With savvy protesters also disrupting proceedings, the GOP plot to fast-track his confirmation could run into real trouble.
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Republican Senator Chuck Grassley had just begun to politely railroad Brett Kavanaugh’s wildly unpopular Supreme Court nomination through the Judiciary Committee he chairs, when a woman’s steely voice, off camera, interrupted him.

“Mr. Chairman, I would like to be recognized to ask a question before we proceed.”

The camera eventually turned to the speaker, California Senator Kamala Harris.

“The committee received just last night—less than 15 hours ago—more than 42,000 pages of documents that we have not had a chance to read or review or analyze,” Harris told the chair. “We cannot possibly move forward.” Harris was referring to an unexpected wave of Kavanaugh documents released hours before the hearing, late Sunday night, by attorneys hired by the George W. Bush Presidential Library.

Grassley ignored her, so Amy Klobuchar continued. When Grassley ignored Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal moved to adjourn the hearing. The cranky Iowa senator ignored him, too. “We are rushing through this process in a way that is unnecessary,” Cory Booker then implored. “I appeal to your sense of fairness and decency.”

Predictably, that appeal failed too. Grassley gave up on fairness and decency a long time ago, when he refused to hold a hearing on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, keeping the seat warm for über-conservative Neil Gorsuch, who was confirmed last year, thus depriving our first black president of one of the most important decisions of his second term.

But Grassley was rattled. He let all of the Democrats get in early hits at both Kavanaugh—and at the sneaky GOP process in confirming him. Those hits stung. All hell broke loose from the audience: chanting and poster-waving from dozens of Kavanaugh opponents, followed by their noisy removal. One demand was repeated: “Cancel Brett Kavanaugh. Adjourn the hearing.”