Cory Booker releases more confidential documents related to Kavanaugh
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U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is not backing down in about his concerns as to whether Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is fit to serve on the nation’s highest court.
Booker on Wednesday night released 28 new confidential documents regarding President Trump’s nominee for the high court, the Associated Press is reporting. The documents are related to Kavanagh’s time in the White House under George W. Bush and focus on his involvement in judicial nominations, the AP reports.
The 28 documents bring the total number of documents that Booker has released related to Kavanagh to 75. Booker is pressing on with the releases despite pressure from his Republican colleagues and outside organizations to cease. The documents being released by Booker would normally only be accessible to senators, based on a call by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Booker is quoted by the AP as saying that the new documents “raise more serious and concerning questions” about whether Kavanagh was honest in testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee when he claimed he was not substantially involved in judicial nominations.
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Booker continues his pressure despite protests from conservative quarters. The Huffington Post reports that the conservative organization Judicial Watch sent a letter Wednesday to the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation into Booker’s release of the documents. The group says Booker could face expulsion from the Senate.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told the AP that Booker “explicitly invited his expulsion from the Senate in his egregious violation of the rules and contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution.”
Kavanagh is Trump’s nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on Kavanagh’s confirmation by the end of September.
Democrats have complained about the process in which Bill Burck, lawyer to Bush, released documents related to Kavanagh’s time in the Bush administration. Ultimately, about 267,000 pages were made public and 174,000 remained confidential in a process that Senate Democrats criticized as a “sham,” the AP reports.