The supreme court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh has not been “normal”, a Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee said on Sunday, because the Trump administration is withholding more than 100,000 pages of records concerning the judge’s time as an aide in the White House of George W Bush.

The Trump administration is citing presidential privilege, ahead of confirmation hearings that begin on Tuesday.

“It’s not normal,” Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota told NBC’s Meet the Press, “because we are not able to see 100,000 documents because the administration has said we can’t see them, exerting their executive power.”

She also said there were “148,000 documents that I’ve seen that you cannot see because they will not allow us to make them public, so I can’t even tell you about them right now on this show”.

The Senate judiciary committee was notified of the decision to withhold documents on Friday. According to a letter obtained by the Associated Press, George W Bush’s attorney, Bill Burck, said the work of compiling documents on Kavanaugh was essentially complete.

Bush directed compilers to err “on the side of transparency and disclosure, and we believe we have done so”, Burck wrote. But the current administration is also able to review the records and the Trump White House “has directed that we not provide these documents”, the letter said.

In all, 267,000 pages of Kavanaugh documents from his years as a Bush aide are being made public. On Friday, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said the decision to withhold thousands of others “has all the makings of a cover-up … What are they trying so desperately to hide?”

Klobuchar told NBC that documents she had seen made her think “that you could ask some very interesting questions about these documents that I’m unable to even say”.

“You have a nominee who has one of the most expansive views of presidential power that we’ve seen in history,” she said.



Amy Klobuchar is a member of the Senate judiciary committee. Photograph: Shawn Thew/EPA

Kavanaugh worked for the independent counsel Ken Starr during the investigation of Bill Clinton but has questioned the extent to which sitting presidents can be investigated.

Trump is under investigation by the special counsel Robert Mueller regarding Russian election interference, links between Trump aides and Moscow and potential obstruction of justice.

Dick Durbin, the No 2 Democrat in the Senate, told Fox News Sunday the White House’s citation of privilege on the documents was the first time that had occurred.

“There has been more concealment of documents that are concerning his public service and his position on issues than ever in the history of the United States,” Durbin said. “If he’s so proud of his conservative credentials, show us the record.”

On ABC’s This Week, the Wisconsin Republican senator Ron Johnson countered by accusing Democrats of playing politics and saying they had been given “more than enough information to understand that this is a highly qualified jurist that should be the next supreme court justice”.

If successful, Kavanaugh’s nomination will tip the nine-member court firmly to the right. The prospect has alarmed liberals but Democratic senators have few options to block it. Klobuchar told NBC she would like to see the 60-vote threshold for supreme court nominees restored, but doubted it would be. Republicans require a simple majority in a chamber they hold, 51-49.

On Fox News Sunday, the South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham said he thought Kavanaugh would be confirmed with the support of some Democrats.