When you watch incidents like what happened today at the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, it’s easy to see why many Americans are fed up with Congress.  Let’s explain what’s really going on.

Democrats have been trying for weeks to get their hands on documents written by the Supreme Court nominee.  Finally,  just hours before the hearings were to begin on Tuesday, 42,000 documents became available.  But many were labeled “committee confidential,” meaning they couldn’t be released to the public.  Who decided these documents were confidential?  A Republican lawyer who worked for George W. Bush had a big part in it. Hmmm, somethings not right here.

After reading through the documents, Democrats cried foul over why some of the documents were being withheld when they clearly weren’t about national security matters.

So today, Democrats took a stand.

At the risk of expulsion, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker released what was supposed to be a confidential document written by Kavanaugh on racial profiling.  Booker said he was willing to risk his Senate seat in order to make sure the public sees the document saying, “I am going to release the email about racial profiling and I understand that the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate.” The email Booker refers to shows Kavanaugh using the term “naked racial set-aside.” The email has just been released and you can read it in its entirety here.

This came shortly after Booker issued this tweet.

Watch the exchange above.

After Booker made his statements, an extraordinary thing happened. His Democratic colleagues joined him, one after another.

Many of the other Senators are releasing other documents including ones that reference abortion and affirmative action.

The National Archives, which holds many of the documents from Kavanaugh’s time as a White House counsel to George W. Bush, said in August it couldn’t produce all the documents until the end of October.  But Republicans, who control the committee want Kavanaugh on the bench by then. Watch Booker above.