Grassley: The motion is out of order.
Booker: Motion to move to executive session so we can consider Blumenthal's motion.
A new flurry of protests. "This is a joke," says one demonstrator. Members of the committee of both parties are generally taking the protests in stride.
Blumenthal: They are not out of order. Just because the chairman says there are does not make them out of order. I second motion for executive session so we can have motion to adjourn so we can review the documents.
Booker: Would take ten minutes for us to have this motion and vote.
Booker: What is the rush? What are we afraid of in holding a vote?
Sen. Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana: I understand my colleagues. What are going to be the ground rules? Are we allowed to interrupt each other and witness? Should we seek recognition from the chair?
Grassley: Decorum and past practice would be that we wouldn't have all these motions. "You're new to the Senate."
Grassley: Every member gets 10 minutes to make remarks.
I don't know if every seat had been filled, but there are about 30-40 empty seats in the audience. That's almost every single one.
Grassley: If we have to go Saturday and Sunday, we'll do that.
Harris (I think) just tried to say something, but Grassley turned back to Kennedy. He asks if we need to be recognized by chair to speak.
Kennedy: Patience is good, Mr. Chairman. You should be recognized.
Grassley twice has raised the prospect of going to Saturday and Sunday, which would seem unlikely by normal practice.
Sen. Hirono has a question about ground rules. Is majority still requiring us to pre-clear documents and videos the minority would like to use?
Grassley: I'm not prepared to address that because doesn't know how much minority wants to use.
Hirono: I don't think we've ever had to pre-clear what we want to ask nominee about. And Klobuchar: How can we if we don't even know what the rules are?
Grassley: We never had a request for video before. It's not about the questions, it's about presentation of something that's never been part of hearing in the past.
Sen. Tilis, Republican of North Carolina: He is reading a news report about a planned obstruction request over the holiday weekend.
Sen. Durbin: There was a phone conference yesterday. Many issues were raised. One was the documents that had been labeled as "committee confidential." In past, that label would be only for extraordinary circumstances.
Durbin: One discussion yesterday was about having hearing without access to basic information about his public record.
Durbin: I had no idea during the phone conference that there would be 40,000 more documents.
Blumenthal just cited Rule 4.
The rule is about motions and votes. Blumenthal: I ask for a vote on my motion to adjourn under Rule 4. These are rules we are obligated to follow. Chairman has no right to override by fiat.
Grassley: We follow those rules under executive session.
Protestor: Where is the transparency. Don't take away my healthcare. Stop the corruption.
Another interruption (and I realize that additional audience members had been let in). I don't know how long the line is outside the room.
Yes, some new spectators have entered. Incredibly, U.S. Capitol Police gave those first protestors who stood and shouted a warning and asked them to sit down. Not anymore.
Grassley says it's under federal law that the most sensitive documents are kept committee confidential.
We've had our first audience interruption from a man, who calls the hearing an attack on women's rights.
Grassley said his staff was available to the Democrats.
Protestor, a man in suit: Senator Grassley, this hearing is an attack on democracy. Shut this hearing down. He puts up a little more physical resistance to being removed than the others and takes three officers to remove him.
Leahy: I was chairman when Kagan was here. 99% of her White House record was made public 12 days before hearing.
Leahy: Kavanaugh, only 4% made public
A female protestor begins with "Esteemed senators ..." Not all the protestors seems to hold the committee in such high regard.
Leahy: I have been in Senate for 19 Supreme Court nominations. What's being done here is unprecedented. What are we hiding?
The only other time we heard a president invoke executive privilege was Rehnquist's hearing, and both Republicans and Democrats objected. Reagan withdrew executive privilege and released the documents. I'm sorry to see the SJC descend this way.
Leahy: This is not the SJC I saw when I joined the Senate.
That would be Rehnquist's 1986 hearing to ascend from associate justice to chief justice.
Klobuchar: Few points. 1) Sotomayor never worked in White House. 2) I appreciate that you granted request for campaign finance documents. [She holds them up, they are maybe 30 pages only.]
Klobuchar: I also joined several letter led by Feinstein asking that all committee documents be released to public.
Klobuchar asks whether Grassley has another example of executive privilege being invoked to block release of White House documents during a confirmation hearing.
Sen. Cornin (Republican): This is first hearing I've seen according to mob rule. We have rules in the Senate. Everyone will have a chance to have their say.
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