Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) responded Tuesday to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats’ efforts to delay Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing, accusing them of making demands they know to be unreasonable.
Cruz argued Democrats wanted the documents not to review Kavanaugh’s work but to "open up all sorts of fishing expeditions to relitigate George W. Bush's time as president."
Democrats spent the hearing’s first few hours protesting the exclusion of documents from Kavanaugh’s time as White House staff secretary from the more than one million pages of emails, legal decisions, and other documents available for review.
Cruz said Democrats know the demand is "impossible to meet," since the documents in questions are not even Kavanaugh’s own writing and are "the most sensitive and confidential documents in a White House."
"So why is it," Cruz asked, "that the Democrats are putting so much energy in saying ‘hand over all of those documents’? Because they know, they know beyond a shadow of doubt, that President George W. Bush's White House team is not going to allow every piece of paper that went to the president to be made public any more than any other White House would."
"It is at the end of the day simply an attempt to distract and delay," Cruz said. "And indeed, the multiple motions we've seen from Democrats—delay this confirmation, delay this confirmation—that reveals the whole joke. Their objective is delay."
Cruz’s comments followed Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D., Ill.) confirmation that Democratic senators held a Labor Day weekend call to coordinate a strategy to disrupt and delay Kavanaugh’s hearing.
Democratic senators seeking to delay the hearing were assisted by numerous protesters who interrupted proceedings throughout the morning prior to being arrested. A photograph shared by NBC News’ Frank Thorp showed rows of open seats left vacant by protestors.