WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmation hearing for President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh launched with chaotic scenes Tuesday morning as Democrats pushed to adjourn, and protesters repeatedly interrupted the proceedings.

The complaints from Democrats on the panel and protester fireworks that lasted through the hearing's first hour followed the late-night release of tens of thousands of documents related to Kavanaugh's time in the George W. Bush White House.

“The committee received just last night, less than 15 hours ago, 42,000 pages of documents that we have not had an opportunity to read, review or analyze,” Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., said moments after the hearing opened. “We cannot possibly move forward with this hearing.”

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Sen. Amy Klobluchar, D-Minn., chimed in, agreeing with Harris and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., then added, “Mr. Chairman, if we cannot be recognized, I move to adjourn...we had been denied real access to the real documents we need” and also said that Republicans have turned the hearing into a “mockery.”

Other Democrats began to add to the chorus of concerns, interrupting Grassley. “What are we trying to hide? Why are we rushing?” asked Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

"This process will be tainted and stained forever" if the proceedings are not delayed, said Blumenthal. Grassley eventually denied Blumenthal's repeated request for a roll call vote to adjourn the hearing.

As the Democratic pushback stretched into the hearing's second hour, Grassley expressed mounting frustration. "Do you want to go on all afternoon?" he asked the panel's Democrats.

Grassley attempted to defend the majority's decision to withhold Kavanaugh documents by arguing that most senators wouldn't agree to turn over their staff's communications and that the Senate didn't request certain records during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Democrats quickly countered that those hearings had not involved any need to examine documents from the nominees' tenure in a sensitive White House post.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in his opening statement, said that the hearing is "not about the qualifications of the nominee," or about documents, because Kavanaugh is "unquestionably qualified" and has produced a voluminous number of pages in response to the panel's questionnaire.

The Texas senator, up for re-election in November, then accused Democrats of trying to relitigate the 2016 presidential election through Kavanaugh's confirmation process.

As lawmakers pushed back on the panel, protesters in the hearing room interrupted the proceedings more than half a dozen times, with at least 22 arrested soon after the hearing began, according to Capitol Police. "Please vote no! Please vote no!" yelled one as they were escorted from the room.

"What we've heard is the noise of democracy," Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said of the ongoing protests in his opening statement, adding that Kavanaugh was chosen by a president who is "contemptuous of the rule of law."

A person familiar with the planning for the panel's Democrats said lawmakers agreed to their strategy, which included universal calls for adjournment, on Tuesday morning. A second source familiar with the planning said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., led a call over the holiday weekend to talk through the strategy.

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Democrats have expressed outrage about the rushed process and lack of documents, contrasting the speed of the process with the delay faced by Obama high court nominee Merrick Garland.

Kavanaugh participated in at least a half dozen mock sessions, which included mock protestors, according to a White House official. They tried to prepare him for all sorts of interruptions, but it’s unlikely anyone could have anticipated this.

White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah dismissed the complaints. "By my count, in the opening 30 mins and this Democrat tantrum, well over a dozen references to documents, and ZERO references to Judge #Kavanaugh cases, votes or record as a judge for the past 12 years. #SCOTUS," he tweeted.

The hearing on Tuesday was originally planned to feature only opening statements by members of the committee and Kavanaugh himself.

In her opening statement, Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said that while Kavanaugh has reportedly described the 1973 Supreme Court landmark Roe v. Wade ruling as "settled law," she said that that "the question is really: do you believe that it's correct law?"

Feinstein also expressed concern that that Kavanaugh concluded in a D.C. circuit court case that banning assault weapons is unconstitutional because she said that Kavanaugh argued that those firearms have not been historically banned.

"You will likely be the deciding vote on fundamental issues," Feinstein said.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, assured Kavanaugh that he will be confirmed by the Senate and he slammed Democrats who he said have painted the nominee as "one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse."

"A good judge must be an umpire — a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy..." Kavanaugh was expected to say, according to excerpts of his opening statement released Tuesday morning. "I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences."

The statement was to include praise for Merrick Garland, the Obama high court nominee whom Republicans did not grant a Senate hearing, with Kavanaugh calling him a "superb chief judge" and, along with the rest of the judges he serves with "a colleague and a friend."

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Kavanaugh, 53, a federal appeals court judge based in Washington, was expected to face questions about whether he would overturn longstanding precedents, including the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision on abortion rights, Roe v. Wade. Democrats are also expected to grill Kavanaugh on his stance on executive power, his experience working with Clinton special prosecutor Ken Starr, and his time serving as White House staff secretary to President George W. Bush.

Senate Democrats had called for a delay in Kavanaugh's confirmation last month when Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to campaign finance violation and fraud charges, and when the president declined to rule out a pardon for Paul Manafort following the former Trump campaign manager's conviction on tax fraud and other felony charges.

They expressed concern about Kavanaugh's comments about executive power — which recently included the view that that a 1978 ruling that created a system for independent counsels to investigate government officials for federal crimes should be overturned — because they said he could help protect the president on several fronts, particularly the Russia investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh in early July, not long after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who had been considered the swing vote, announced his retirement. On Friday, the Trump administration announced that the White House pushed for the withholding of 100,000 documents from Kavanaugh’s White House record from Congress.

“We’re witnessing a Friday night document massacre. President Trump’s decision to step in at the last moment and hide 100,000 pages of Judge Kavanaugh’s records from the American public is not only unprecedented in the history of Supreme Court nominations, it has all the makings of a cover up,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement on Friday.

Then, late Monday night, former President George W. Bush's lawyer turned over 42,000 pages of documents from the nominee's White House service, sparking an angry response from Schumer, who called yet again for a delay.

“Not a single senator will be able to review these records before tomorrow,” he tweeted. The majority staff tweeted overnight that they had completed their review of all the documents.

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The Judiciary Committee has 430,000 documents on a confidential basis, which have been reviewed by the staff of the committee's chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Of that batch, 287,000 have been made public, with Democrats expressing concern that documents relating to Kavanaugh’s job as Bush’s staff secretary were not being handed over to lawmakers. The panel has asked that the National Archives produce presidential records from Kavanaugh’s service as an executive branch lawyer and when he worked for Starr. Bush is also providing records on an expedited basis.

The next two days will bring several rounds of question-and-answer exchanges between senators and Kavanaugh, with the final day expected to focus on panels of legal experts who have been invited by both the majority and minority. The witnesses invited by Democrats include John Dean, President Richard M. Nixon’s White House counsel, who’s expected to discuss the abuse of executive power.

Senate Republicans are aiming to confirm Kavanaugh by the end of September, in time for the start of the Supreme Court’s next term in October. If every Democrat votes against him, Republicans can’t afford a single defection, especially now after the death of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. The red state Democrats up for re-election in November will be key in determining Kavanaugh's confirmation.