Grassley put together a team of dozens to go through the documents. Working out of a windowless, rat-infested, cinder-block suite in the basement of the Dirksen Senate Office Building that they called “the dungeon,” the team of attorneys and law clerks pored over the paperwork. They looked for anything politically sensitive, and categorized them according to topic areas, such as detention, guns, abortion, executive power, and torture.
The staff were extremely proud of the innovative way they handled the paperwork, rapidly navigating arcane Senate contracting procedures and securing the manpower necessary to get through the many documents. But the Republicans’ focus on the mundane topic of document retrieval was also strategic. The goal, says Garrett Ventry, a communications strategist hired by the Judiciary Committee, was to “make it really, really boring, where the public wouldn’t care and their base would be deflated because they were fighting us over whether or not they had documents to review.” Fighting about documents meant they were not talking about Roe v Wade or Judge Alex Kozinski.
Chuck Schumer unwittingly helped Grassley’s office keep the focus on documents when he held a press conference on July 31. Joined by his Senate colleagues Dick Durbin and Dianne Feinstein and by assorted leaders of left-wing activist groups, he posed with a small pile of empty boxes labeled “missing records” and said he’d like to see them filled with Kavanaugh’s papers from his time as staff secretary. “I want to make clear, for just a sec, how aggressive the obstruction is,” he said.18
A few days later, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee posed with a striking backdrop of 167 boxes representing the hundreds of thousands of pages that were being made available to the committee. In fact, they had been provided in digital form, which allowed for even easier searching and review.19 “If you were to stack up all these pages, it would be taller than the Big Ben, taller than the Statue of Liberty, taller than the Capitol dome, and taller than the Taj Mahal,” noted Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina. “I think it’s more than enough for the Democrats to make a rational decision about supporting Judge Kavanaugh.”
Grassley reminded the press that Democrats were already on record opposing the judge, suggesting that their document requests were more about delaying the nomination than learning about the nominee.
The media’s focus on transparency and the thorough nature of the document review reflected the Judiciary Committee’s diligence in dropping a press release every time a new batch of documents was made available. New subject lines continually appeared in reporters’ inboxes: “New Batch of Kavanaugh Records Becomes Public,” “Committee Releases Third Batch of Kavanaugh Records,” “Committee Receives New Production of Kavanaugh Records,” “Committee Releases Additional Kavanaugh Records,” “Historic Transparency: Volume of Kavanaugh’s Public Exec Branch Material Tops Levels of Past SCOTUS Nominees.”
Continuing to play into the Republicans’ hands, Schumer on August 20 called on Grassley to allow all senators to see the “committee confidential” documents, a label he called “bogus.”20 Grassley responded with a tweet reminding Schumer that even the confidential documents were already available to all senators “any day (& nite) incl wknds” and asking if Schumer’s request meant that he was backing away from his “pre-determined” vote against Kavanaugh.21
By the time the hearings came around, conservatives and other interest groups were fully on board with Kavanaugh. The Office of Public Liaison’s Justin Clark had produced sophisticated messaging tailored for farmers, business groups, gun-rights groups, and social conservatives. Kavanaugh’s record had something to please every interest group. Even the social conservatives’ initial preference for Amy Barrett now served the purpose of making Kavanaugh look more moderate.
To prepare for the hearings, the White House team ran Kavanaugh through several “moots,” or mock hearings, similar to a lawyer’s preparation for oral arguments. The Department of Justice had given him binders covering various topics, including major Supreme Court cases and his own opinions. His meetings with senators were interspersed with initial preparation sessions, avoiding excessive cramming just before the hearings and contributing to his conversations with the lawmakers. It still made for long days, but when the team asked if he wanted a break to eat, perhaps hoping for a snack themselves, he would generally decline, preferring to push through.
In the full-blown moots that followed, the team, taking on the roles of senators, peppered him with questions about his cases and hot-button issues. Actual senators participated in one moot, but the questioners were usually administration staff, academics, or former Kavanaugh clerks. His more liberal clerks were particularly helpful in anticipating how senators from across the political spectrum—including the all-important Susan Collins—would view his responses. Some non-lawyers were invited to see how his answers would play with the public watching at home. They even prepared for protesters by having younger White House staffers sit in on the moots and spontaneously erupt with rage. Ashley and the girls left for a friend’s house on Martha’s Vineyard to escape the stress and the stalking press in D.C and to allow Kavanaugh to focus on his preparation.
The hearings were scheduled to begin the day after Labor Day, Tuesday, September 4, and to continue through Friday, a duration that was typical of recent Supreme Court confirmation hearings. But little else about Kavanaugh’s hearings would be typical. Apparently worried that his path to confirmation was secure, the Democrats considered staging a mass walkout or not showing up.22 Fearing that such an action might backfire, however, they came up with a different plan: disruption.
On Tuesday, the hearing room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building was packed as senators arrived. Dozens of photographers positioned themselves in the pit between the dais where the senators sat and the table from which Kavanaugh would face them. All the seats for visitors and the press were filled. The atmosphere was tense. Women in red robes and white bonnets lined the walkways from the elevators to the hearing room, their costumes intended to evoke The Handmaid’s Tale, the dystopian novel and television series about women being forced to bear children. On the other floors, groups from the NAACP and NARAL wore shirts of various colors and lined the walkways, forming a rainbow of protesters. One man was dressed as a giant condom.
Kavanaugh walked in with his two daughters and wife, greeting each senator individually. Light chatter and the loud shutters of cameras filled the room. Senator Grassley shook hands with Senator Feinstein, seated to his left, and chatted with her briefly. Then he slowly gaveled the room to order: “Good morning, I welcome everyone to this confirmation hearing on the nomination—”23
“Mr. Chairman! Mr. Chairman!” interrupted Senator Kamala Harris. “Mr. Chairman, I’d like to be recognized for a question before we proceed!” She said there had not been enough time to review the documents. A large tranche of forty-two thousand new documents had been released just the day before.
“You’re out of order. I’ll proceed. I extend a very warm welcome to Judge Kavanaugh, to his wife, Ashley, their two daughters—”
Each time Grassley opened his mouth, a new objection was raised.