Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) on Thursday tweeted screenshots of documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s time in the Bush White House that are stamped “committee confidential.”
“These are the docs Rs don’t want you to see—because they show that Judge Kavanaugh wrongly believes that Native Hawaiian programs are Constitutionally questionable. I defy anyone reading this to be able to conclude that it should be deemed confidential in any way, shape, or form,” Hirono said in a tweet.
Hirono’s tweet includes two pages of an email thread from 2002 about “Treasury testimony on Capital Investment in Indian Country.”
{mosads}”I think the testimony needs to make clear that any program targeting Native Hawaiians as a group is subject to strict scrutiny and of questionable validity under the Constitution,” Kavanaugh wrote in the email thread.
Though the documents released by Hiriono were stamped “committee confidential,” they were released publicly by Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) office without the confidential markings minutes before Hirono’s tweet.
Grassley’s office released a new tranche of documents from Kavanaugh’s work in the White House on Thursday morning.
Though the emails had previously been labeled “committee confidential,” Grassley noted his staff worked through Wednesday night to tackle “last-minute” requests from Democrats to release the documents publicly.
Hirono said at Kavanaugh’s hearing that she saw no reason for the paper to be confidential.
“I would defy anyone reading this document to conclude this document should be deemed confidential in any way shape or form,” she said.
She is the second Democratic senator to release documents that were deemed “committee confidential,” following Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) earlier on Thursday.
— Updated 11:45 a.m.