Police detain scores of anti-Kavanaugh protesters occupying senate building

The FBI has completed its report into Donald Trump's nominee

Police have arrested dozens of protesters after hundreds occupied a senate building to urge politicians not to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Reports said police began removing as many as 300 protesters who filled an atrium in the senate’s Hart building. They had first protested outside the Supreme Court after matching from the federal appeals’ court where Mr Kavanaugh has spent the last 12 years.

“I believe that the federal government is not addressing the sexual assault epidemic that has been allowed to happen,” a 21-year-old protester from California, who asked not to be identified, told The Independent.

The FBI completed its background check on Mr Kavanaugh - its seventh in total – late on Wednesday and passed a copy to the White House. On Thursday morning senators from both parties were reading the report in a private room in the senate, used for the handling of classified material. The report was ordered after Mr Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault or misconduct by at least three women.

The protesters made their way from the appeals’ court in Washington DC where Mr Kavanaugh has served to Capitol Hill.

CNN said that as protesters made their way to the court, they handed out posters of an artist’s rendition of a young woman confronting senator Jeff Flake in an elevator in the senate last week after it was announced the Republican senator planned to vote in favour of Mr Kavanaugh.

The incident is thought to have been one of the reasons, Mr Flake announced his support for Mr Kavanaugh was dependent on an additional background check.

Samantha Dercher said she is participating in the protest “because the future of our country depends on it”.

“Kavanaugh is uniquely unfit to serve on our nation’s court. His temperament and partisanship during his hearing alone should be enough to disqualify him from consideration,” she told the network.

“A man who has been credibly accused of sexual assault has no place making decisions on women’s bodies for generations to come.”

Inside a senate building Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was confronted by a group of protesters outside an elevator. He told them to “grow up”.

“Why aren’t you brave enough to talk to us and exchange with us?” one of the protesters asked Mr Hatch.