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Follow Friday’s updates on the Kavanaugh hearing here: John Dean to warn of a ‘pro-presidential powers’ Supreme Court

 Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday as senators continue publicly interviewing President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

 Kavanaugh, a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has a good chance of being confirmed when the Senate votes later this month. Under questioning from senators, he has so far touched on Roe v. Wade, said courts — not the president — are “the final word” and, as the hearing began, watched drama unfold regarding Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.)’s pledge to release confidential documents.

 Key moments from the hearing:

 • Drama over confidential emails....that were already cleared for public release

 • Kavanaugh advised against calling Roe “settled law”

 • Kavanaugh elaborates on dissent on contraception and religious objections

 • Emails show more involvement with nominee than Kavanaugh previously suggested

 10:13 p.m.: Hearing adjourned

 More than 12 hours after the questioning began Thursday morning, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) adjourned the confirmation hearing for the day. Grassley closed the session by praising Kavanaugh for his “compelling and credible” answers, highlighted his history on the bench and said that “unquestionably, you’re qualified to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States.”

 “I hope a lot of people in this country have formed very positive views of you, as I have,” Grassley said.

 Kavanaugh spent nearly 24 hours over two days answering questions, with many of the discussions on Thursday centering in some way or another on President Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh to the high court. Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including some Republicans, pressed Kavanaugh about his expansive views of presidential power and past writings that concluded civil suits and criminal investigations of presidents would be better delayed until the chief executive left office. Read more about Thursday’s hearing here.

 Friday is the fourth and final scheduled day of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, which will feature comments from witnesses.

 — Mark Berman

 8:55 p.m.: Behind the dramatic release of once-concealed documents

 The dramatic release Thursday of once-concealed documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh’s tenure in the George W. Bush White House spotlighted the simmering frustrations from Democrats over how Republicans have kept secret vast parts of Kavanaugh’s voluminous paper trail.

 Tens of thousands of pages from Kavanaugh’s records have been hidden from public view, only available to senators and certain congressional aides in advance of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings this week.

 On Thursday, a small sample of the “committee confidential” documents were disclosed after Democratic senators asked that they be approved for public release, raising questions about why the documents had been considered confidential in the first place.

 Read more here.

 7:30 p.m.: Pressed on gay rights, Kavanaugh declines to say same-sex marriage ruling was correctly decided

 Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) pressed Kavanaugh for the first time Thursday night about gay rights. The judge refused to answer whether the high court’s ruling declaring a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry was correctly decided.

 Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the man Kavanaugh would replace on the bench, cast the deciding vote in the case, Obergefell v. Hodges.

 Kavanaugh instead read aloud from another Kennedy ruling this year involving gay rights in which the justice wrote that gay people “cannot be treated as social outcasts or as inferior in dignity and worth.”

 Harris noted that Kavanaugh earlier this week characterized the landmark decision declaring segregated schools unconstitutional as a great moment in history, and asked whether the high court’s decision legalizing gay marriage was a similar moment.

 The judge said only that it was precedent.

 The White House sent out information on Kavanaugh’s record on gay rights soon after the exchange, noting that Kavanaugh has not had a major case involving gay rights in his 12 years on the D.C. Circuit.

 “Kavanaugh rules fairly and impartially based on the law, not the identity of the parties before him, and he has a record of faithfully applying legal protections for racial minorities, women, and other protected groups,”the White House statement said.

 — Ann E. Marimow

 7:11 p.m.: Kavanaugh, pressed again, said he has not discussed the Mueller probe

 Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), who late Wednesday asked Kavanaugh if he had discussed special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election with attorneys at the law firm founded by President Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, questioned him again Thursday.

 Picking up a line of inquiry that her colleagues, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), had followed during the day, Harris peppered him with follow-up questions. Noting that he had denied having “inappropriate” conversations about it, Harris asking Kavanaugh if he had discussions regarding the special counsel’s probe and whether he had discussed it with anyone at Kasowitz’s firm, saying she had unspecified “reliable information” he had done the latter. (The firm denied this earlier in the day).

 Kavanaugh asked Harris if she was asking whether he spoke to anyone specific about it, but she said that was not the question.

 “That is not the subject of the question, sir,” she said. “The subject of the question is you and whether you were part of a conversation regarding special counsel Mueller’s investigation.”

 Kavanaugh, nearly a day after their exchange late Wednesday, responded: “The answer’s no.”

 Harris replied by thanking him and saying “it would have been great if you could’ve said that last night,” prompting Kavanaugh to begin a reply before cutting him off.

 “Let’s move on,” Harris said.

 The end of the exchange prompted a rare reaction from White House counsel Donald McGahn, who has largely kept his poker face during the hearings while seated behind Kavanaugh in clear view of the cameras. After Harris’s remark about moving on, McGahn gave a slight shake of his head and briefly arched his eyebrows.

 — Mark Berman

 6:52 p.m.: Booker asks why Kavanaugh won’t recuse himself from the Mueller probe

 Hours after Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) took center stage with drama over some of the documents the committee had, he had a chance to speak to Kavanaugh, pressing the judge on a variation of a question he had been asked previously during the hearings: Why not recuse himself from any court matters that would involve the ongoing special counsel probe because, as Booker said, “it’s really important that the Supreme Court be above suspicion”?

 Kavanaugh responded by saying doing so would mean showing he did not have judicial independence.

 “All I would be doing is demonstrating that I don’t have the independence of the judiciary … that is necessary to be a good judge,” Kavanaugh responded. “All of the nominees who’ve gone before have declined to commit because that would be inconsistent with judicial independence.”

 — Seung Min Kim

 5:50 p.m.: Hearing pauses for dinner

 The hearing was halted until 6:15 p.m. for a dinner break. After that, four senators will get their turns to question Kavanaugh before the committee opens up a new round of questioning.

 5:15 p.m.: Kavanaugh declines to condemn Trump’s attacks on judiciary

 Kavanaugh refused to repudiate what Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) described as President Trump’s “blatant, craven and repeated attacks” on the federal judiciary.

 Blumenthal was referring to Trump’s criticism that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg “has embarrassed us all” and “her mind is shot.” Ginsburg had been critical of Trump, prompting him to make the comments on Twitter during the 2016 presidential campaign.

 Kavanaugh took a pass, saying he did not want to “get within three Zip codes” of such a political controversy.

 Blumemthal noted that the president’s first Supreme Court pick, Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, explicitly condemned Trump’s attacks as “disheartening” and “demoralizing.” Gorsuch spoke generally, but his comments came after the president had criticized the ethnic background of Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who ruled against the administration’s travel ban.

 Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) followed up, suggesting that the judge was resisting any criticism of President Trump.

 Kavanaugh disagreed. As a judge, he said, “We stay out of politics, we don’t comment on comments made by politicians.”

 — Ann E. Marimow

 5:08 p.m.: Blumenthal presses Kavanaugh on Mueller probe

 The ongoing special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election took center stage at the hearing again Thursday afternoon — this time, in a line of questioning from Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

 Following questions on Wednesday night and again Thursday morning, Kavanaugh was again pressed about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe, which could eventually make its way before a Supreme Court featuring Kavanaugh as a member.

 Blumenthal asked Kavanaugh if he had ever discussed the investigation with anyone, and Kavanaugh echoed his earlier remark in saying: “I’ve had no inappropriate discussions with anyone.”

 Blumenthal followed that by asking if the judge had ever discussed the investigation with anyone, whether appropriately or inappropriately. Kavanaugh acknowledged that it had come up — “If you’re walking around in America it’s coming up, senator” — but he also repeatedly emphasized that he never crossed any lines in discussing it.

 “I’ve never suggested anything about my views about anything, commitments, foreshadowing, I’ve had no inappropriate discussions,” he said.

 Blumenthal then pivoted to asking if Kavanaugh had discussed it with anyone in the White House, including Donald McGahn, the White House counsel seated behind Kavanaugh during the hearings. When Blumenthal asked Kavanaugh if he had discussed the probe with McGahn or anyone else in the White House, calling it a yes or no question, Kavanaugh said: “I’m not remembering any discussions like that.”

 He added, though, that during his preparations for the confirmation hearings, he had readied for queries like the ones Blumenthal had posed. The questioning grew mildly tense, with Blumenthal suggesting that Kavanaugh’s answers were ambiguous, which the judge disputed.

 After Blumenthal finished his questioning, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) broke in to ask Kavanaugh if he had ever suggested to anyone how he would rule on any matter related to the Mueller probe, and the judge answered: “No, I have not.”

 Blumenthal followed up his questions about the probe by asking whether Kavanaugh had discussed the inquiry with anyone at the law firm founded by President Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz.

 Earlier on Thursday, the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres said in a statement that “no discussions” regarding the probe had occurred “between Judge Kavanaugh and anyone at our firm.”

 When asked by Blumenthal, Kavanaugh echoed his earlier comments that he did not remember any discussions with anyone at the firm about the probe. When asked if he knew Kasowitz, Kavanaugh said no.

 When asked if he knew anyone at the firm, Kavanaugh said yes, naming Ed McNally, who used to work at the White House counsel’s office and is now at the firm. Kavanaugh said he had not discussed the special counsel’s probe with McNally.

 — Mark Berman

 3:35 p.m.: Kavanaugh tries to clarify involvement in judge’s confirmation

 Kavanaugh on Thursday discussed his involvement in the confirmation of now-Judge William H. Pryor Jr. to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit — clarifying his testimony from 2004 when he said he hadn’t handled that nomination when he served as an associate White House counsel.

 The nominee’s comments came after the new disclosure of emails earlier Thursday that detailed what appeared to be Kavanaugh’s involvement in Pryor’s confirmation fight, including conference calls to coordinate strategy and meetings to discuss plans for the nominee’s hearings.

 Kavanaugh explained Thursday that in the George W. Bush White House counsel’s office, one person would be assigned to handle the confirmation of each judicial nominee. “As I recall at least, I was not the primary person on that,” Kavanaugh said, referring to Pryor’s nomination.

 While Kavanaugh said he didn’t recall specifics of his involvement, some examples he cited were attendance at meetings and mock hearing sessions.

 In 2004, during his confirmation hearing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Kavanaugh said several times under questioning by then-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that he had not been involved with Pryor’s confirmation.

 “I am familiar generally with Mr. Pryor, but that was not one that I worked on personally,” Kavanaugh testified then, although he noted during the hearing that he knew Pryor. Upon further questioning, Kavanaugh said: “I was not involved in handling his nomination.”

 Kavanaugh, with the help of Grassley, clarified another one of the emails involving Pryor. On Dec. 16, 2002, Kavanaugh received an email from another White House aide with the subject line “CA11” — a reference to the 11th Circuit. The aide, Kyle Sampson, asked: “How did the Pryor interview go?” Kavanaugh then responded: “Call me.”

 Grassley, noting that Democrats attempted to “insinuate that you interviewed Judge Pryor,” asked Kavanaugh: It’s “more likely to indicate that you know the people who interviewed Judge Pryor?”

 Kavanaugh responded: “That sounds correct.”

 — Seung Min Kim

 2:56 p.m.: Kavanaugh elaborates on dissent on contraception and religious objections

 Advocates for reproductive rights are concerned about the contraceptive-coverage requirement in the Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare. In a 2015 case, Kavanaugh dissented from his colleagues and sided with the group Priests for Life, which argued that a provision in the law to opt out for religious objections was too burdensome.

 Kavanaugh elaborated Thursday on the basis for his dissent, telling Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) that “the government had ways to ensure contraceptive coverage without doing so on the backs of religious objectors.”

 The issue remains in court after the Trump administration issued new rules making it easier for employers to refuse to provide coverage for birth control on the basis of religious objections.

 Cruz also asked the judge about a case on which he worked as a lawyer in private practice in which he backed a high school’s decision to allow student-led prayers over the public address system at football games. He argued that students were delivering their own messages, not speaking on behalf of the school. The Supreme Court disagreed, finding the policy unconstitutional.

 “Religious people, speakers and speech are entitled to equal treatment,” Kavanaugh said Thursday.

 — Ann E. Marimow

 2:41 p.m.: Kasowitz firm denies discussing special counsel probe with Kavanaugh

 In one of the most widely noticed parts of the hearings, Kavanaugh was questioned late Wednesday by Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) about whether he had discussed special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election with attorneys at the law firm founded by President Trump’s personal lawyer, Marc Kasowitz.

 On Thursday, Kavanaugh was asked again about this by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), who gave the judge an opportunity to clarify his responses to Harris. Kavanaugh said he did not “recall any conversations of that kind,” adding that he was not familiar with the names of all of the attorneys from the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres.

 Kavanaugh said he had not had any “inappropriate conversations” or commented on his views about the legal aspects of the probe, elements of which could potentially make it to the Supreme Court.

 On Thursday, the Kasowitz firm also said that no one there had discussed the probe with Kavanaugh.

 “There have been no discussions regarding Robert Mueller’s investigation between Judge Kavanaugh and anyone at our firm,” the law firm said in a statement.

 — Mark Berman

 1:57 p.m.: Hearings resume after lunch break

 After pausing for lunch, the hearings are getting back underway. The first hours brought an extended drama over documents as well as questions about abortion, executive power and the special counsel’s probe, with extensive questioning still expected for the remainder of the day.

 1:38 p.m.: The drama over ‘confidential’ emails — which were already cleared for public release

 Democrats mounted dramatic protests Thursday over documents related to Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh’s tenure in the George W. Bush White House, as senators began releasing his emails that had been withheld from the public.

 The records that Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) posted on their websites Thursday morning had, in fact, already been cleared for public release, according to Democratic and Republican aides on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Those documents were cleared earlier Thursday morning, according to spokesmen for both sides.

 Nevertheless, the drama over the emails once marked “committee confidential” engulfed much of the third day of Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, with Booker vowing to disclose them in defiance of Senate rules.

 “I openly invite and accept the consequences of releasing that email right now,” Booker said. “The emails are being withheld from the public have nothing to do with national security.”

 Bill Burck, Bush’s presidential records representative, said later Thursday, “We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker’s staff asked us to. We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker’s histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public.”

 Such theatrics have characterized Kavanaugh’s hearings, in which Democrats have repeatedly complained that Republicans have withheld documents from the committee and the public that shed important light on Kavanaugh’s past.

 The documents that took center stage on Thursday were labeled “committee confidential” — available for any senators to view but shielded from the public.

 Late Wednesday, a handful of Democratic senators sent Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) several requests to make emails once marked “committee confidential” available to the public so they could discuss them during the public hearing on Thursday. Those records are being cleared as the Justice Department reviews them, as well as representatives for Bush.

 Booker may have violated Senate rules late Wednesday, when he spoke about the content of emails that technically were still under “committee confidential” status at that point.

 “You’ve also written that an effort designed to benefit minority-owned businesses, an effort to try to give them a fair shake because they had been historically excluded — and these are your words now — used a lot of legalisms and disguises to mask what is, in reality, a naked racial set-aside. That’s what you said. That’s how you referred to it,” Booker said, referring to one of the emails from Kavanaugh.

 Later in his questioning, Booker referred again to the committee confidential emails: “I have letters here, sir, that have asked for — now, the one email specifically entitled racial profiling that somehow — I mean, literally the email was entitled racial profiling, that somehow was designated as something that the public couldn’t see. This wasn’t — this wasn’t personal information.”

 Releasing “committee confidential” information violates Senate rules and could result in expulsion from the Senate. But whether the Senate actually pursues the violation is a separate question.

 — Seung Min Kim

 1:17 p.m.: Hearing pauses for lunch

 Grassley paused the hearing for a lunch break, which he said would take 30 minutes but potentially longer, noting that senators have two votes scheduled this afternoon.

 1:10 p.m.: Court orders, not the president, are “the final word,” Kavanaugh says

 Senate Democrats raised concerns Thursday about the president’s attacks this week on the Justice Department and Kavanaugh’s broad view of executive power expressed in his legal opinions and speeches. In a tweet on Monday, Trump criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for the recent indictments of two Republican congressmen, the latest in a string of criticisms the president has levied against both Sessions and the department he leads.

 “In this age of President Donald Trump, this expansive view of presidential power takes on added significance,” said Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).

 Kavanaugh emphasized the importance of the separation of powers and an independent judiciary as a backstop.

 “I’ve made clear in my writings that a court order that requires a president to do something or prohibits president from doing something is the final word in our system,” Kavanaugh said.

 — Ann E. Marimow

 12:32 p.m.: Hearing resumes

 After a 15-minute break that lasted for about 25 minutes, Kavanaugh has taken his seat again to answer questions.

 12 p.m.: Read Kavanaugh’s email on Roe v. Wade

 In an email Kavanaugh wrote in 2003 that was made public Thursday, he argued against calling the decision “settled law of the land.”

 In his email, Kavanaugh wrote that he was “not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe” that way, noting that the Supreme Court “can always overrule its precedent.”

 When asked about the email by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Thursday, Kavanaugh said he was not expressing his own views, but rather those of “legal scholars.”

 Read his email here. And head here for more on what else he has said on the issue.

 — Mark Berman

 11:27 a.m.: Kavanaugh denies any “inappropriate conversations” about special counsel probe

 Late Wednesday night, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) questioned Kavanaugh about whether he had discussed the special counsel investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election with attorneys at the law firm founded by President Trump’s personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz.

 The exchange drew intense scrutiny online, and on Thursday, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) gave Kavanaugh an opportunity to clarify his responses to Harris, who did not disclose with whom she suspected the judge may have had such conversations.

 “I don’t recall any conversations of that kind,” Kavanaugh told Hatch, adding that he was not familiar with the names of all of the attorneys from the firm Kasowitz Benson Torres.

 Kavanaugh stressed that he had not had any “inappropriate conversations” or commented on his views about the legal aspects of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation that could make their way to the Supreme Court.

 “No hints, forecasts, previews, winks — nothing about my view as a judge or how I would rule on that or anything related to that,” Kavanaugh said.

 — Ann E. Marimow

 11:20 a.m.: Emails show more involvement with controversial judicial nominee than Kavanaugh previously suggested

 Kavanaugh testified in 2004 that he did not “personally” handle the nomination of a controversial George W. Bush judicial candidate: Judge William Pryor, who now sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. But emails made newly public early Thursday show more involvement than he appeared to indicate in his 2004 testimony.

 On Dec. 16, 2002, Kavanaugh received an email, reviewed by The Washington Post, from another White House aide with the subject line “CA11” — a reference to the 11th Circuit. The aide, Kyle Sampson, asked: “How did the Pryor interview go?” Kavanaugh then responded: “Call me.”

 Another email from June 5, 2003 reviewed by The Post showed Kavanaugh on an email chain with a handful of other officials, alerting them to a 4 p.m. conference call to “discuss Pryor and coordinate plans and efforts.” A separate email earlier that day, on which Kavanaugh was blind carbon copied, discussed a meeting that would be held the following day to “discuss nominee Bill Pryor’s hearing” the following week.

 Kavanaugh was nominated by Bush on April 9, 2003, and his confirmation hearing was held June 11, 2003. He was confirmed in 2005.

 In 2004 during his confirmation hearing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Kavanaugh said several times under questioning by then-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that he had not been involved with Pryor’s confirmation.

 “I am familiar generally with Mr. Pryor, but that was not one that I worked on personally,” Kavanaugh testified then. Upon further questioning, Kavanaugh said “I was not involved in handling his nomination.”

 Pryor drew controversy because he had called Roe v. Wade “the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.” As attorney general of Alabama, he had filed an amicus brief in a key Supreme Court case on gay rights, Lawrence v. Texas, that struck down state sodomy laws. Pryor wrote that states should “remain free to protect the moral standards of their communities through legislation that prohibits homosexual sodomy.”

 Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), one of the swing votes on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, voted against Pryor’s confirmation in 2005.

 White House spokesman Raj Shah did not immediately return a request for comment on the newly disclosed Pryor emails.

 A spokesman for the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), said some previously “committee confidential” documents are being made public as they are cleared by the Justice Department. Other records that have been requested to be made public are still being reviewed by DOJ and representatives for Bush.

 — Seung Min Kim

 11:01 a.m.: Kavanaugh advised against calling Roe “settled law,” email shows

 While he was a White House lawyer in the Bush administration, Kavanaugh advised against referring to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade as the “settled law of the land,” according to a 2003 email made public Thursday.

 “I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so,” Kavanaugh wrote after reviewing a draft of what was intended to be an op-ed in favor of a judicial nominee.

 Kavanaugh addressed the decision on Wednesday, refusing to say whether he believed that Roe v. Wade, the decision that guaranteed a woman’s right to an abortion, was correctly decided. He also said the Supreme Court had affirmed it in subsequent cases.

 On Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) read aloud from Kavanaugh’s newly released email and said it has “been viewed as you saying you don’t think Roe is settled” and asked him to explain.

 Kavanaugh said he was referring not to his own views, but to the “views of legal scholars.”

 Read more here.

 — Mark Berman

 10:45 a.m.: On cameras in the court, Kavanaugh said he is open to hearing from other justices

 Kavanaugh was asked about a common question regarding the court: Cameras or no cameras?

 The Supreme Court itself operates in a relatively anachronistic format, blocking cameras — and most other forms of technology — when cases are argued and announced. The question of whether it should remain that way has been raised over the years, including to nominees who went on to join the court. During Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings last year, he said he was open to hearing more about the issue.

 Kavanaugh also said he was open to learning more, including from the justices already on the court to hear “what they think about this.”

 “To learn, if I were to be confirmed, from the experience there and to see what the experience there is like,” he said. “To listen to the justices currently on the Supreme Court.”

 — Mark Berman

 10:38 a.m.: Questioning begins and is promptly interrupted by protesters

 An hour after the hearing got underway, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the committee chairman, began his questioning of Kavanaugh, who had not spoken while senators debated what to do with confidential documents.

 A protester shouting about health care and chanting “SHAME” was taken outside by police as Grassley began. Then, as Kavanaugh began to speak, a male protester quickly interrupted, standing on a chair and shouting, “Save Democracy, save Roe!” as he was hauled out of the committee room by the Capitol Police.

 10:30 a.m.: Senate Democrats in open revolt over confidential Kavanaugh documents

 After Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said he was willing to violate Senate rules and release confidential documents, Senate Democrats on the committee appeared in open revolt as Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) read aloud from the rules on expulsion. Raj Shah, a White House spokesman, also tweeted the rules on Thursday morning.

 Cornyn read aloud from rules stating that a senator who discloses “the secret or confidential business” of the Senate could be “liable ... to suffer expulsion.”

 Booker responded by saying: “Bring the charges.” His comment was echoed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who said: “Apply the rule, bring the charges. All of us are ready to face that rule.”

 “This is about the closest I’ll ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment,” Booker said.

 Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) also joined in, saying: “If there’s going to be some retribution against the senator from New Jersey, count me in.”

 Their comments were echoed by Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who tweeted during the debate: “I stand w/ Judiciary Committee Democrats who are well within their rights to release these very important documents that a former Kavanaugh deputy designed as ‘committee confidential.’ The American ppl deserve to know the truth about Judge Kavanaugh’s record. #WhatAreTheyHiding?”

 — Ann E. Marimow

 10 a.m.: Booker says he is willing to violate Senate rules to release confidential documents

 The fight over access to Kavanaugh’s records from his time in the Bush White House intensified in the opening moments of the hearing Thursday morning. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said he is prepared to violate Senate rules and release confidential committee documents — and to risk the consequences.

 Booker had questioned Kavanaugh Wednesday night about his use of the term “naked racial set-aside” and said he would make public documents backing up that assertion.

 “I openly invite and accept the consequences of releasing that email right now,” Booker said. “The emails being withheld from the public have nothing to do with national security.”

 Under the committee’s rules, Booker could be expelled from the Senate for releasing such records.

 Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Tex.) angrily responded to Booker and referred to his potential aspirations for higher office, saying “running for president is no excuse for violating the rules of the Senate.” Cornyn argued that “this is no different from the senator deciding to release classified information that is deemed classified.”

 9:34 a.m.: Hearing gets underway

 Nearly 12 hours after the first day of questioning wrapped up, Kavanaugh is back before the Senate Judiciary Committee for more questioning. Kavanaugh took his seat at 9:33 a.m., sitting alone at the witness table with a stack of papers to his left and three small water bottles to his right.

 Before the hearing began, the committee’s Republican members were seen gathered around committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) while he spoke before they took their seats.

 Grassley gaveled in the hearing at 9:34 a.m.

 — Mark Berman

 8 a.m.: What to watch for in today’s hearing

 The third day of hearings will see Kavanaugh facing more questioning from senators. Among other things to expect and watch for:

 • The battle over access to records from Kavanaugh’s tenure in the Bush White House is sure to resurface, with Democrats asking the committee to release additional documents that have not been disclosed to the public.

 Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) implied Wednesday that there is evidence in confidential Senate Judiciary Committee records that Kavanaugh in 2003 was privy to an email allegedly stolen by a former committee staffer. Kavanaugh said he never knowingly dealt with stolen records. Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) did not guarantee that those documents would become public this week, but said, “we’ll try to get them.”

 • More questions are likely about Kavanaugh’s views on a host of pivotal issues, including guns, abortion, executive power, health care, affirmative action and more, as well as about his experiences on the bench and in the Bush White House.

 • Health care and the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act will continue to be a potent issue, particularly as a legal challenge to the law unfolds in a courtroom in Texas this week. The nominee says he can’t assure senators that he would uphold the law’s requirement that insurers cover people with preexisting conditions because doing so would compromise his judicial independence. Democrats say they will revisit the issue.

 • Loud, angry protests are likely to continue to punctuate the Senate debate about Kavanaugh’s legal theory and judicial opinions. A phalanx of Capitol Police officers, dressed in dark blue and some with zip ties, have been a fixture against the back wall of the hearing room, poised to quietly haul out protesters. Capitol Police on Wednesday arrested and charged another 66 people with disorderly conduct for disrupting the hearings.

 • In one of the most confusing — and tense — exchanges Wednesday, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) raised the prospect without offering evidence that Kavanaugh may have spoken about the Mueller investigation with somebody at Kasowitz, Benson and Torres, a law firm that has represented Trump. It’s unclear whether Harris will revisit the issue again Thursday, but the exchange went viral and quickly became one of the most talked-about moments of the Kavanaugh hearings.

 Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh appears during a confirmation hearing at the Hart Senate Office Building on Wednesday in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

 Read more coverage:

 Read Day One and Day Two of the Kavanaugh hearing

 The Fix: 5 takeaways from the Brett Kavanaugh hearings so far

 The Daily 202: Kavanaugh hearing offers an ‘unprecedented’ display of the Senate’s institutional decline

 Read more at PowerPost ||||| Washington (CNN) Brett Kavanaugh emerged from two days of tough questioning in the Senate Judiciary Committee without making any obvious missteps that could imperil his confirmation as the justice who will pull the Supreme Court to the right and hand Donald Trump a generational presidential legacy.

 He avoided ceding ground on the most contentious issues, either by saying he wanted to keep "three zip codes" away from politics or by arguing that he could not comment on "hypothetical" cases that could come before him on the nation's top bench.

 Kavanaugh refused to say whether a sitting president must respond to a subpoena -- not an academic issue in the age of Trump. He declined to agree to Democratic calls for him to recuse himself from any cases related to the Russia investigation. And he would not say where he would come down on abortion, amid expectations among conservatives he would like to overturn Roe v. Wade.

 But Democrats did not walk away from a deeply divisive hearing with nothing. Top lawmakers showed vigor in cross examining Kavanaugh and by portraying him as Trump's man on the court and may have at least partly lived up to expectations of the party's fired up base for a show of backbone ahead of the mid-term elections.

 After emerging largely unscathed after the final round of questions from senators that stretched late into Thursday evening, Kavanaugh could take comfort in passing his biggest test. If Republicans stick together he is almost certain to be confirmed while minority Democrats face their own challenge in keeping the votes of red state senators with tough re-election races in their column.

 Booker's document fight

 Thursday's hearing featured another bitter showdown between Democrats who are furious at the failure of the White House to hand over tens of thousands of key documents on time or at all, and at restrictions on the public release of material that was made available.

 New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker said he was ready to risk expulsion from the Senate for making public documents pertinent Kavanaugh's time as a top White House aide to President George W. Bush, but the GOP mocked him for grandstanding ahead of a possible 2020 run -- saying it had already cleared the emails for release.

 In a striking political gambit, Booker, backed up by Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, released emails -- which had been designated as "committee confidential" -- that reference Kavanaugh's position on racial profiling and thoughts on Roe v. Wade dating from his time as a White House official under Bush.

 Booker, who as a potential 2020 presidential candidate had an incentive to make a splash in the hearing, said he took the action as an act of "civil disobedience."

 "I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate. ... I openly invite and accept the consequences of my team releasing that email right now," Booker said.

 "This is about the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an 'I am Spartacus' moment," he added.

 Republican Sen John Cornyn warned Booker that releasing documents marked "committee confidential" would break Senate rules.

 "Running for president is not an excuse for violating the rules of the Senate," the Texas Republican said.

 Later Thursday, Bill Burck, a lawyer who oversaw the process of providing Bush administration documents, undercut Booker's grand gesture, saying that the material in question had been cleared on Wednesday night at the request of the senator's staff.

 "We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker's histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public," Burck said in a statement.

 The office of Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, also said that senators, including Booker, were notified "before they spoke today" that the restrictions on the documents had been waived.

 Booker, however, insisted he was in the right, saying he read from the documents aloud in the hearing on Wednesday night long before they were cleared at around 4 a.m. Democrats have repeatedly complained that the White House is withholding tens of thousands of documents relevant to the nomination and wants many more that have been provided released to the public.

 The New Jersey senator also said he doubted Cornyn would follow through on his threats to enforce Senate discipline against him.

 "I think he's like a lot of bullies are: a lot of talk, no action," Booker said.

 North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis took exception to his Democratic colleague's tactics.

 "Certainly in the six hours between the time that email hit your email box and the theatrics that happened in this chamber today you could have actually found out that you didn't have to be Spartacus, you didn't have to go interact with civil disobedience, you got what you wanted," Tillis said.

 The schoolyard taunts underlined how the hearing, ahead of what appears to be Kavanaugh's likely confirmation, has become another battlefield in the vicious partisanship and complete lack of trust between the parties that is wracking Washington at a critical moment of the Trump era

 Booker's intervention followed a set of glowing reviews from liberals for another potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who late Wednesday night appeared to discomfort Kavanaugh with a series of questions designed to find out with whom he had discussed special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

 Harris returned to the question on Thursday evening, saying that she had been working on "reliable information" that Kavanaugh had a conversation about the probe with someone from Kasowitz Benson Torres, the law firm founded by Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz.

 Kavanaugh had sidestepped the question on Wednesday, so Harris asked him again and he replied "the answer's no."

 Earlier, the firm said in a statement to CNN there had been no such discussions.

 Harris did not disclose the "reliable information" on which she based her questions.

 JUST WATCHED Senator challenges Kavanaugh on Mueller probe Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Senator challenges Kavanaugh on Mueller probe 02:55

 2003 email shows Kavanaugh discussing Roe

 In another flashpoint development, a previously unreleased 2003 email from Kavanaugh, while he was an official in the Bush White House, shows him raising the point of whether Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right to an abortion, was settled law of the land.

 In the internal White House email, obtained by CNN, Kavanaugh wrote: "I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe v. Wade as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so."

 "The point there is in the inferior court point," Kavanaugh wrote, responding to a draft op-ed that had been circulated for edits between lawmakers and White House staff.

 The draft, meant to be submitted under the name of "high-profile, pro-choice" women in support of a Bush judicial nominee, had said that "it is widely understood accepted by legal scholars across the board that Roe v. Wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land."

 During the confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Kavanaugh said: "As a general proposition I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade."

 Trump said during his campaign that he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe. In recent years, Supreme Court nominees have gotten through their confirmation hearings by refusing to say how they would rule on what they say is a hypothetical future case on the issue.

 The New York Times first reported the email.

 Throughout the contentious hearing, now in its third day, Kavanaugh has tried to give political questions -- especially those related to Trump and his potential legal woes -- a wide berth.

 On Wednesday he insisted that "no one is above the law" but declined to say whether a sitting president must respond to a subpoena.

 Senate Democrats have suggested that Kavanaugh could be biased in favor of the President and worry that his views on the primacy of executive power could help Trump evade legal scrutiny.

 Booker warned that given Trump's frequent attacks on the Justice Department there was a "shadow over the independence of the judiciary" and said it was understandable for some Americans to wonder whether a nominee picked by the President would owe loyalty to him or had been nominated to shield him from a criminal investigation.

 "My only loyalty is to the Constitution," Kavanaugh responded. "I have made that clear, I am an independent judge." ||||| Tweet with a location

 You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Senators Dispute Status Of Released Documents As Questioning Of Kavanaugh Wraps Up

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

 Updated at 10:55 p.m. ET

 Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh weathered another long day of questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

 He was pressed once again for his views on presidential power.

 Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sought a promise from Kavanaugh that he would be willing to serve as a check on the president who nominated him.

 "Give us some reassurance about your commitment to the democratic institutions in this country, in the face of a president who seems prepared to cast them aside," Durbin said. "Whether it's voter suppression, the role of the media — case after case, we hear this president willing to walk away from the rule of law in this country."

 "No one is above the law," Kavanaugh replied. "I've made clear in my writings that a court order that requires a president to do something or prohibits a president from doing something under the Constitution or laws of the United States is the final word in our system."

 Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, complained that the Supreme Court had been unduly deferential to President Trump this summer when it upheld his travel ban, despite what she called the administration's "obviously bogus" justification. She pressed Kavanaugh on when the high court should question a president's national security claims.

 "National security is not a blank check for the president," Kavanaugh said, pointing to a number of cases in which the court had overruled the administration. "Even in the context of wartime, the courts are not silenced. Civil liberties are not silent."

 Kavanaugh told lawmakers he is so committed to judicial independence, he stopped voting in national elections after he became a judge.

 Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., again asked Kavanaugh if he'd ever spoken with anyone at the law firm of Trump's personal attorney Marc Kasowitz about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, renewing a line of questioning she'd opened Wednesday night.

 "The answer is no," Kavanaugh said.

 As he's done throughout the hearing, Kavanaugh declined to answer a series of questions from Harris about issues that might come before the high court, including abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration.

 The White House issued a statement late Thursday praising Kavanaugh.

 "Through long hours and days of questioning, Judge Kavanaugh consistently reinforced his firm belief in the bedrock principles of judicial independence and the rule of law," deputy press secretary Raj Shah said in the statement.

 Kavanaugh was asked repeatedly during the televised hearing about whether he would support opening the Supreme Court to TV cameras. He promised to keep an open mind, but said he would also want to consider the views of the eight current justices.

 Thursday's session began with Democrats on the committee in open revolt over the handling of documents from Kavanaugh's tenure in the George W. Bush White House.

 Some documents have been withheld altogether. Others have been provided to the committee on "confidential" terms, meaning senators can see them but they can't be made public.

 Democrats object that the confidential label has been applied to a wide swath of records, many of which contain no personal or sensitive information. They also complain that classification decisions were made by former President Bush's attorney, William Burck, a former deputy of Kavanaugh's.

 Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., released some of the confidential documents Thursday morning. Hirono also released "confidential" documents, drawing a stern rebuke from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who called them "irresponsible and outrageous."

 "This is no different from the senator deciding to release classified information," Cornyn said Thursday morning. "No senator deserves to sit on this committee, or serve in the Senate, in my view, if they decide to be a law unto themselves and willingly flout the rules of the Senate and the determination of confidentiality and classification."

 Read the documents released by Sen. Hirono here and the documents released by Sen. Leahy here.

 For all the theatrics on both sides, the debate over documents fizzled by Thursday afternoon, once it became clear their release had been authorized by Bush's attorney overnight.

 "We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker's staff asked us to," Burck said in a statement. "In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public."

 And an aide to Grassley told NPR that "counsels for the senators who requested waivers last night/this morning for particular documents were notified that their requests had been honored beginning at around 3:50 this morning."

 But a spokesperson for Hirono said the senator was not informed that the documents released by her office Thursday morning had been approved to be made public.

 It is not clear whether Booker knew the documents he released had already been approved before his statements Thursday morning at the beginning of the hearing — when he said that his decision to release the documents was a form of civil disobedience and that he was aware he was risking expulsion from the Senate for making the documents public.

 "Cory said this morning that he was releasing committee confidential documents, and that's exactly what he's done," Booker spokeswoman Kristin Lynch said in an email to NPR. "Last night, he was admonished by Republicans for breaking the rules when he read from committee confidential documents. Cory and Senate Democrats were able to shame the committee into agreeing to make last night's documents publicly available, and Cory publicly released those documents as well as other committee confidential documents today. And he'll keep releasing them because Republicans are hiding Brett Kavanaugh's record from the American people."

 Enlarge this image toggle caption Jacquelyn Martin/AP Jacquelyn Martin/AP

 The documents released by Booker include a batch of emails concerning racial profiling, affirmative action and other race-conscious government programs.

 In a 2002 email, Kavanaugh wrote that security procedures adopted in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks should ultimately be race-neutral, though he acknowledged that developing such procedures could take time. Others in the White House suggested racial profiling might be legally justified if it enhanced security.

 In a 2001 email, Kavanaugh addressed a legal challenge to an affirmative action program within the Department of Transportation.

 "The fundamental problem in this case is that these DOT regulations use a lot of legalisms and disguises to mask what in reality is a naked racial set-aside," he wrote.

 Kavanaugh had sidestepped questions from Booker on Wednesday night about the circumstances in which government can and cannot use race-conscious measures to address past discrimination.

 He conceded that hopes he expressed nearly two decades ago for a color-blind society have not been fulfilled.

 "We see on an all-too-common basis that racism still exists in the United States of America," Kavanaugh said. "Our long march to racial equality is not over."

 Separately, The New York Times reported on leaked emails from the "confidential" file. One is an email drafted by Kavanaugh in 2003, in which he questioned whether the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion should be described as "settled law of the land."

 Pressed on that email by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Thursday, Kavanaugh explained he was simply summarizing views of legal scholars and not offering his own view.

 On Wednesday, Kavanaugh said he understands the weight that many people attach to Roe. But he declined to say whether that case was properly decided.

 Throughout the hearing, Kavanaugh has avoided commenting on Trump's behavior, despite urging from Senate Democrats.

 "I'm not going to get within three zip codes of a political controversy," he said Thursday, when Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked him about Trump's attacks on judges, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

 "I've spoken about my respect and appreciation for the eight justices on the Supreme Court," Kavanaugh said. "I know they're all dedicated public servants who have given a great deal to this country."

 Barring surprises, Kavanaugh appears likely to win confirmation in time to take his place alongside those eight justices when the Supreme Court begins its fall term next month.

 Not seeing the video? Click here. |||||

– Day three of the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing has opened with a bang: Democratic Sen. Cory Booker says he has ordered his staff to release a Kavanaugh email even though it's supposed to remain under wraps. It's not clear yet what the email says, but NBC News reports that it concerns racial profiling. Booker called his act one of civil disobedience, reports NPR. "I openly invite and accept the consequences," he said, per CNN. "The penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate." Indeed, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn read aloud rules stating that a senator who divulges "the secret or confidential business" of the Senate faces expulsion, reports the Washington Post. "Bring the charges," said Booker. "All of us are ready to face that rule," added fellow Democrat Richard Blumenthal. Democrats have been chafing that too many of Kavanaugh's documents are either being withheld or deemed off limits for the hearing. Booker's stand comes after the New York Times obtained some of those off-limits emails. In one from 2003, when Kavanaugh was working in the White House of George W. Bush, he objects to language that Roe v. Wade is "settled law." He was going over a draft opinion stating that "it is widely accepted by legal scholars across the board that Roe v. Wade and its progeny are the settled law of the land," but he took exception to the phrase. "I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so," he wrote at the time. As the Times notes, Kavanaugh didn't state his personal opinion on the matter.


White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler is seen during the fraud and conspiracy trial of two Enron executives in 2006, in which she was the federal prosecutor. (PAT SULLIVAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

 As soon as White House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler heard about an upcoming inspector general’s report on the Internal Revenue Service, she knew she had a problem.

 The notice Ruemmler saw on April 24 gave her a thumbnail sketch of a disturbing finding: that the IRS had improperly targeted tea party and other conservative groups. She shared the news with White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and other senior White House aides, who all recognized the danger of the findings.

 But they agreed that it would be best not to share it with President Obama until the independent audit was completed and made public, in part to protect him from even the appearance of trying to influence an investigation.

 This account of how the White House tried to deal with the IRS inquiry — based on documents, public statements and interviews with multiple senior officials, including one directly involved in the discussions — shows how carefully Obama’s top aides were trying to shield him from any second-term scandal that might swamp his agenda or, worse, jeopardize his presidency.

 The episode also offers a glimpse into the workings of Obama’s insular West Wing, which has struggled to cope in recent weeks with the IRS scandal, the continued fallout from last year’s deadly attack in Benghazi, Libya, and the Justice Department’s tracking of journalists as part of leak investigations.

 But Ruemmler and McDonough’s careful plan for the IRS was upended on May 10, when Lois Lerner, a senior official at the agency, broke the news by admitting that the IRS had given extra scrutiny to conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

 Senior White House officials were stunned to see the IRS trying to get ahead of its own story — and in doing so, creating a monstrous communications disaster for an administration that appeared not to know what its agencies were up to.

 Ruemmler views her mission strictly as advising Obama on the law and protecting executive branch prerogatives, colleagues and friends said. “She’s a lawyer’s lawyer,” said Neal Katyal, acting solicitor general in Obama’s first term and a close friend. “She can go with you toe to toe on footnotes and Supreme Court opinions or she can get into the intricacies of protecting the president against a Capitol Hill investigation.”

 Yet Ruemmler’s lawyerly focus sometimes conflicts with political imperatives. The absence of such dominant first-term personalities as former adviser David Axelrod and former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who could bridge those differences, has left the White House scrambling to contain its public damage.

 In the IRS case, many prominent Washington lawyers say Ruemmler made the sensible legal call. She protected her client — Obama — by distancing him from a politically sensitive problem and ensuring that he could not be accused of meddling in an inquiry.

 In addition, one senior administration official said, Ruemmler at the time did not know key facts: How extensive was the IRS’s targeting? How many and which employees were involved? Did they target only conservative groups and was the effort politically motivated? And were those groups’ applications for tax-exempt status denied or delayed?

 To keep from intervening in the audit, Ruemmler could not seek answers, the official said.

 “The single most important thing the White House counsel can do at that point is make sure no one in the White House does anything to interfere with or anything that may obstruct the conclusions from being finished and rolled out,” said Jack Quinn, who served as White House counsel under Bill Clinton.

 It fell to others, including White House press secretary Jay Carney and senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer, to explain the White House’s decisions to the public, and that’s where problems arose. Inconsistencies in their stories undermined their credibility and invited scrutiny.

 “It’s become a Washington spectacle,” lamented David Plouffe, a longtime Obama political adviser who left the White House in January.

 Privately, other Obama allies said Carney’s repeated corrections of the official account left an impression with the public that White House aides were incompetent or hiding something.

 Late last week, McDonough summoned Plouffe and a cadre of former Obama and Clinton advisers — including Stephanie Cutter, Robert Gibbs, Anita Dunn, Paul Begala and Mike McCurry — to the White House for two separate public relations strategy sessions. White House aides said they urged getting out information about the IRS situation as quickly as possible, and provided advice on refocusing attention on Obama’s jobs agenda.

 The president expressed “outrage” at the IRS findings last week and acted swiftly to install new leadership at the agency. This week, however, news reports have centered on the fine points of the White House’s evolving accounts, including why Obama did not learn of the situation until the media reported it on May 10.

 Plouffe — who derided the press corps as “figure skating judges” for focusing on minutiae — said the counsel’s office is routinely notified about inspector general reports. Protocol is to wait for the final reports before briefing Obama, he said.

 “The truth is, there wasn’t like a playbook of 12 plays here,” Plouffe said. “The notion that somehow the counsel’s office or the White House should have leapt into action here before the IG report came out is beyond curious. That would have been the real scandal.”

 As counsel, Ruemmler is a regular presence in the Situation Room and the Oval Office, making legal judgments and helping coach other senior officials on how to discuss them publicly. Internally, she is a fierce opponent of public disclosures that could expose communications within the executive branch, especially those between the president and his advisers.

 “I think she’s one of the most cool-headed people in the entire White House and does a lot to ensure that nobody gets themselves in trouble,” said Cutter, who served as deputy campaign manager for Obama’s reelection bid. She added that, on the IRS inquiry, “she did the president a huge service by keeping it away from him until the IG report was final. That’s her modus operandi. . . . It makes everything that much cleaner.”

 Associates say the way the IRS situation was handled fits with Ruemmler’s approach to making decisions: wary to act before knowing all the facts, but then decisive once they are clear.

 “She’s very deliberate,” said Akin Gump lawyer John M. Dowd, a friend. “There’s no reason to go busting into it. . . . Even though it’s a hot subject and there’s going to be some political implications, to me you wait until you’ve got a work product in your hands.”

 Unlike most senior White House aides, Ruemmler has no campaign experience. Although she has worked in Washington for years, as a prosecutor and as a litigation partner at Latham & Watkins, former colleagues said she showed little interest in politics.

 Clinton White House counsel Lanny Davis said Ruemmler lacks political and media savvy. He said she had “an obligation to give the president a heads-up and generally describe what might be coming down the track [on the IRS] so you can do crisis management planning.”

 Plouffe rejected that criticism, saying, “I know blowhards like Lanny Davis have posited this question, but they’re dead wrong.” Obama, he said, has “plenty of people who give him political advice. He needs a top-flight lawyer who’s going to run a good process, and that’s what she’s done.”

 Beth Wilkinson, a Washington lawyer and former Justice Department official, said Ruemmler’s focus on the law is considered a virtue inside the White House.

 “She stays in her lane, which people appreciate,” said Wilkinson, a close friend of Ruemmler’s. “She really sees her role as the counsel to the president and to protect the presidency and provide legal advice. She doesn’t try to do other people’s jobs.”

 Discuss this topic and other political issues in the politics discussion forums. ||||| Here is a tale of being a woman in public life in two tweets by Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin: “Read what @PhilipRucker and I wrote about Kathy Ruemmler, who went from an outsider to Obama's chief protector.” “And then, read about Ruemmler's fabulous shoes.”

 Ruemmler is the White House counsel. According to quotes in the first piece, pegged to the controversy over what she did and didn’t tell the president about the IRS inspector general report, she is a “lawyer’s lawyer,” “very deliberate” and “one of the most cool-headed people in the entire White House.” There is also room in the first piece for Ruemmler’s “legendary” shoe habit -- in 2006, she wore pink stilettos while prosecuting Enron! -- but two paragraphs were simply not enough. Hence the second story, dated five days later, devoted entirely to divulging that Ruemmler owns one pair of shoes characterized by “a jeweled paisley pattern; another is black and strappy.” Guys, there is a regular Carrie Bradshaw in the White House.

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 But wait, you say. If Ruemmler didn’t want the Washington Post to talk about her shoes while she’s in the midst of White House “scandals,” why did she wear them? A truly serious person would tiptoe through the West Wing barefoot. Could she arrange for some office-appropriate sackcloth and ashes?

 On my personal outrage scale, this ranks around the same place as the same paper's describing congresswoman Kyrsten Sinema as “lecturing, hectoring, defensive, accusatory, pouty and curiously repetitive,” and just below NPR recently scrubbing its incredulousness that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand could both have a "girlie" voice and fight sexual assault in the military -- at the same time. It registers a lot below Vogue pressing Gillibrand again and again about how she lost weight. (The true highlight of Jonathan Van Meter’s 2010 story was when he noted that the weight loss would help Gillibrand “no doubt remain attractive to her husband of nine years, who is two years younger than she is.” Alternative headline: Sexy cougar gets back her beach body!) But it registers nonetheless. The Washington Post is still one of the country's major papers, there are still far too few women in positions of power in the city it mainly covers, and at a time when Ruemmler is in the spotlight for whether she did her job right, the shoe chatter is simply undermining and trivializing.

 A recent study conducted by Name It, Change It asked voters to assess hypothetical male and female candidates. Hearing descriptions of the female candidate's appearance "had detrimental impacts on her candidacy ... even appearance coverage that purports to be neutral or complimentary damages the woman." It cost the male candidate nothing. That's probably because the average American still has trouble believing that women can both participate in what Garance Franke-Ruta termed "the system of beauty" while working in "the system of power," such that a woman is more harshly judged for a leisure habit while a man's extracurricular habits are par for the course. There is nothing wrong with Ruemmler straying from the sparrow-like business casual norm of Washington, to an extent that President Obama has apparently teased her about, but a description of a pair of shoes she wore seven years ago doesn't belong in a national newspaper's profile of her.

 It was once, reluctantly, my professional responsibility to come up to Condoleezza Rice at a gala just after she ceased being secretary of state and ask her what she was wearing. But I worked for a fashion trade paper. Eilperin is the White House reporter, and as I write this, the shoe story is the third-most-read on the Washington Post’s politics section. (How much of that is referrals from furious feminist tweets, one of which I issued, I cannot know.) Meanwhile, that shoe story, which Eilperin impressively carried on her own, is sadly undermined by the fact that the only photographic proof of Ruemmler’s alleged fabulousness is her wearing muted beige heels.

 There is something else that is interesting about that photograph: There are eight people in the room, and Ruemmler is the only woman. Indeed, the first story notes that Ruemmler operates in a White House in which “some women complained that they felt marginalized” and that she is “one of the few women who has been able to break into the club.” She has apparently done so on her own terms, professionally speaking, which can't be easy. So here is a proposal for the politics reporters who want to add color and "fabulousness" to their prose: How about we issue a moratorium until there's more than one woman in the room, and see what happens? |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– Kathryn Ruemmler is the White House chief counsel (and currently in the middle of the IRS mess), so it totally makes sense that the fourth-most-popular story in the Washington Post's political section right now would be ... an article about Ruemmler's love for flashy shoes. Wait, what? It seems the shoe habit initially got two paragraphs in a more serious profile of Ruemmler and the IRS scandal, but the shoes were just so interesting they ended up getting their own article. This, writes Irin Carmon on Salon, is the perfect "tale of being a woman in public life," and it's just as ridiculous as the time the same paper described a congresswoman as "hectoring" and "pouty," or the time Vogue became obsessed with Kirsten Gillibrand's weight loss, or the time ... well, you get the idea. "The Washington Post is still one of the country’s major papers, there are still far too few women in positions of power in the city it mainly covers, and at a time when Ruemmler is in the spotlight for whether she did her job right, the shoe chatter is simply undermining and trivializing," Carmon writes. Studies have shown that hearing descriptions of a female political candidate's appearance—even positive descriptions—damages the candidate in a voter's eyes, while the same effect is not seen for men. Plus, politics is still a boys' club. "So here is a proposal for the politics reporters who want to add color and 'fabulousness' to their prose: How about we issue a moratorium until there’s more than one woman in the room, and see what happens?" Click for Carmon's full piece.


Write a summary based on this article:

Hundreds of bottle-nosed dolphins have been dying on the East Coast, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says a virus is likely to blame.

 Morbillivirus, a disease similar to measles in humans, has been found in some beached dolphins tested by NOAA, officials announced Tuesday.

 Since July 1, 333 dolphins have stranded - gotten sick and washed up on beaches, or became stuck in shallow water - between New York and North Carolina. Most of them are dying off the coast of Virginia, where 174 have stranded since July 1.

 "We don't have a lot of insight as to when it will stop. Typically, outbreaks last as long as there are susceptible animals that can be infected," Dr. Teri Rowles of the NOAA Fisheries Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program told reporters during a conference call.

 NOAA has tested 33 beached dolphins, and 32 had either confirmed or suspected cases of the virus.

 Based on a similar outbreak 26 years ago, NOAA expects dolphins will continue dying until spring 2014.

 This year's dolphin die-off is the largest since a similar virus outbreak in 1987 and 1988, NOAA officials said. It's difficult to estimate how many dolphins will die, according to Dr. Lance Garrison of the NOAA Southeast Fisheries Science Center. Estimates of a 30 percent to 40 percent mortality rate in that outbreak were later found to be inaccurately high, Garrison said.

 Dolphins have very little resistance to the virus, which suppresses their immune systems, NOAA officials said. The virus causes lesions on dolphins' skin, in lymph nodes, and in their brains.

 There is almost no chance the virus can spread to humans, officials said, as morbillivirus strains are specific to species. Humans have their own morbillivirus -measles - and have historically not contracted morbillivirus strains from animals during outbreaks.

 Still, NOAA advised swimmers with open wounds to take precautions in areas where infected dolphins have been found. With their immune systems suppressed by the virus, the sick dolphins often contract other infections that can spread to humans.

 "At this point, there isn't anything we can do to stop the virus," Rowles said. "We don't have a vaccine that is developed that could be easily deployed in a wild population of bottle-nosed dolphins." ||||| A measles-like virus is being cited as a likely cause for the mass dolphin die-off that’s been plaguing the U.S. East Coast this summer.

 Since July 1, 333 carcasses have littered shores from New York to North Carolina – a number that’s roughly 10 times more than normal for this time of year. Scientists don’t yet know how many dolphins have died offshore without reaching mid-Atlantic beaches, but it could be thousands. In July, NOAA declared the die-off an Unusual Mortality Event, which frees up federal funding and investigators to address the crisis.

 Now, a NOAA team in charge of investigating the event is pointing to a type of morbillivirus as the culprit behind the bottlenose dolphins deaths. Morbilliviruses are responsible for measles in humans, rinderpest in cattle, and canine distemper in dogs, coyotes, wolves and seals. There is no easy way to identify morbillivirus infection just by looking at a carcass, so identifying the pathogen as the cause of the die-off involved a feat of molecular detective work using tissue collected from the dead animals.

 “I don’t know of anything that screams morbillivirus when you look at the inside of the animal,” said Charley Potter, a scientist at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. Potter, along with his colleagues, has been helping to examine the carcasses of animals arriving in Virginia. “Some of the animals seem to be emaciated and debilitated, and others seem to be rather robust and healthy,” he said.

 While there are no unifying anatomical findings that point toward the pathogen, many of the animals washing ashore have suggestive lesions in their mouths, lymph nodes, brain, or lungs. Potter, and the others who conduct necropsies (animal autopsies), collect bits of these damaged tissues, as well as other organs.

 The tissues are then sent to several pathology labs, including those at the University of Georgia, the University of Florida, and the University of California, Davis.

 There, scientists use a variety of techniques to search for morbillivirus within the tissues. One method involves looking closely at lesioned tissue for microscopic signs of the infection. Another uses antibodies to detect morbillivirus in the lesioned tissues. And the third looks for viral genes by amplifying genetic sequences within the animals’ tissues.

 So far, nearly all of the carcasses – 32 out of 33 — fresh enough to be analyzed by these methods have tested positive for, or are strongly suspected of having, morbillivirus. Of those, genetic sequencing confirmed that 11 of the carcasses carry the cetacean form of the virus, which affects dolphins and porpoises.

 “We feel very comfortable that this is a morbillivirus outbreak,” said Teri Rowles, NOAA’s Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program coordinator. “We are going to continue to look at potential secondary and contributing factors.”

 The hunt for the source of the die-off has been slowed by the condition of many of the carcasses. Most are either too far decomposed or scavenged to preserve evidence of what killed them. Some pathogens, such as morbillivirus, can only be detected in freshly dead animals, so teams responding to stranded animals have been prioritizing collecting tissues from fresher carcasses.

 “When we get animals that show significant skin fluffing and they’re starting to gas up and things like that, we really ratchet back on what is collected,” Potter said.

 The bulk of the dead dolphins have stranded in Virginia, where teams have processed 174 carcasses since July 1. The next-hardest hit is New Jersey, with a total of 71 dead dolphins. There, teams are finding about a dolphin a day, said Bob Schoelkopf, founding director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, NJ.

 “I just picked one up this morning – a youngster, about 150 pounds,” he said on Saturday. “But it was heavily scavenged by sharks, not salvageable for sampling.”

 Initially, the event’s southern boundary ended at Virginia; but with North Carolina now reporting 42 dolphin strandings since July (about four times more than normal), the UME has been expanded to include that state.

 The southward spread of the strandings is reminiscent of the morbillivirus outbreak of 1987-88, which ultimately led nearly 800 dead dolphins to wash ashore in the mid-Atlantic between June 1987 and May of the next year. Now, as it was a quarter century ago, the strandings began with a spike in the north before spreading to the south, a pattern scientists attribute to the southward migration of Atlantic ocean bottlenose dolphins.

 “We’re expecting that if indeed this plays out the way that that die-off occurred, that we’re looking at mortalities being higher and morbillivirus spreading southward, and likely continuing to the spring of 2014,” Rowles said.

 Scientists don’t know for sure what sparked the outbreak, but are guessing that affected dolphin populations have lost their ability to fight the virus, a protection they gained 25 years ago when it last struck the area.

 “The picture that’s playing out so far is a classic introduction of a virus to a universally naïve population,” said Stephanie Venn-Watson, a veterinarian with the National Marine Mammal Foundation. As populations grow and reproduce, antibodies developed to combat morbillivirus years ago are diluted within the populations; now, it appears those levels have dipped below a tipping point, Venn-Watson said.

 And, though we know it’s spreading, there’s no way to vaccinate dolphins against the spread of the virus. “[The die-off] would probably end when the number of susceptible animals still out there to infect dwindles,” said Jerry Saliki, a virologist at the University of Georgia.

 The good news? “Not all infected animals will die,” he said. ||||| Play Facebook

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 Genetic tests have confirmed that an outbreak of a measles-like virus known as morbillivirus is playing a major role in the massive dolphin die-off on the Mid-Atlantic coast.

 This is the second big strike for the virus, which was the chief agent behind a wave of infections that struck bottlenose dolphins between June 1987 and March 1988, killing more than 700 animals before retreating into the blue.

 "We are now calling it a morbillivirus outbreak," Teri Rowles of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program said during a telephone press briefing on Tuesday. As of Monday, 333 animals have died on coasts between New York and North Carolina.

 Among 33 dolphins tested this summer, 32 dolphins have turned up with a suspected or confirmed case of the virus, Rowles said. Additional genome sequencing tests have confirmed that the cetacean morbillivirus was present in 11 animals.

 Morbillivirus belongs to a family of RNA viruses that cause rinderpest in cattle, distemper in canine species, and measles in humans. In dolphins, the virus suppresses the immune system, so researchers are seeing "animals that are very thin, animals that have a lot of other diseases and infections," Rowles said.

 The resurgence of the infection in bottlenoses could merely be natural forces at work. Infections have "always been happening in cycles," Perry Habecker, staff veterinary chief at the University of Pennsylvania, told NBC News.

 The genetic makeup of bacteria and viruses changes slightly over time, Habecker said, and populations of animals can also lose their immunity. "There’s no doubt in my mind that these kinds of disease have been [recurring] for millennia."

 Sarah Rose, left, with the Virginia Aquarium Stranding Response Team begins a necropsy on a dead dolphin at the Virginia Aquarium Marine Animal Care Center, in Virginia Beach, Va., on Aug. 6, 2013. L. Todd Spencer

 Researchers suspect that morbillivirus is hosted by offshore populations of marine mammals, and was transmitted to coastal bottlenose dolphins in the spring or early summer. This year, the virus seems to have entered a population that "simply [doesn't] have an immune response to effectively fight off the virus," Stephanie Venn-Watson of the National Marine Mammal Foundation said.

 Researchers are planning analyses for the very first cases — strandings that may have occurred as early as February or March this year — to check if environmental factors contributed as a trigger.

 Aside from the morbillivirus, a second suspect is the Brucella bacterium, which has been found in tissue samples from four dolphins from Virginia, NOAA says. Marine mammals are common hosts for the bacterium.

 In the last few weeks, dead dolphins have begun washing up on the North Carolina coasts, which indicates that the outbreak, like the migrating dolphin herds, is moving south. If this year's die-off progresses like the 1987-88 outbreak did, the strandings are likely to continue until the spring of 2014.

 Between now and then, there's not much researchers can do to stop the spread of the virus — logistics stand in the way of research vessels going after wild dolphin herds with vaccines.

 The strandings are likely to end as they probably began, through natural events. Researchers anticipate that some dolphins still out at sea survived the infection and gained immunity. Survivor numbers will grow, and over time the virus, having completed its deadly rounds, will find no new bottlenose dolphins to infect.

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 Have you seen a stranded dolphin? NOAA has these safety tips:

 Do not touch the dolphin.

 Don’t allow pets to approach the dolphin.

 Observe the animal from a safe distance of 100 yards (safe for you and the animal)

 If you see a dead or stranded dolphin in New York, call the Riverhead Foundation's 24-hour rescue hotline at 631-369-9829. If you're in New Jersey, contact the Marine Mammal Stranding Center's hotline at 609-266-0538.

 Nidhi Subbaraman writes about science and technology. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

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– The good news is that scientists now think they know why so many dead dolphins are washing up on shores along the East Coast—it's a virus akin to measles, reports Wired. The bad news is that they can't do anything but let it run its course. So far, about 330 dolphins have washed up, mostly in Virginia, a figure 10 times higher than normal. (And, of course, hundreds, perhaps thousands, more likely never reached shore.) A similar outbreak of this morbillivirus in 1987-88 caused 800 dead dolphins to wash ashore, and if the new outbreak follows the same pattern, the virus will probably remain in play until next spring. It's expected to move south along the Atlantic Seaboard. “At this point, there isn’t anything we can do to stop the virus,” says an official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We don’t have a vaccine that is developed that could be easily deployed in a wild population of bottlenose dolphins.” The dolphins probably lost their immunity since the last outbreak, a vet tells NBC News. It's not clear how the outbreak started, but scientists figure the coastal dolphins picked up the virus from some other marine mammal. It's all but impossible this strain could spread to humans, notes ABC News.


Go to the Legal Help page to request content changes for legal reasons. ||||| BEIJING (AP) — A car plowed into a crowd of children outside a primary school in northeastern China on Thursday, killing five people and injuring 18, a local government spokesman said.

 The driver was taken into custody after the crash around noon in the coastal city of Huludao in Liaoning province, said the spokesman for Jianchang county in the city's suburbs, who declined to give his name as is standard with Chinese bureaucrats.

 He described the crash as "a major traffic accident" and that the cause was under investigation.

 Security camera footage showed a line of children crossing the street in front of their school when a car approaches, which then changes lanes and swerves into the crowd of children.

 It wasn't clear if the crash was a deliberate attack or whether the driver was swerving to avoid obstacles in front of him.

 Last month, a knife-wielding man drove a vehicle into a crowd of pedestrians in the eastern city of Ningbo, killing two people and wounding 16.

 And in September, 11 people were killed and 44 hospitalized after a man drove an SUV deliberately into people at a plaza in the central province of Hunan, before jumping out and attacking victims with a dagger and shovel.

 Other deadly attacks have occurred at schools, including several in 2010 in which nearly 20 children were killed, prompting a response from top government officials and leading many schools to beef up security.

 However, in June, a man used a kitchen knife to attack three boys and a mother near a school in Shanghai, killing two of the children. Last year, police said a man set off an explosion at the front gate of a kindergarten in eastern China, which struck as relatives gathered to pick up their children at the end of the day, killing eight people.

 The attackers' most common motivations are identified as mental illness or alienation from society and a desire to settle scores. |||||
What is a one-paragraph summary of the above article?

– A car plowed into a crowd of children outside a primary school in northeastern China on Thursday, killing five people and injuring 18, a local government spokesman said. The driver was taken into custody after the crash around noon in the coastal city of Huludao in Liaoning province, the spokesman said. He described the crash as "a major traffic accident" and that the cause was under investigation. Disturbing security camera footage showed a line of children crossing the street in front of their school when a car approaches, which then changes lanes and swerves into the crowd of children, the AP reports. It wasn't clear if the crash was a deliberate attack or whether the driver was swerving to avoid obstacles in front of him. (Last month, 14 children were injured in a stabbing attack in Chongqinq.)


Write an article based on this summary:

– Catch those new photos of Sinead O'Connor performing in Ireland? (See the video in the gallery at left for a sample.) She is, gasp, no longer the slim, bald 20-something who captivated fans, and the Internet has not been kind in pointing this out. Lay off, write Mimi Turner at the Hollywood Reporter and Mary Elizabeth Williams at Salon. O'Connor, now 44 and the mother of four, "has always turned her back on the conventions of beauty that are apparently necessary for media acceptance," writes Turner. "The prickly distaste that she still manifests for a prototypical feminine style seems remarkably unchanged from the attitudes she held in her youth." O'Connor also has battled bipolar disorder for years, and the antidepressants she takes can cause weight gain. "To be able to grow older is a gift," writes Williams. "To be on medication that can save your life is a blessing. A little thickening around the middle seems like a small price to pay." Besides, O'Connor still has that amazing gift that made her a once-in-a-generation talent: "Tempered by life and experience, that clear, achingly lovely voice has only become more poignantly astonishing," writes Williams.

Sinéad O'Connor is accustomed to shocking people. The Irish singer has been a natural-born attention getter since she first gained fame over 20 years ago, when she was as recognizable for her shorn head and fiercely outspoken opinions as she was for her haunting voice and arresting beauty. So when she turned up to perform at Ireland's Bray Music Festival over the weekend, it was inevitable that she'd create an uproar. The latest wild stunt from the woman who once defiantly ripped up a picture of the pope on "Saturday Night Live"? Getting older and gaining weight. The horror!

 Sporting a short dark bob, eyeglasses, a belly-revealing mesh top and a more ample figure than fans remember from her "Nothing Compares 2 U" heyday, the 44-year-old dared to appear, as Inquisitr helpfully noted,"No Longer Bald or Skinny." ABC News asked, "Sinéad O'Connor, Is That You?" and ran the inevitable slide show of celebrity weight-loss ups and downs, while E! crowed that O'Connor went "from looking like Natalie Portman in 'V for Vendetta' to your dorky self in high school" and did its own slide show of "shocking transformations."

 It's not entirely surprising that the image of a bald, white-clad waif would be so indelible in the public mind. O'Connor has lived largely out of the spotlight for several years now, and has not released any new music since 2005. Even her own website is conspicuously riddled with photos of her more familiar doe-eyed and pixie-ish image. Yet the Internet outpouring of astonishment mixed with glee over her changed appearance has been the truly unpleasant sight in all of this. On People.com alone, there are hundreds of comments -- many on the theme of what a "shameless blimpo" "pig" she's become, and many others flat out refusing to believe that the photographs are truly of O'Connor.

 Anyone who is old enough to have had a moment of disbelief regarding the Facebook friend request of a long-lost pal knows that time does not march equally over everyone. The changes we barely notice on the people we're around all the time don't register as dramatically as those on the faces and bodies of those we don't see regularly. The urge to contrast then and now, to check off either the "still got it" or "let themselves go" boxes in our minds is powerful. It's the subtext that drives high school reunions and the Googling of ex-lovers, the reason former Clash guitarist Mick Jones once musically bragged that among his accomplishments, "Somehow I stayed thin while the other guys got fat." And for the legions of detractors O'Connor has amassed over her outspoken career, perhaps there's a strange satisfaction in seeing evidence that she's no longer the head-turner who could rock a chrome-dome and still be gorgeous. Bet you're not so high and mighty now, missy!

 Yet as Carrie Fisher recently remarked of her long-ago golden bikini heyday, "I swear when I was shooting those films I never realized I was signing an invisible contract to stay looking the exact same way for the rest of my existence." So Sinéad is likewise no longer the woman she was in 1990. And yes, big shoulder pads and see-through tops are a sartorial misstep on almost everyone. But is any of that really a cause for such a conspicuous outpouring of schadenfreude? O'Connor is now a mother of four who has been open about her struggles with bipolar disorder. In 2007, she told Oprah Winfrey, "I actually kind of died and got born again as a result of taking the meds." And as some of O'Connor's more charitable online defenders have noted, many of the medications used to treat bipolarism also cause weight gain.

 "Shocking" though O'Connor may continue to be to others, the singer, who claims she "really enjoyed" her recent Bray set, seems to have in recent years become far less scandalous to herself. In 2008, she genially told an Australian newspaper, "I am not a pop star as I was ... so I am not having to deal with that kind of attention. Then I was young and now I am old and ugly and a bit fat ... I'm entitled to have a belly." She's also entitled to change her hairstyle, haters.

 As it happens, this morning on the way to a doctor's appointment, I passed by a neighbor I hadn't seen in a while. I almost didn't recognize her, because she too has transformed of late. She was thinner and paler, and on her head she wore the telltale headscarf of a woman going through chemo. So in case anybody out there needs a reminder, here it is: To be able to grow older is a gift. To be on medication that can save your life is a blessing. A little thickening around the middle seems like a small price to pay. Though much has changed in the more than two decades since Sinéad O'Connor was that volatile, beautiful rock star, many things have improved with time. The once-suicidal girl now admits that "It doesn't matter if things aren't perfect." And tempered by life and experience, that clear, achingly lovely voice has only become more poignantly astonishing. ||||| LONDON -- In 1990, Sinead O’Connor’s cover of a near-forgotten Prince single, “Nothing Compares 2U,” burst onto the global musical consciousness like an exploding firework. Combining soaring vocals with the shock of a shaven head that served only to make her expressive eyes more poignant, O’Connor’s performance was mesmerizing.

 Fame followed -- and later imploded -- amid a slew of unpopular religious and political opinions from the singer, including an attack on the Roman Catholic Church for its cover-up of child sex abuse.

 Despite the fall from grace the singer remained entrancing, combining gamine fragility with an appetite for hard politics. Her tight crew cut, consciously anti-feminine Doc Marten boots, baggy sweaters and old men’s overcoats remained her trademark look. And nothing she wore or didn’t wear could disguise the sheer power of her vocal and lyrical talent.

 Earlier this week, more than two decades after her astonishing debut, pictures of a very different looking O’Connor surfaced online after a performance at the Bray Music Festival on the West Coast of Ireland. Showing a frumpier, bespectacled O’Connor under a mop of black hair and in black garb that would have been nun-like, but for the exposure of a generous segment of plump belly, the singer’s appearance has caused quite a stir -- even on our own website.

 Newspapers, online blogs and the social media sphere of Facebook and Twitter, have erupted with astonishment and shock at O’Connor’s transformation.

 “The 44-year year-old singer was unrecognizable from her musical heyday as she took to the stage wearing a highly unflattering combination of a stomach-baring black net top, and an ill-fitting black trouser suit,” said the Daily Mail.

 As if that weren’t damning enough, the singer’s self-absorbed air appears to have irked the paper further: “With her black hair in a messy crop, and wearing glasses and a gold crucifix necklace, Sinead appeared to be in a world of her own as she performed alongside [reggae singer Natty] Wailer.”

 Closer to home, Us Weekly wrote that the singer had shocked her fans with a look that was “completely unrecognizable,” while ABC News put the “formerly slim” singer in a gallery of stars including Kirstie Alley and Jennifer Hudson who have had trouble with their yo-yo-ing weight. “Nothing compares…to what Sinead O’ Connor looks like now,” it captioned.

 Hang on. Should a singer who used her window of fame to highlight discomfiting political opinions as well as bringing hauntingly personal songs like “Troy” and “Three Babies” into the musical canon really be judged by the same harsh standards that are common currency for actresses and reality TV stars?

 Sinead O’Connor is no Kim Kardashian, whose every eyebrow pluck and forehead wax is the stuff of a celebrity interview or product endorsement. Nor is she a Natalie Portman or Renee Zellweger, whose morphing body shape is part of her artistic reach.

 Instead, the Dublin-born singer, who has four children since achieving the heights of fame, has always turned her back on the conventions of beauty that are apparently necessary for media acceptance. The prickly distaste that she still manifests for a prototypical feminine style seems remarkably unchanged from the attitudes she held in her youth.

 "What the voices expressing astonishment at her new look are really shocked by, is that Sinead O’Connor should care so little for the opinions by which so many in the entertainment industry are harshly judged."

 Per the outrage that has followed the singer’s appearance at Bray, you could be forgiven for thinking that O’Connor has spent the last decade and a half under a rock, all the better to astonish her fans when she re-emerged several kilos heavier and without a bald head. In fact, she has an enjoyed a musical career that has continued, somewhat under the radar, and the singer has released a new album every two years or since 2000 as well as touring recently in Moscow and the UK.

 What the voices expressing astonishment at her new look are really shocked by, is that Sinead O’Connor should care so little for the opinions by which so many in the entertainment industry are harshly judged. The astonishment at her weight gain is as much at her carelessness of what others think of her as it is about a singer succumbing to the ageing process over 20 years. In fact, it’s not overplaying it to suggest that her critics are actually uncomfortable with her refusal to hide herself away permanently now that the years where gamine skinniness was her trademark look are in the past.

 It is just weeks since the music industry deified Amy Winehouse, a troubled singer whose addictions transfixed tabloid readers during the years that they also cruelly foreshortened a talented jazz diva’s life.

 Like O’Connor, Winehouse’s talent was of the once-in-a-generation kind, a degree of difference away from even the commercial heights achieved by the likes of Adele, another British talent who for all her record-selling success, falls into a more conventional mold. Even as Winehouse’s failed romances and damaging addictions were lived out in the harsh glare of newspaper front pages, her emaciated thinness, hyper-sexualized outfits and suspiciously enhanced cleavage nonetheless less fell on the right side of the aesthetic the entertainment industry is prepared to accept.

 Unlike Winehouse, Connor has managed to get through life, have a family and keep doing what her fans want her to do: perform and record music. Along the way her various admissions of suffering child abuse, a bipolar disorder and coming out as a lesbian suggest that the journey has not been without its demons.

 But, far from criticizing the singer for her temerity to continue performing even when she does not fit the nostalgic memory of two decades past, O’Connor should congratulated for her ability to keep on going. Twenty years on, the lyrics of songs like “Feel So Different,” “I Do Not Want What I Have Not Got” and “Three Babies” have become even more poignant than they were the first time around.

 And as this video of the singer performing “Nothing Compares 2U” in Moscow last month shows, her voice has lost none of its ability to astound and move. |||||