Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon's suit argues that the lack of access to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's documents effectively deprives senators of their advise-and-consent role. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Kavanaugh Confirmation Judge won't speed Merkley bid for Kavanaugh docs

A federal judge has rejected a Democratic senator's bid to force disclosure of more details about Brett Kavanaugh's work before the Senate votes on his nomination to the Supreme Court.

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon asked a federal court to order disclosure of a log of more than 100,000 pages of Kavanaugh records from President George W. Bush's White House that were not turned over to the Senate. Merkley also demanded broader access to records a Bush representative gave to the Senate on a "committee confidential" basis.


The Oregon senator filed suit over the issue on Sept. 26 and stepped up his effort early Wednesday with a motion asking the court to accelerate a hearing set for Tuesday on a temporary restraining order he requested.

But U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson slapped down that request Friday, saying that the claims of urgency relating to the looming votes were misplaced. She also suggested that Merkley acted too slowly in bringing the matter to her.

"The Court notes that the schedule of events related to the confirmation process described in the motion to expedite is not, as stated in the motion, a change of circumstances or a set of 'new facts' that 'have arisen since the scheduling conference;' the parties specifically informed the Court during the scheduling conference that the cloture vote was likely to take place on Friday and the vote as early as Saturday," Jackson wrote in an order released around noon Friday, just after the Senate voted to end debate on Kavanaugh's nomination.

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"While the complaint raises many questions related to the schedule established by [Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley] and the motion for a TRO questions the existence of any urgency requiring a vote while the processing of other Senators' Freedom of Information Act requests for potentially relevant records is ongoing, the motion does not seek any relief, if any could be granted by the Court, related to the schedule of events in the Senate," added Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama.

Jackson not only turned down Merkley's request to accelerate the hearing set for Tuesday; she canceled it altogether, although she left open the possibility he may eventually get the order he is seeking.

Merkley's suit argues that the lack of access to Kavanaugh's documents effectively deprives senators of their advise-and-consent role.

Senate Republicans have argued that there is ample evidence about Kavanaugh's time as an attorney in the White House counsel's office under Bush and that the volume of records provided to the Senate exceeds that of any prior Supreme Court nominee.

