Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump's conservative nominee for the US supreme court, faced sharp questions on Capitol Hill on some of the hottest issues raging in American society – abortion, gun rights and presidential power – during the second day of his dramatic confirmation hearing.
Wednesday was a little calmer, after the opening day on Tuesday quickly became a cacophony of yelling protesters incensed at the choice of Mr Kavanaugh and repeated interruptions by Democrat senators angry at the late disclosure of documents by the White House about the judge's track record.
But demonstrations continued inside the US Senate building where Mr Kavanaugh was being quizzed on Wednesday, with occasional outbursts from protesters, such as: “Sham president, sham justice!” and “No Trump puppet!”
As members of congress weighed his suitability for America’s top judicial bench Mr Kavanaugh said he understood “the significance” of Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 supreme court decision that legalised abortion in the US. But he stopped short of saying how he would rule if the court was asked to revisit the law.
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He also successfully dodged the question of whether a president must respond to a subpoena – neatly sidestepping an intensely contested topic against the backdrop of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.
The wide-ranging testimony underscored the potential for Mr Kavanaugh’s nomination to shape the supreme court and the decisions before it for decades to come.
Mr Kavanaugh, a federal appeals judge, was nominated by Mr Trump in July to replace the retiring justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been a critical swing vote on the nine-member bench.
Mr Kennedy had a track record of siding with the more liberal justices on the bench on some decisions, the more conservative wing on others. Mr Kavanaugh is expected to push the court to the right.
On Wednesday, members of the senate committee were granted up to 30 minutes each to grill Mr Kavanaugh on a variety of subjects.
Chief among them was his views on abortion amid concerns that Mr Kavanaugh’s confirmation will all but ensure an end to legal abortion across the US, long a goal of ultra-conservatives.
But in the hearing Mr Kavanaugh largely danced around the issue by reciting the facts of the case without disclosing his own legal view.
“I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v Wade,” he said. “It has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years.”
Asked directly by Dianne Feinstein, the Democrat senator from California, for his position on a woman’s right to choose, Mr Kavanaugh again cited legal precedent, while adding: “I understand how passionately and deeply people feel about the issue. I don’t live in a bubble. I live in the real world.”
Mr Kavanaugh’s comments will do little to pacify sceptics, who have cited his opposition to a court ruling last year that an undocumented immigrant teenager who was in government custody was entitled to seek an abortion.
Weighing in via Twitter, Hillary Clinton urged her followers to join the pressure campaign against Mr Kavanaugh by calling their senators.
“If Brett Kavanaugh becomes a supreme court justice, will he help gut or overturn Roe v Wade, which legalized abortion in America? Yes, of course he will,” the former presidential nominee tweeted.
In another consequential exchange, Mr Kavanaugh would not say if a president was legally obligated to comply with a subpoena. “I can’t give you an answer on that hypothetical question,” he said.
The question, posed by Ms Feinstein, was an unmistakable reference to the legal challenges facing Mr Trump. The president’s repeated efforts to undermine the Russia investigation – and threats to dismiss the special counsel – have amplified the potential for the matter to eventually reach the courts.
Mr Kavanaugh also described US v Nixon, the supreme court ruling that ordered then president Richard Nixon to turn over secret White House recordings toward the end of the Watergate investigation, as “one of the greatest moments in American judicial history”. He had previously signalled it may have been wrongly decided.
Democrats have raised concerns that if the special counsel investigation were to make its way to the supreme court, Mr Kavanaugh could not be impartial toward the president who appointed him.
The Republicans have a razor-thin majority in the senate but are nevertheless expected to have the votes to confirm Mr Kavanaugh before the midterm elections in November. – Guardian Service