Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats opened the last day of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing by making “committee confidential” documents their hill to die on, but then Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) challenged them to make public their own emails on the nominee.

None of the Democrats took Tillis up on his challenge.

But Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) — reveling in his self-proclaimed “Spartacus moment” — chose to violate Senate rules by making public documents concerning a 2002 internal White House policy discussion that included comments on racial profiling.

“I am going to release the e-mail about racial profiling, and I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate,” Booker announced. He then tweeted 12 pages of emails marked “committee confidential.”

Subsequently, Fox News’ Shannon Bream reported that the documents in question had been released at 4:00 AM Thursday and committee members, including Booker, had been informed of the release.

Cornyn confirmed the Fox report shortly thereafter, leaving Booker’s stunt with all the appearances of a political grandstand with an eye on the 2020 presidential primaries.

Booker’s actions prompted a bitter exchange with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who appealed to the New Jersey Democrat to reconsider, citing the Senate rule:

“Any senator, officer or employee of the Senate who shall disclose the secret or confidential business or proceedings of the Senate, including the business and proceedings of the committees, subcommittees and offices of the Senate shall be liable, if a senator, to suffer expulsion from the body; and if an officer or employee, to dismissal from the service of the Senate, and to punishment for contempt.”

Booker, who had framed his action as “civil disobedience,” then invited Cornyn to “bring it.”

Other Democrats on the panel supported Booker, with Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) declaring, “If there is going to be some retribution against the senator from New Jersey, count me in.”

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That’s when Tillis stepped up with his challenge.

“Now what I would like to do is ask all of my members, that perhaps we can demonstrate to the American people that we’re prepared to expose our own records,” Tillis said. “I would like to suggest for the purposes of the SCOTUS nomination, that all of us waive any right to the speech and debate clause, and we make all of our emails records related to the SCOTUS nomination public on an immediate basis.”

Tillis vowed that he is “ready to sign up for it now” and encouraged “all my other members will do the same thing because in the interest of transparency, certainly, it would make sense for any one of us, regardless of what we want to do in the future, to expose that information to the American people.”

None of the Democrats offered agreement with Tillis.

Democrats have demanded since before the hearing convened Tuesday the release of an estimated 1 million documents from Kavanaugh’s tenure working in the White House for President George W. Bush. The documents have been withheld variously for reasons of national security and executive privilege.

But, beginning Tuesday with their demands to delay or adjourn the hearing to allow further document requests and reviews, throughout the second day and then from Thursday’s opening gavel, Democrats have all but declared the Kavanaugh nomination — and presumably also his expected confirmation — to be illegitimate.

Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) began the hearing’s third day by scolding Democrats for their incessant records requests.

“I heard some of my colleagues, as I get into some of the business of this committee, complain yesterday about publicly releasing committee confidential documents,” Grassley said. “But anyone who didn’t get documents released to us during the hearing, I have to say, as I’ve tried to cooperate and make everything available that they wanted, they only have themselves to blame if they didn’t get the documents they wanted.”

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Grassley specifically called out Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

“Then yesterday, and I think we have accommodated these senators, but Sens. Leahy, Coons, Blumenthal and Booker, asked that I obtain the public release of certain confidential documents,” Grassley said.

“And I’ve attempted to do so despite the untimely request. These senators could have made the same request last week, but maybe that would have deprived them of more talk that they’ve been express about my hiding documents,” Grassley said.

Booker later responded by arguing that the process has been absurd and a sham. He argued Republicans use the committee confidential process to hold back documents while not allowing sufficient time to read those that are released.

“The senator from New Jersey blamed it on the fact that the email was labeled committee confidential. Well, there was nothing preventing any senator from asking me before the hearing to get this document publicly released.”

“Sen. Cornyn actually brings up a really good point. I knowingly violated the rules put forth. And I’m told the committee confidential rules have no consequences,” Booker declared.

Booker complained about the committee confidential document process when asking questions during the hearing yesterday. He pointed out a redacted email that the nominee couldn’t see and began asking him questions about it. Grassley used the example in his opening statements when condemning the protest.

“With respect to Sen. Booker’s question to Judge Kavanaugh, my friend from New Jersey asked the nominee some questions regarding an email exchange from over 15 years ago without showing the nominee the email in question. And then you know what happened,” Grassley said.

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“The senator from New Jersey blamed it on the fact that the email was labeled committee confidential. Well, there was nothing preventing any senator from asking me before the hearing to get this document publicly released,” Grassley said.

Grassley also walked through the process members were supposed to go through if they wanted to have confidential documents released publicly. He sent a letter asking for specific documents with redactions that members would like to use in the hearing August 22. He has worked with the former administration to secure their release, including lawyers at the Department of Justice.

“Sen. [Amy] Klobuchar [D-Minn.] was the only senator to request the release of specific documents,” Grassley said. “And we secured their release. And as she told me yesterday, she gets an A for her cooperation, she does get an A for her cooperation. Every senator that has complained about this process need to only look at Sen. Klobuchar to see that my process was fair and would have resulted in the release of documents before the hearing if they only asked me.”

Grassley has said throughout the hearing that Kavanaugh submitted the most robust bipartisan committee questionnaire ever by a judicial nominee, at roughly 17,000 pages. He also argues that the committee has received a record number of documents with 200,000 pages of executive branch materials already being made public.