Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) has filed suit against Donald Trump, as well as, among others, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the National Archives, and the Bush operative who is screening Kavanaugh’s records, Bill Burck, in federal court in D.C.
Merkley’s alleging that the White House has interfered with senators’ role in confirmation by withholding documents. It’s a separation of powers violation, he argues, in that the executive branch is keeping the legislature from its constitutionally mandated responsibility to provide “advice and consent.”
Senator Merkley has been injured by being prevented from performing the constitutional duty that he swore to perform when he took the oath of office. This case arises from the direct and substantial interference by President Trump and other agents of the executive branch in the ability of the Senate to examine the record and evaluate the fitness of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the President’s nominee for a lifetime appointment as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.