Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson continued to dodge questions Wednesday from Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) about why she had given lighter sentences than those prosecutors had recommended in child pornography cases.
The questions Judge Jackson’s sentencing record continued on the third day of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing. Democrats, who had tried to dismiss Hawley’s claims as factually incorrect, retreated to arguing that Judge Jackson had legitimate policy disagreements with the established federal sentencing guidelines, and blamed congressional inaction.
Republicans were not willing to let Judge Jackson off the hook. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) questioned Judge Jackson about why she seemed not to agree that prison was a deterrent against child pornography.
Cruz, who first questioned the nominee about her views on gender and racial discrimination, ran out of time as he attempted to elicit explanations, and he objected that Judge Jackson was filibustering in an attempt to avoid answering his questions. He and Senate Judiciary Committee chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) engaged in tense exchanges, as Durbin accused Cruz of interrupting her answers.
Later, Sen. Hawley, with a full 20 minutes on the clock, picked up where Sen. Cruz had left off, and asked Judge Jackson about her decision to issue lenient sentences in specific cases. Jackson refused to answer, saying she had already answered Hawley’s question. She also repeatedly claimed that “no one case can stand for” her entire judicial record, and said that as a mother of daughters, and as someone with family members in law enforcement, she took child pornography cases seriously.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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