Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) released formerly confidential emails from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh about racial profiling and racial discrimination at the start of the third day of confirmation hearings on Thursday, around an hour after threatening to do so.

The dramatic move appeared to defy Republicans who had shielded the documents from public view, and it seemed to risk breaking Senate rules. Senate Judiciary Committee staffers for Republican and Democratic officials told The Washington Post , however, that the committee cleared the documents for public viewing before either senator posted them to their websites.

The precise timing is not yet clear.

A spokesman for Bill Burck, the Republican lawyer overseeing the approvals, also told the publication that the emails Booker released were cleared last night.

Booker responded to Burck's statement by saying he hadn't been informed of the release.

"They did not tell me when I read the documents last night, on the record, that," he said. "They were not cleared from committee confidential."

A spokesman for Booker said in a statement that the senator and unnamed Democratic colleagues were able to shame the committee into releasing the documents.

Yet a spokeswoman for Hirono told HuffPost the senator did not ask the committee to release the emails that she made public around 10:30 a.m. before she published them online. Hirono did not know they would be cleared for public release, the spokeswoman said.

Booker was the first to threaten to make the documents public, saying he would knowingly violate the rules and accept any punishment for his action, which he considered to be civil disobedience. Booker said the emails, taken from Kavanaughs time in the Bush White House, do not pose a threat to national security.