he was once an assistant to the nominee. i am told that he is not only attorney for george w. bush, but also for the white house counsel mr. mcgann, mr. reince priebus, the former chief of staff, and steve bannon, a man who i couldn t characterize in a few words. but he is his personal attorney. in this situation, he is now the litmus test. he is the filter to decide what the american people will see about this nominee. that is why we bring this issue before you. lest you think we are harping on a trifle, we are talking about whether the american people have the right to know. we now know that less than 10% of documents reflecting the public career of mr. kavanagh have been made available to this committee. i just want to say to my colleagues, particularly my colleague in new jersey, i completely agree with you. i concur with what you are doing, and let s jump into this
which documents we can discuss open and publicly, and which ones we cannot. who is this man? by what authority could he possibly be denying to the american people information about a man who is seeking a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land? the national archives is usually the starting point of this process. i put in the record yesterday a statement from the national archives disavowing this whole process, saying this is not the way we have done this in the past. we usually initiate this. please give us a few weeks to do this in an orderly way. but the decision was made by the white house and the administration not to go down that path. not to take the same course we have on previous nominees. instead, to allow it to this gentleman, bill burkitt, a private attorney, the authority to decide what the american people can see about the background of brett kavanaugh in other capacities. who is bill burkett? all that i know of him is that