Good morning and welcome to the live-blog. We had 13 hours yesterday. Today the rounds of questioning will only be 20 minutes, not 30.
A small crowd is in Sen. Grassley's office making chants in opposition to Kavanaugh's nomination.
Sen. Grassley, R-Iowa, is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Yesterday some Democratic senators (Booker in particular) wanted to ask Kavanaugh about documents that had apparently been marked committee confidential. Grassley and the different senators serving as chair (Kennedy and Tillis) said they had to follow a process in order to get them properly released to the nominee. We'll see today if perhaps those documents make a return.
Leahy had also asked yesterday that several documents from Kavanaugh's days in the White House counsel's office be made public.
Kavanaugh is taking his seat.
The documents Leahy wanted had to do with whether Kavanaugh was aware of two controversial issues, one involving Republican infiltration of Democratic senators' emails about judicial confirmations and one having to do with the Bush administration policy on enhanced interrogation.
Grassley has gaveled us in.
I didn't see the protestors dressed as handmaids outside today.
But I did see the Capitol Police mustering for potential demonstrator removals.
I wonder if Sen. Harris knows something. She asked Kavanaugh a lot of specific questions about whether he'd had any communications with a law firm doing some work for Trump over the Mueller investigation. We may learn more today -- but at almost the very end of the day, which is when it will be her turn again.
Grassley saying he has only volunteered once in his life, but Kavanaugh does it regularly.
Grassley: I had some colleagues complain yesterday about confidential documents. He re-echoes that these members had opportunities before the hearing to have committee confidential documents released.
Grassley suggests Democratic senators might not have asked for documents in advance so they could complain publicly about his "hiding" the documents.
Grassley now criticizing Sen. Booker's use of an email that had been marked as committee confidential.
Grassley says he thinks the members will have the documents they want before the day is over.
Hirono: I want to set the record straight on my questioning about asking Kavanaugh questions about Judge Kozinski, accused of sexual misconduct. Hirono says she would ask Judge Watford the same questions if he was nominated in place of Kavanaugh.
Now Booker is responded to Grassley's point about the process, which, Booker says, involving going back to Presidents Bush and Trump for approval. This illustrates the absurdity of the process.
Booker: This process is a bit of a sham. We are holding back documents and not giving us the time to review them.
Booker: As I read these documents, I can see that the redactions are not just about personally identifiable information.
Grassley wants to respond to the use of the word "sham." Sen. Leahy as chairman accepted documents as committee confidential. We did this for Gorsuch as well. Was it a "sham" when Sen. Leahy did it?
Grassley is also saying that the communication for approving release of committee confidential documents is with the Department of Justice, not lawyer Bill Burck (as Booker had said).
This is supposed to be a "short" day, but this rate we are never going to get out of here.
Cornyn: I'm disappointed in the committee for way of conducting questions of the nominee, without giving him access to documents used in questioning.
Cornyn: There are clear rules about the discussion of confidential material.
Cornyn: I hope we will return to a hearing process that respects the rules of the Senate and treats each other and the nominee with civility.
Booker wants to respond. No Senate rule accounts for Bill Burck's partisan review of the documents. No Senate rule accounts for what's going on right now.
Booker: I understand the consequences of civil disobedience. I am going to release the email of racial profiling. I understand that comes with potential ousting from the Senate. I accept those consequences.
Booker: I release it to expose that the emails being withheld have nothing to do with national security.
Grassley: How long are you going to say the same thing?
Booker: I'm releasing confidential documents.
Cornyn: Running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.
Cornyn: I hope that the senator will reconsider. No senator deserves to sit on this committee if they decide to be a law unto themselves and flout the rules of confidentiality.
Grassley: We will be here until midnight if you want to be here.
Whitehouse: Less silence imply consent, I want to make it clear that I do not accept the process of the committee confidentiality.
Whitehouse: This rule does not exist, as if chairman made rule that gravity does not exist.
Grassley: Did you object this process under earlier nominees?
Whitehouse: The process had been bipartisan in the past. Feinstein speaks up to affirm this.
Kennedy: I allowed Booker to continue. I gave Kavanaugh 6 minutes 39 seconds to respond, uninterrupted. I was trying to be fair to both sides.
Blumenthal: There's been a lot of commentary over the last couple of days over how we are in unprecedented territory, the process has broken down as in nation generally.
Democrats are relitigating the process objections they raised on the first day of the hearing.
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