‘Sham process’: Lindsey Graham spars with Senate Democrats as they try to shut down Barrett hearing

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) battled his Democratic colleagues after they called to suspend the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Senate Democrats have accused GOP senators of rushing the federal judge's nomination before President Donald Trump possibly loses the election, and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called to postpone the confirmation hearings until after the ballots are counted.

"I move to indefinitely postpone the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to be an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court," Blumenthal said. 'I believe this rush sham process is that is a disservice to our committee. She has been rushed in a way that is historically unprecedented. There has never been a nomination in an election year after the month of July. The purpose of doing it is simply to have a justice on the Supreme Court, as the president said, to decide the election and a strike down the Affordable Care Act."

Blumenthal said new, possibly damaging, information continues to come out about Barrett that senators did not have time to review, and he called for a halt to the process.

"I move to delay the proceedings so we can do our jobs and ask again for all the documents -- the 2006 open letter, 2013 letter among the documents previously undisclosed," Blumenthal said.

Graham, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, assured Blumenthal that all relevant information would be revealed about the nominee, but the process would not be delayed.

"There is nothing out of the norm in terms of the time we have given this matter," Graham said. "We have had two days of hearings each member had 50 minutes. With all due respect, we will call the roll."

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) then asked to speak.

"I wanted to join in with Sen. Blumenthal," she said. "This is a sham. I heard you talk about president. What you said, Mr. Chairman, and what Sen. McConnell said, where he set the precedent, he said the American people should have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court justice when he was looking back at the Merrick Garland time, this vacancy should not be filled until we had a new president. This is closer in time than that."

She pointed out that the president himself had made clear that Barrett was being rushed onto the court to ensure the election could be decided through lawsuits, and to strike down Obamacare.

"He has made all of this clear," Klobuchar said. "To me, not only do you have your own precedent, not the example of Abraham Lincoln, but you have the fact that because of what this president has been saying, it undermines the process, undermines the court. That is why we should delay."