Booker wants Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings halted

Sen. Cory Booker is calling for the ethics hearings surrounding Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh to be halted.
The New Jersey senator says that more time will help the Senate and the public vet records released last week containing some of Kavanaugh’s emails.
Booker was joined by some other New Jersey leaders at the Mount Zion AME Church in New Brunswick Monday.
The senator was accused of political grandstanding when he publicly released the documents he said where confidential to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Republicans say that they approved the releasing of these documents the night before.
“If I have to go before ethics charges so be it. If they try to expel me from the Senate, so be it,” Booker says.
Kavanaugh is a U.S. Appeals Court judge and a former White House staff secretary under President George W. Bush. Booker says that he wants to see documents related to Kavanaugh’s tenure there.
“I want to know when they were trying to put a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.  I want to know what he said about gay and lesbian and bisexual and transgender Americans,” Booker says.
Booker chose the Mount Zion AME Church because it is the oldest African American church in Middlesex County. Those who joined him Monday say that they are concerned about Kavanaugh’s record on civil rights.
“Nothing about this nomination is ordinary and nothing about this confirmation is ordinary,” says Marcus Allen Sibley with the NAACP.
One of the released Kavanaugh emails appears to show Kavanaugh finding racial profiling acceptable. It was about policing in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. 
Supporters of Kavanaugh, including think tank Americans for Prosperity, say he will be a loyal interpreter of the Constitution, and that the court will not legislate from the bench on issues like abortion. Supporters say that this is Congress’s responsibility.
But Booker says that the hearings need to be halted.
“We have only seen about 10 percent of his relevant work product. Imagine this, the public has a right to know who we're putting on the Supreme Court. The public has a right to know what he stands for,” says Booker.
Senate Republicans have praised Kavanaugh’s conduct during the hearings. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted that the nominee's "judicial temperament and brilliance were on full display.