Cancel Brett Kavanaugh, adjourn the hearing.”

Protesters during the hearing shouted that President Donald Trump is “an illegitimate president who cannot make an appointment to Supreme Court” and this “should be an impeachment hearing.”

One leftist protester even interrupted and subsequently upset Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) during the nomination hearing. Pressed by Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican, on whether he would be independent from the president who nominated him, Kavanaugh responded, “No one is above the law.”

But asked later by the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, whether a president can be required to respond to a subpoena, Kavanaugh said, “I can’t give you an answer on that hypothetical question.” The Supreme Court has never answered that question, and it is among the most important at Kavanaugh’s hearing since Trump could face a subpoena in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Any thoughts, however, of overlooking the hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh were swiftly disabused by the theatrics, shouting, histrionics and apocalyptic tone all within the very first hour of the confirmation hearing that began on Tuesday morning. By contrast, the committee’s liberals and centrists will paint Kavanaugh as a threat to civil rights and liberties who will tip the court’s balance to a hardened 5-4 right-wing majority on a variety of subjects, ranging from abortion, gun control and voting rights to presidential power, environmental protection and affirmative action. “It was a gut punch for me,” he said, and he was “shocked, disappointed, angry.”

Asked about an email list Kozinski allegedly used to send offensive material, Kavanaugh said: “I don’t remember anything like that.”

Trump nominated Kavanaugh, 53, to fill the seat of retired Justice Anthony Kennedy. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) already under intense pressure by the increasingly enraged progressive movement declared, “The impact of overturning Roe is much broader than a woman’s right to choose, it’s about protecting from governmental intrusion, who to marry, where to send children to school, medical care at end of life and whether or when to have a family.”

She was joined in similar rhetoric by the other Democrat members of the committee, in particular the liberal Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) who are expected to run for the Democrat nomination for president in 2020 and therefore are positioning themselves with the party’s left-leaning base. "We go to these hearings under protest," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the panel's senior Democrat.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee opens confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.