William Burck, a lawyer for former President George W. Bush, released more than 42,000 pages of documents regarding Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh late Monday night, sparking the ire of Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer.
Mr. Schumer sounded the alarm Monday night, saying the document dump “underscores just how absurd” the Kavanaugh confirmation process has been. He demanded that Republicans delay the hearings until the documents could be reviewed.
🚨🚨 The Senate was just given an additional 42,000 pages of Kavanaugh documents the NIGHT BEFORE his confirmation hearing. This underscores just how absurd this process is. Not a single senator will be able to review these records before tomorrow.
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) September 4, 2018
Mr. Kavanaugh is scheduled to start his weeklong hearing on Capitol Hill Tuesday morning.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee responded to Mr. Schumer’s complaints on Twitter. The Republican-led committee said it already completed reviewing the documents, directly challenging the top Democrat’s claim of not having enough time before Tuesday’s start.
The Majority staff has now completed its review of each and every one of these pages. Chairman @ChuckGrassley and his team are prepped and ready for Judge Kavanaugh’s hearing to begin tomorrow. #SCOTUS https://t.co/jrXRU8QMTg
— Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) September 4, 2018
The Washington Post reported that Mr. Burck’s letter to Judiciary Chairman Sen. Charles E. Grassley said that more than 5,000 documents of the total 42,390 must remain confidential. A team of Bush lawyers will make a final decision on publicly releasing the documents later, he wrote.
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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