Orrin Hatch snaps on Democrats for 'stupid, dumba**' partisanship over Supreme Court nominee

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) has had enough of the partisan fighting over Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, and his frustration boiled over during a news conference Thursday, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Hatch and other Republican senators criticized Democrats for their attempts to obstruct the confirmation of Kavanaugh.

"We can't keep going down this partisan, picky, stupid, dumba** road that has happened around here for so long," Hatch said. "I'm tired of partisanship, and frankly, we didn't treat their candidates for these positions the way they're treating ours."

Why is Hatch so angry?

Democrats are requesting that hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel Office under President George W. Bush be reviewed before the confirmation goes forward.

"This unprecedented process appears to be designed intentionally by Republicans to deny the Senate and the American people the information they need to evaluate this critically important nomination," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), according to NBC News.

Republicans have protested that the number of documents is more than the number requested for the previous five Supreme Court nominees combined.

The National Archives said Thursday that the document request won't be fully completed until October, although Republicans plan to move forward with the confirmation process anyway.

What does Hatch think of Kavanaugh?

Hatch spoke favorably about the nominee, calling Kavanaugh a "fine person" and saying Congress should confirm him "if you want a choir boy to be on the court."

Despite Hatch's apparent disgust with partisanship surrounding Kavanaugh's nomination, the longtime senator engaged in some partisanship of his own when former President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

Before Garland's nomination was announced, Hatch called the judge a "fine man" and "consensus nominee" who would be confirmed for sure. He also said he didn't believe Obama would nominate Garland, believing the then-president would choose a more liberal judge.

Once Obama announced the nomination, however, Hatch joined the rest of the Republican Party in refusing to hold confirmation hearings for Garland, saying that the nominee should be chosen after the 2016 election, and not by a president who was on his way out of office.