WaPo video, YouTube

Some of the protesting done before and during the Senate hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on Tuesday was elaborately orchestrated by activists. Although the mock “Handmaids” who showed up for one vivid display presumably had their costumes already (and have probably worn them before, in numerous venues), they did have to don their attire and make prior arrangements.

The scene outside Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing this morning. #SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/FkCsjbsaWw — Kevin Daley (@KevinDaleyDC) September 4, 2018

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The Democratic senators who protested with interruptions and bloviating screeds against the proceedings had clearly made their preparations in advance.

Oooooh my god. Full-scale mutiny from the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Harris cuts into Grassley's intro, then Blumenthal calls for a motion to adjourn. pic.twitter.com/Hl4FUHn7qL — Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) September 4, 2018

If Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is proud of his career, if he has nothing to hide – why are senators not allowed to see 90% of his record? The American public deserves better.#SCOTUS pic.twitter.com/n2hj2io6iE — Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) September 4, 2018

(Senator Ted Cruz, R-TX, demolished the Democrats’ talking point that relevant documentation had somehow been withheld on Kavanaugh. The documents that have been withheld weren’t even Kavanaugh’s writings; they were the writings of other officials, from the George W. Bush presidency. They have nothing to do with controversial judicial issues or these hearings.)

.@SenTedCruz at Kavanaugh Hearing: Dems ‘Making a Demand They Know Is Utterly Impossible to Meet’ via @mikhaelsmits https://t.co/9B4HZ6vkhC — Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) September 4, 2018

High-profile activists like Linda Sarsour, meanwhile, who stood up and started hollering as the hearing kicked off, had also obviously arranged to be present and execute a prior plan. (For more on Sarsour’s public-spirited political profile, see here.)

Among the protesters arrested in Brett Kavanaugh's hearing today: actress Piper Perabo, UltraViolet co-founder Shaunna Thomas and Women’s March co-founders Linda Sarsour and Bob Bland. https://t.co/EP4gMOBVZo — Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) September 4, 2018

https://twitter.com/GeoWashPundit/status/1037042524693512192

Nearly constant interruptions from the @womensmarch-led #CancelKavanaugh protest. Linda Sarsour was just arrested. pic.twitter.com/It7mnM9sMS — Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) September 4, 2018

But then there were the aspiring impromptu “protesters” encountered by three doctors visiting from Texas. The doctors, who stood in line with them outside, told interviewer Adam Schindler that they witnessed organized activists with a literal bag of cash paying the rent-a-mob to shriek, act out, and disrupt the hearing.

Real Clear Politics has a transcript of the doctors’ comments as offered to Schindler.

TOM SCHLUETER, TEXAS: Hello, I’m Dr. Tom Schlueter from Texas, we came here to participate in the hearings, to get in the line. They told us to be here at 8:00, 8:30 at the latest, to get in line to go inside and hear the hearings. We got here at about 8:15 and there was already 100 people in line, and most of them would be probably classified by me as ‘opposing everything going on with Judge Kavanaugh,’ and so we began to see a process of things unfolding as we were standing in line that kept the line from going ahead. One thing was there were people who had come along… who had a bag of money, and people would hand them a piece of paper, and then they would give them money. So we know money was exchanged for some of the people to be here, just to protest. There was no depth to what their understanding, they were just here to be a disruption, protesters. They were actually told, we heard them say this, ‘when you go in, we want you to yell, to scream, and even possibly to get arrested.’ So that was some of the processes we saw happening…

Based on this summary, with its detail about the pieces of paper being submitted by folks in the crowd, it sounds like there was a solicitation of some kind that these people were responding to. A casting call, as it were: show up at the Kavanaugh hearings venue and we’ll pay you to riot.

Schindler posted a photo of one transaction:

Schindler also caught Linda Sarsour hanging with the activist recruiters outside the building.

Look who joined the party today. Contrary to @CoryBooker this was not “democracy in action”. It’s paid activism in action. Which I suppose is a certain kind of democracy. Just not the kind this #texan thinks is bennificial. #KavanaughConfirmationHearing pic.twitter.com/Viv8vui2u8 — Adam W. Schindler (@AdamSchindler) September 4, 2018

Quite a few of the protesters arrested at the hearing appear to have come from this day-labor talent pool.

"Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination is a direct assault on women and we are fighting back,” said @lsarsour of @womensmarch, the first arrestee of the day https://t.co/gqTVwhDMuA — Roll Call (@rollcall) September 4, 2018

One of the other doctors observed that the objective was clearly to not just make a scene but get arrested.

DOCTOR BURTON PURVIS, ARLINGTON: Good afternoon, I’m doctor Morton Purvis from Arlington. … The most telling thing was listening to them giving names and addresses, so when they were arrested, they were keeping a record and celebrating who got arrested, without any regard for any open discussion or even the possibility of being convinced of anything, it was just for the purpose of disruption and to have some kind of disruption of the process.

Apparently Linda Sarsour didn’t have to cool her heels in the clink for very long.

Just spotted @lsarsour in the Hart Senate office building hours after she was arrested in the same building… She refused to comment. pic.twitter.com/vQMe7q2P9z — Henry Rodgers (@henryrodgersdc) September 4, 2018

To hear all the caterwauling, you’d never guess that Brett Kavanaugh received the decidedly non-rightist American Bar Association’s highest endorsement last week (“well qualified”), along with others like the ones here and here. You’d almost think the Senate Democrats and left-wing activists were just trying to stage an extended public tantrum to get attention.