Blumenthal: I hope we can come together as a committee. If there are any rules, to adopt them on a bipartisan basis, as in the past. It's not classification, it's designation--an arbitrary and seemingly capricious designation.
Blumenthal says the "committee confidential" label is a designation, designed to prevent embarrassment, not a classification. No classified documents are involved.
Blumenthal: Like any trial lawyer, documents have to be assessed as the trial goes on. We can't produce a list of relevant documents until we hear the nominee's answers and our colleagues' questions. We are here under protest. That's why I had asked that we adjourn.
Blumenthal: I reserve the right to release documents before any confirmation votes so my colleagues can see what the truth is.
Lee: When this part of the discussion started last night, a witness needs access to a document to be questioned about it. The witness has touched millions of documents. Not fair to not give him a copy before asking questions about it.
Lee: The process works. We released the document Sen. Booker wanted last night.
Lee: Charge has been made that process rigged. We are dealing with the Presidential Records Act. Bill Burck is the designee of the administration and has the prerogative of asserting privileges.
Hirono is trying to speak up. Grassley is asking for Feinstein or Durbin.
Feinstein: The SJC does not have standing rules on how documents designated confidential. Previously, it has only been through bipartisan agreement. That has not been done in this case. This is without precedent.
Public seats are filling up, so expect some demonstrators to speak out fairly soon, if the past two days are any indication.
Feinstein: The document Leahy accepted as confidential when he was chairman came through the archives, not private lawyers, and Republicans agreed.
Feinstein: No committee or Senate rule grants the chairman the unilateral authority to designate documents as committee confidential.
Feinstein: In August, I sent a letter objecting the blanket designation of confidentiality, and asked to work with the chairman. I was refused.
Feinstein: These documents do not reflect the usual standards for marking documents as confidential. The public is entitled to all appropriate records that do not put forward personal information.
Up until now Feinstein has not been among the Democrats objecting most vocally to the committee confidential designation.
Feinstein: In the future, we need an agreement before two sides. We should agree on who determines something as committee confidential.
Durbin: I do not want my silence interpreted as consent to this process.
Durbin: This designation as committee confidential should be put in context. Whenever we dealt with committee confidential, it was much more narrow. I cannot understand the authority we have given to Bill Burck, former assistant to the nominee.
Durbin: By what authority is he denying information to the American people? The National Archives is usually the starting point to the process. The archives released a statement that this process is not how it's been done in the past.
Durbin: Man who worked for Bush, Trump, Steve Bannon, is the filter of documents between this nominee and the American people. This is about the nominee's public career. I completely concur with what you are doing (Booker). Let's jump into this pit together. If there will be retribution against the senator from New Jersey, count me in.
Durbin: Burck has no authority, only because he has cooperation of the committee's Republican majority.
Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a Democrat who is up for reelection, has come in and taken a seat.
Durbin: Statements calling a colleague unbecoming a senator are personal attacks.
Hirono trying to speak up again. Grassley gives Cornyn the floor.
Police just told three people in the audience to take duct tape off of their mouths.
Angus King of Maine, an independent, is also here.
Hirono tries to speak up. Grassley calls on Klobuchar. She asks for Hirono to speak.
Hirono: I am releasing document to the press. I would defy anyone reading this document to conclude that it's confidential in any way, shape, or form.
Klobuchar: I went through the process; however, I was on numerous letters asking for more documents.
Klobuchar: We support what Sen. Booker is doing here. We must expedite the release of every document.
Klobuchar: By ramrodding this process, we are denying the American public.
Grassley restating policy.
Lee: I have faced this situation myself. It's frustrating. In those circumstances, we look for a demon. In this circumstance, the demon is a law of our own creation, the Presidential Records Act.
Lee: Custodian of the document holds privileges on behalf of the administration.
Lee: We are doing what the law allows us here to do. The documents are not ours. We are not entitled to documents that don't belong to us.
Feinstein: On behalf of this side, I would like to say: there is no process for committee confidential. It used to be that both sides had to concur, the chair and the ranking member [Feinstein is the ranking member].
Feinstein: I think we need to have a rule on how committee confidential is determined.
Coons: Who's documents are these? They are the American people's documents. The Presidential Records Act gives right in nomination process after review by National Archives. Bill Burck is not part of the archives.
Coons: Burck said the Presidential Records Act applied to documents he reviewed.
Booker: Points from Kennedy and Lee yesterday were well-taken. But, there is no Senate rule that accounts for this process.
Booker: There is no Senate rule that I violated because no Senate rule accounts for this process. I did willingly violate the chair's rule.
Booker did pause for a protester, the first this morning.
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