2 years ago
Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin and the Biden White House on Thursday derided a new GOP attack on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, centered on her handling of sex offenders.
“I don’t believe in it being taken seriously,” Durbin said in an interview about the charges leveled by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “I’m troubled by it because it’s so outrageous. It really tests the committee as to whether we’re going to be respectful in the way we treat this nominee.”
Durbin's response — plus a heated reply from the White House — comes after Hawley, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, questioned Jackson’s record on the U.S. Sentencing Commission and as a district court judge in a series of tweets Wednesday, going so far as to say “her record endangers children.” Hawley’s tweets offers a potential preview of Republicans’ questions next week, when Jackson’s confirmation hearings are scheduled to take place.
The Judiciary Committee chief defended Jackson’s record, noting that the panel approved her nomination three times with a bipartisan vote. He added that the cases Hawley highlighted were decided unanimously by the U.S. Sentencing Commission and suggested the Missouri Republican took the statements out of context.
“It isn’t as if she was an outlier in any respect, and the commission is balanced between Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals,” Durbin said. “She went along with the overwhelming majority of federal judges asking for this and the unanimous decision of the commission. And Hawley now thinks he’s discovered something.”
Meanwhile, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates described Hawley’s tweets as “toxic and weakly-presented misinformation that relies on taking cherry-picked elements of her record out of context — and it buckles under the lightest scrutiny.” He also noted Jackson is “a proud mother of two whose nomination has been endorsed by leading law enforcement organizations, conservative judges, and survivors of crime.”
Hawley alleged that, in a series of criminal cases that came before Jackson during her eight years on the district court in Washington, she sentenced child pornography offenders to prison sentences below what federal sentencing guidelines recommended. For more than a decade, criminal justice reform advocates and many federal judges have complained publicly that — in part due to advances in technology — those guidelines are too harsh in cases involving only receipt or sharing of child pornography materials.
Democrats widely view Jackson’s record as a public defender and her time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission as a selling point for her nomination, arguing that she brings a much-needed perspective to the high court. Republicans, however, are already signaling they’ll make her time as a public defender and on the commission a key focus in their line of questioning. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, is also pushing for additional documents about Jackson’s time on the Commission.
Bates signaled that in the “overwhelming majority of [Jackson’s] cases involving child sex crimes, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. Probation recommended.”
Hawley shot back in a Thursday tweet that Bates' answers were "juvenile histrionics" and lacking "substantive answers for the judicial record of a person they nominated."
In addition, Republicans are also indicating they plan to ask Jackson about her representation of Guantanamo detainees as a public defender, as well as briefs she filed in private practice against former President George W. Bush’s detention policies.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview with conservative talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt that Jackson is “highly likely” to be confirmed. But he also suggested in his floor remarks Thursday that her record as a public defender will be a significant focal point.
“Her supporters look at her resume and deduce a special empathy for criminals,” McConnell said.
Durbin said Thursday that Jackson is anticipating those types of questions and criticisms.
“She’ll be prepared, I’m sure she is already,” he said. “But she will not be surprised.”
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