The Brett Kavanaugh Senate confirmation hearings began yesterday. The hearings are a constitutionally mandated procedure required for nominees to be confirmed into the supreme court.

The Trump Republican Presidency made a pick of Kavanaugh because of his conservative views, with several opponents qualifying the nominee’s positions as extremist conservatism.

During the first day of the hearings, the Senate Democrats requested that the proceedings be suspended until Kavanaugh’s 6 million documents from his time in the George Bush White House as counsel be released. Common Dreams has the story here.

It appears only a fraction of the documents have been released according to the release from the Sierra Club. This is a particularly worrying situation as the required documents are vital for scrutinizing the nominee.

CNN Youtube Channel has a 14 minutes video of how contentious the issue was for the Senate Democrats and for protesters, while the importance of releasing these documents appeared anathema to Republicans.

Proceeding with the hearings and a possibly confirming Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court without the full release of these documents to the public will be a disregard for democracy and, as a protester put it, “a travesty of justice”.