Actress Piper Perabo Arrested Protesting Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court Confirmation Hearing

Actress Piper Perabo was among the protesters arrested on Tuesday at the confirmation hearing for prospective Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

By all accounts, it was a tense scene on Tuesday, as the Senate Judiciary Committee met with Kavanaugh to begin his confirmation hearing. There is a lot of opposition to Kavanaugh, who is President Donald Trump’s pick for the office and a staunch conservative. Perabo retweeted a video of herself embodying that opposition on Tuesday, as she was dragged out of court by several bailiffs.

“Please vote no! Please vote no!” shouted Perabo and several other protesters on the scene. All those arrested were women.

“I was just arrested for civil disobedience in the Kavanaugh hearings,” Perabo wrote. “Many citizens before me have fought for the equal rights of women. I can’t be silent when someone is nominated to the Supreme Court who would take our equal rights away.”

The video came from a tweet by Frank Thorp V,a producer for NBC News. In subsequent posts, Thorp showed other protesters coming and going from the hearing, reporting that they consistently interrupted the proceedings. At least 22 people have been arrested so far, and Thorp posted a picture of rows of empty seats.

If that were not enough, more protesters waited outside of the hearing dressed in Handmaid’s Tale costumes. They were playing off of one of the main fears surrounding Kavanaugh — that he might reverse the decision of Roe v Wade and set reproductive rights back by decades.

In addition to that, many protesters feel that President Trump should not be allowed to nominate a Supreme Court Justice while he is under a criminal investigation. Indictments continue to rain down on those suspected of helping to meddle with the 2016 presidential election, and the president has also been implicated in serious violations of campaign finance laws.

Kavanaugh’s opponents are also taking into consideration the treatment of President Obama‘s Supreme Court nominee. He nominated Garland to take over for Justince Antonin Scalia after his death. However, the Republicam majority in the Senate refused to hold a hearing for Garland, stalling until the end of the presidency so that President Trump could nominate Neil Gorsuch.

At the time, the Senate’s refusal to vote was unprecedented, though now many believe it should be done again in this case. However, when Democratic senators tried to raise objections at Kavanaugh’s hearing on Tuesday morning, asking for it to be postponed, Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley merely spoke over them, ignoring their comments entirely.