kind of like Obama taking credit for Trumps great economy. Economy is the best since Ronald Reagan.
lol, you never go "move to germany, sweden, denmark, netherlands, etc".
you mean kind of like Trump taking credit for Obama's economy? you're out of your league. gets some facts then come back to me and see whats up.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
how come you never go "if you dont like it, move to norway"?
The funny thing is that Venezuela will probably see an American backed coup within the next year. Cons don't realize how much of Venezuela's property is privatized, especially in the agriculture department.
hell, we already had trump threatening military action against Venezuela.
im still trying to figure out why we need US military action in the first place. did they try to invade us recently? wasnt aware of that.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
how come you never go "if you dont like it, move to norway"?
The funny thing is that Venezuela will probably see an American backed coup within the next year. Cons don't realize how much of Venezuela's property is privatized, especially in the agriculture department.
Maybe we could send Trump and the Trumpians for that. Then he could be a dictator.
how come you never go "if you dont like it, move to norway"?
Norway is having problems now and of course is blaming the right. Kind of like Obama taking credit for Trumps great economy. Economy is the best since Ronald Reagan.
Those that forget the past are doomed to relive it.
Reagan, a man I voted for twice, did little to help the overall economy. It looked good for a while, then two years out of office, we ran head long into a recession ... (1990) Remember.
Then in comes Clinton, leaves office with a surplus. In comes Bush, leaves office in a recession and 9 trillion debt.
In comes Obama, he inherited 10% unemployment, banks closing, auto makers filing bankruptcy and then comes all their suppliers that hurt in the process.
So easy to forget that tax cuts by Reagan and Bush both ended up hurting the country in the end.
I expect someone to not tell me that the Bail Outs hurt the USA... they did, but do you know, every bail out has been repaid and did you further know that it was profitable to the USA.. so in the end, it was improved bottom lines.
Oh,, the deficit,, Doubled under Obama.. Yes it did, but were you aware that it was dropping the last couple of years of his Admin.. Now it's on the climb again.
Now we have Trump who is doing the same damn things.. time will tell, but all signs point to a deficit climbing again.
TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS DON'T WORK!
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Kavanaugh is having a #MeToo moment now. Between his alaskan natives issue, his proven lies in his last confirmation hearings, and now sexual assault allegations... He might not get jammed down America's throat.
If he falls, Good luck getting a SCOTUS appointment through after the midterms... we'll be too busy with the impeachment hearings.
When a GOP president gets elected, I expect a conservative justice will be appointed. That's not really the issue here to me. But let's look at what really happened here.
Trump had an original list of 21 candidates. Now the problem with that to begin with is that the list was composed by The Heritage Foundation. Which isn't an elected official or anyone that is a representative of the people. It's a conservative think tank. At any rate, Trump said that any and all of his SCOTUS nominees would came from that list of 21.
Then it was brought to light that Kavenaugh held the belief that not only could a sitting president not be indicted, but they couldn't even be investigated. Suddenly Trump's list grew, Kavenaugh was on it and selected from it.
Suspects don't get to pick their own judge or jurors. Kavenaugh at the very least should recuse himself from any and all issues that may arise from anything to do with the Russia investigation because of these circumstances.
And the liberals? They should just face the facts that there will be a conservative appointee in the next two years.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Kavanaugh is having a #MeToo moment now. Between his alaskan natives issue, his proven lies in his last confirmation hearings, and now sexual assault allegations... He might not get jammed down America's throat.
BREAKING: FBI Isn’t Investigating Brett Kavanaugh Over Content Of Vague Dianne Feinstein Document
September 13, 2018
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has declined to investigate Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over allegations sent to them by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
Matt Zapotosky of The Washington Post quoted an FBI official as saying: “Upon receipt of the information on the night of September 12, we included it as part of Judge Kavanaugh’s background file, as per the standard process.” He also reported that the agency was not opening a criminal investigation into what Kavanaugh may or may not have done as a high school student.
Oh well, there goes the Democrats last ditch, hair in the coke moment.
You promote and support candidates for office/bench that are Nazis, Sexual Perverts, Criminals, and Liars... then pretend to have some kind of higher morals. Shame!
Your presumption of him being innocent is no less a reach than OCD's opinion of guilt. People are only presumed innocent in a court of law. A message board isn't a court of law.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
That doesn't put the genie back in the bottle. The allegations have been made. You want a sex offender on the SCOTUS?
How is he all of a sudden a 'sex offender'?
All it takes for you to believe he is a sex offender is an anonymous letter, given to a senator, that sat on it for a month or longer before supposedly giving it to the fbi?
And the fbi refuses to investigate?
But, an anonymous letter, from a supposedly real person, that says she will not go public........that's all it takes for you to believe he's a sex offender?
Anonymous, yet again.
The charges were? Oh, non existent. The allegations?
OH - they "COULD involve sexual assault. But COULD be a lesser allegation."
Odd.
And all it takes is an anonymous letter from 'someone'.
Be careful how low you set the bar. Anonymous things might appear in the future for ........
He's not a sex offender, but the allegations accuse him of such behavior. So unless it is investigated you are taking a chance that he may well be a sex offender when you vote to put him on the bench.
I take accusations of sexual misconduct seriously.
that said, i'm sorry, but this looks like nothing more than a hit job by Feinstein, with an attempt at sending the MeToo movement after Kavanaugh.
the dems wanted to fight over this pick over the vetting process and documents? fine, i'm all for it. fight over the clear reason trump picked him in the first place? go right on ahead.
but this? this is beyond low. i can not support this nonsense.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Report: Bay Area woman claims Brett Kavanaugh tried to force himself on her at high school party decades ago
A Bay Area woman accused Trump Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of holding her down and attempting to force himself on her at a decades-old party when they were both in high school, according to a new report Friday.
The allegations, which Kavanaugh has denied, were detailed in a secret a letter sent to Sen. Dianne Feinstein that the California senator never made public. They came to light Friday in a story in The New Yorker by Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow, the journalist whose reporting on sexual harassment has led to the downfall of media and film titans such as Harvey Weinstein and CBS News’ Les Moonves.
According to The New Yorker, the letter from the woman claims Kavanaugh put his hand on her mouth while trying to “force himself on her,” and accuses him and a classmate of turning up the music at the party to drown out her complaints. The woman freed herself, but has felt ongoing distress from the episode, the letter said.
“I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation,” Kavanaugh said in a statement provided by the White House. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time.”
Kavanaugh’s classmate told The New Yorker that “I have no recollection of that,” and the woman denied an interview request.
The woman originally sent the letter to Palo Alto Democrat Anna Eshoo, her congresswoman, and the letter was given to Feinstein earlier this summer, but the woman ultimately decided not to go public. Feinstein’s office told other Democratic senators that the incident was too old to merit public discussion, The New Yorker reported.
In a cryptic statement that caused uproar on Capitol Hill, Feinstein said Thursday that she had received information about Kavanaugh’s nomination from an individual who did not want to come forward, and that she had referred the information to federal investigative authorities. The FBI said they had received the information and added it to Kavanaugh’s background file but were not launching an investigation.
Eshoo spokeswoman Emma Crisci said she cannot comment on the letter due to the office’s confidentiality policy for constituent casework.
He's not a sex offender, but the allegations accuse him of such behavior. So unless it is investigated you are taking a chance that he may well be a sex offender when you vote to put him on the bench.
Here is what you said:
Quote:
The allegations have been made. You want a sex offender on the SCOTUS?
The fbi has said they won't investigate.
This happened some 30-35 years ago, supposedly.
The anonymous person apparently has said she will not go public.
Dude.......really?
And further more, no where that I have read said she was raped. Or fondled. Or kissed. What is their to investigate from this 'anonymous' person?
Like I said, be careful of 'anonymous', it may bite you.
Hey, just because they won't investigate doesn't mean he didn't do it. We should know before he goes to a life long seat on the highest court in the land! Even more urgent are his lies under oath IMHO! The guy is a snake in the grass and should not be confirmed if you ask me.
I Wrote Some of the Stolen Memos That Brett Kavanaugh Lied to the Senate About He should be impeached, not elevated.
By LISA GRAVES
SEPT 07, 2018
Much of Washington has spent the week focusing on whether Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court. After the revelations of his confirmation hearings, the better question is whether he should be impeached from the federal judiciary.
I do not raise that question lightly, but I am certain it must be raised.
Newly released emails show that while he was working to move through President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees in the early 2000s, Kavanaugh received confidential memos, letters, and talking points of Democratic staffers stolen by GOP Senate aide Manuel Miranda. That includes research and talking points Miranda stole from the Senate server after I had written them for the Senate Judiciary Committee as the chief counsel for nominations for the minority.
Receiving those memos and letters alone is not an impeachable offense.
No, Kavanaugh should be removed because he was repeatedly asked under oath as part of his 2004 and 2006 confirmation hearings for his position on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit about whether he had received such information from Miranda, and each time he falsely denied it.
For example, in 2004, Sen. Orrin Hatch asked him directly if he received “any documents that appeared to you to have been drafted or prepared by Democratic staff members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.” Kavanaugh responded, unequivocally, “No.”
In 2006, Sen. Ted Kennedy asked him if he had any regrets about how he treated documents he had received from Miranda that he later learned were stolen. Kavanaugh rejected the premise of the question, restating that he never even saw one of those documents.
Back then the senators did not have the emails that they have now, showing that Miranda sent Kavanaugh numerous documents containing what was plainly research by Democrats. Some of those emails went so far as to warn Kavanaugh not to distribute the Democratic talking points he was being given. If these were documents shared from the Democratic side of the aisle as part of normal business, as Kavanaugh claimed to have believed in his most recent testimony, why would they be labeled “not [for] distribution”? And why would we share our precise strategy to fight controversial Republican nominations with the Republicans we were fighting?
Another email chain included the subject line “spying.” It’s hard to imagine a more definitive clue than that. Another said “Senator Leahy’s staff has distributed a confidential letter to Dem Counsel” and then described for Kavanaugh that precise confidential information we had gathered about a nominee Kavanaugh was boosting. Again, it is illogical to think that we would have just given Miranda this “confidential” information for him to use against us. But this is precisely what Judge Kavanaugh suggested in his testimony on Wednesday. He is not that naïve.
In the hearing this week, Sen. Leahy also noted that the previously hidden emails showed that Miranda asked to meet Kavanaugh in person to give him “paper” files with “useful info to map out [Sens. Joe] Biden and [Dianne] Feinstein, and others.” The promised information included “Biden-speak.” Again, this would not have been a normal information exchange.
In response to Leahy’s questions this week, Kavanaugh made the outlandish claim that it was typical for him to be told what Democrats planned to ask at these combative hearings over controversial nominees, and that this was in fact the “coin of the realm.” As a Democrat who worked on those questions, I can say definitively that it was not typical at all. Kavanaugh knows this full well.
At the time, Kavanaugh was working with Miranda and outside groups to try to force these nominees through the Senate over Democratic objections, and it would have been suicide to give them our research, talking points, strategies, or confidential letters. The GOP senators, their staff, the White House, and outside groups were working intensively to undermine the work of Democratic senators to block the most extreme of President Bush’s judicial nominees.
The Leahy talking points given to Kavanaugh were from my in-depth research into why the Senate had compelling historical precedent for examining Miguel Estrada’s Department of Justice records, which the White House counsel’s office was refusing to surrender. Other confidential materials Miranda shared with Kavanaugh related to investigations Democrats were pursuing over how Judge Priscilla Owen had handled an abortion case involving parental consent and about the overlap between her funders and groups with business before the courts of Texas. We would never have provided that information—key to our strategy to try to block what we considered extremist judicial nominations—to Miranda or to the White House.
During his testimony, Kavanaugh conflated these adversarial proceedings with ones in which Democrats might have cooperated with the other side, like the Patriot Act and airline liability. But these weren’t hearings on some bill where senators would share their concerns across the aisle to try to get a bipartisan fix on problems in a piece of legislation. These were oppositional proceedings in committee and on the floor over controversial judicial nominees. Kavanaugh knew this just as intimately as I did—our sides fought over those nominations intensely.
It was also an area where Kavanaugh’s judicial nominations alliance had taken a scorched-earth approach, attacking Democrats ruthlessly. The White House’s closest allies went so far as to call Leahy and other Democrats on the committee “anti-Catholic,” even running attack ads.
Perhaps Kavanaugh was so blinded by his quest to get the most controversial Bush nominees confirmed in 2003 that he did not have any concerns about the bounty of secret memos and letters he was receiving—the full extent of which is not known because so many documents are still secret.
But, surely, reasonable questions about what he had been party to would have been considered after the story of the theft exploded in the news, Miranda was forced to resign, and the U.S. Senate sergeant-at-arms began a bipartisan investigation into the files stolen from the Senate?
As of November 2003, when the sergeant-at-arms seized the Judiciary Committee’s servers, Kavanaugh would have been on notice that any of the letters, talking points, or research described as being from Democrats that were provided to him by Miranda were suspect and probably stolen from the Senate’s server.
But he did nothing. He did not come forward to the Senate to provide information about the confidential documents Miranda had given him, which were clearly from the Democrats.
Kavanaugh also apparently did nothing when the Senate referred the case to the U.S. attorney’s office for criminal prosecution. (Miranda was never prosecuted.)
Eventually, though, Kavanaugh went even further to help cover up the details of the theft.
During the hearings on his nomination to the D.C. Circuit a few months after the Miranda news broke, Kavanaugh actively hid his own involvement, lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee by stating unequivocally that he not only knew nothing of the episode, but also never even received any stolen material.
Even if Kavanaugh could claim that he didn’t have any hint at the time he received the emails that these documents were of suspect provenance—which I personally find implausible—there is no reasonable way for him to assert honestly that he had no idea what they were after the revelation of the theft. Any reasonable person would have realized they had been stolen, and certainly someone as smart as Kavanaugh would have too.
But he lied.
Under oath.
And he did so repeatedly.
Significantly, he did so even though a few years earlier he had helped spearhead the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for perjury in a private civil case. Back then Kavanaugh took lying under oath so seriously that he was determined to do everything he could to help remove a president from office.
Now we know that he procured his own confirmation to the federal bench by committing the same offense. And he did so not in a private case but in the midst of public hearings for a position of trust, for a lifetime appointment to the federal judiciary.
His actions were dishonorable and dishonest.
This week, as part of his efforts to be elevated to the highest court in the land, he has calmly continued to deceive, falsely claiming that it would have been perfectly normal for him to receive secret Democratic letters, talking points, and other materials. And if this absurd notion were somehow true, it would not even be consistent with what he testified to 12 and 14 years ago. Back then, he didn’t state it would have been normal for him to receive secret Democratic strategy materials.
Instead, he explicitly and repeatedly went out of his way to say he never had access to any such materials. These objectively false statements were offered under oath to convince the committee of something that was untrue. It was clearly intentional, with Kavanaugh going so far as to correct Sen. Kennedy when the senator described the document situation accurately.
That’s why—without even getting into other reasonable objections to his nomination—he should not be confirmed.
In fact, by his own standard, he should clearly be impeached.
Lisa Graves is the co-founder of Documented, which investigates corporate influence on democracy. She is the former chief counsel for nominations for the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice.
