The protests, thought to have been organized by Code Pink, an anti-Trump social activist group, disrupted the Senate confirmation hearings for several minutes, with protesters standing up one by one and shouting, "Cancel Brett Kavanaugh!", "This is a mockery and a travesty of justice," and other slogans.
As of 10:19 a.m., the Washington, D.C. police department said 22 people had been arrested at the hearing and charged with disorderly conduct.
Democrats announced ahead of time that they would protest the confirmation hearings amid charges that the White House was withholding important documents related to Kavanaugh's record. Democratic lawmakers said they wanted to see some 100,000 documents, which were allegedly withheld from them, as well as another 42,000 that had been presented to the Senate committee ahead of the hearing.
President Trump picked Kavanaugh, a conservative Federal Appeals Court judge, to replace retiring moderate liberal justice Anthony Kennedy, on July 9. Legal experts believe that if he is confirmed, Kavanaugh could shift the Supreme Court, and the US legal system, to the right for decades to come.
Serving as a White House secretary during the Bush administration between 2003 and 2006, Kavanaugh was appointed to the US Court of Appeals in Washington in 2006. Before that, he worked with Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr on an investigation into President Bill Clinton's sexual indiscretion and the president's perjury during a sworn deposition.
Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings are expected to last through the remainder of the week.