Citing the refusal of Republicans to obtain every memo Judge Brett Kavanaugh has ever written, and the late release of 150,000 documents, Joe Scarborough on Tuesday morning urged Democrats to boycott the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing set for Tuesday: “I don’t understand why the Democrats are even showing up.” He later fretted that he doesn’t understand the “lack of fight” from the Democrats, charging: “This process is illegitimate.”
MSNBC analyst Steve Schmidt declared “the seat, by definition, is illegitimate because Merrick Garland was not afforded the confirmation hearings,” adding “not to mention since he was nominated with the Michael Cohen indictment, essentially what we have is the president of the United States criminally is an unindicted co-conspirator here.”
Three quotes from the Tuesday, September 4 Morning Joe:
Joe Scarborough: “I don’t understand why the Democrats are even showing up. They have been talking about this lack of transparency from the very beginning. If I were on the committee. One of the most important things that came before my committee in my career, which is this Kavanaugh appointment, which could fundamentally alter the balance of the Supreme Court for the next generation, and the Republicans refuse to be transparent about it, I would certainly recommend everybody around me not show up for the hearing.”
Steve Schmidt: “The seat, by definition, is illegitimate because Merrick Garland was not afforded the confirmation hearings that he was entitled to have in a legitimate appointment by the president of the United States who was re-elected with a majority of the vote in 2012. And so when we look at this hearing, not to mention since he was nominated with the Michael Cohen indictment, essentially what we have is the president of the United States criminally is an unindicted co-conspirator here. And so the legitimacy of this seat is fundamentally in question.”
Scarborough: “I do not understand what these Democrats are thinking. I don’t understand their lack of fight, I don’t understand how they allow an illegitimate -- this process is illegitimate. It started illegitimately. As you said, with Merrick Garland. And now Matt Miller, the Republicans have basically hidden about 150,000 documents from Democrats that they have been begging for over the past several weeks. No judge in America would allow an opposing side to dump 150,000 documents on another party in a lawsuit the day before hearings started or a trial is started. Again, I’m completely baffled. Why do Democrats -- why are they even showing up? They should not show up.”