Ketanji Brown Jackson: GOP Senator Urges Scrutiny Into Biden's SCOTUS Pick Over Child Porn Rulings

18:50 GMT, 20 March 2022

© REUTERS / EVELYN HOCKSTEIN

Daria Bedenko

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been nominated by the Biden administration to become the first black woman on the Supreme Court bench. However, some Republican lawmakers have raised concerns regarding her record on sentencing sex offenders.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley urged the US Sentencing Commission to release records of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson related to her tenure there, as concerns are on the rise in the GOP that Jackson - a nominee for the US Supreme Court - was too soft when it came to sentencing child sex offenders.

"Judge Jackson’s history of sentencing below guidelines, particularly in cases involving child exploitation, raises legitimate questions about her views on penalties for these crimes", Grassley said on Saturday, cited by Fox News.

The senator noted that the records are being withheld because "somebody somewhere doesn’t want us to see that information". The request for Jackson's Sentencing Commission records was made on 10 March, and Grassley noted at the time that it "falls squarely within the committee’s normal practices", calling for a "thorough review" of her records.

The call for the Sentencing Commission to release Jackson's documents was made before the GOP became increasingly concerned about her record on child porn offenders. The first one to raise the issue was Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who rolled out an extensive Twitter thread claiming that Jackson "has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker".

He referred to outtakes from Jackson's hearings and examples of her sentences in several child sex offender cases.

"In every single child porn case for which we can find records, Judge Jackson deviated from the federal sentencing guidelines in favour of child porn offenders", Hawley claimed, citing cases such as United States v. Hawkins, United States v. Stewart, United States v. Cooper, United States v. Chazin, and United States v. Downs. According to him, in every case, Jackson went for the minimum sentence or even ruled for a lower sentence than required by law.

The senator's Twitter thread sparked buzz among conservatives, with many calling for a deeper look into Jackson's record and demanding "clear answers" from her ahead of the Supreme Court confirmation hearing scheduled for next week.

However, Hawley's research was dismissed by the White House, with Press Secretary Jen Psaki calling his claims "a last-ditch, eve-of-hearing desperation attack on her record on sentencing in sexual offense cases". White House spokesperson Andrew Bates in a Saturday statement to Fox News Digital took a dig at both Hawley and Grassley.

"Josh Hawley’s desperate conspiracy theory has been conclusively debunked by multiple fact checks in the press, including the Washington Post, the AP and CNN", he said. "What’s more, Senator Grassley - in addition to every other Senate Republican - voted to confirm one of the Republican signers of the same unanimous, bipartisan sentencing commission report when Donald Trump nominated her in 2017".

Several media outlets have rolled out fact-checks on Hawley's claims, saying that his concerns are based on statements by Jackson that were taken out of context. For example, according to a fact-check by The Washington Post, some of the quotes that Hawley said were Jackson's personal opinions turned out to be her repeating statements made by witnesses. Additionally, the outlet said that Hawley had made it look like Jackson's push for "drastic change in how the law treats sex offenders by eliminating the existing mandatory minimum sentences for child porn" was her own initiative - while in fact, the recommendations the GOP Senator criticised were bipartisan and unanimous.

Hawley was quick to respond to the outlet. According to the WaPo, he took to Twitter to debunk its fact-check before it was even published.

"Judge Jackson has yet to address her alarming record on child porn offenders. But rather than ask her questions, the Washington Post is regurgitating White House talking points. Their “fact check” questions & my answers below. Now go ask the person nominated for the Supreme Court", he tweeted, attaching screenshots of the outlet's questions and his answers.

Screenshot

© Photo : Twitter / @HawleyMO

Screenshot

© Photo : Twitter / @HawleyMO

The request for additional records of Jackson was dismissed by the White House's spokesperson, with Andrew Bates saying that her work at the Sentencing Commission "is almost entirely in the public record, and Judge Jackson has already provided thousands of documents on top of that".

Still, Jackson's record regarding child porn offenders continues to trouble Republicans. On Sunday, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse told Fox News that there are parts of Jackson's record "that are troubling".

"Supreme Court justices get lifetime tenure, and before that happens, there needs to be a vigorous, rigorous vetting of their records, and there are things in Judge Jackson's record that are troubling", Sasse said during his appearance on Fox News Sunday.

President Biden's Supreme Court nominee has not commented on the allegations. Her confirmation hearing is to begin on Monday. The American Bar Association has unanimously rated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as “Well Qualified”, which is the highest possible rating.

US Supreme Court Ketanji Brown Jackson sex offenders