Senate confirmation hearings have begun on Monday for President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Kentaji Brown Jackson and the Republican party is not going to make it easy for her.
During the hearing, Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee tore into Jackson’s alarming past of going soft on convicted criminals.
“At the start of the pandemic, you advocated, and again I quote, for ‘each and every criminal defendant in the D.C. Department of Corrections custody should be released,’” said Blackburn.
“That would have been 1500 criminals back on the street if you had had your way. And you used the COVID-19 pandemic as justification to release a fentanyl drug dealer, a bank robber addicted to heroin, and a convict who murdered a U.S. Marshal into our communities,” she added.
The Republican went on condemning Jackson for using her “time and talent” to “provide free legal services to help terrorists get out of Gitmo and go back to the fight.”
This comes after Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri revealed last week that Jackson “has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes” and that the judge considered some people possessing child porn as “nonpedophiles.”
“This is a disturbing record for any judge, but especially one nominated to the highest court in the land,” Hawley tweeted. “Protecting the most vulnerable shouldn’t be up for debate. Sending child predators to jail shouldn’t be controversial.”
The senator also found that the judge has “questioned sending dangerous sex offenders to civil commitment,” and that Jackson “advocated” for radical change in how the law treats sex offenders by minimizing their sentences for child pornography
Biden announced Jackson as his Supreme Court nominee earlier this month, fulfilling his campaign promise of having a black woman in the highest court.
“Today, as we watch freedom and liberty under attack abroad, I’m here to fulfill my responsibilities under the Constitution, to preserve freedom and liberty here in the United States of America,” Biden said as he introduced Jackson.
Other Republican candidates might soon hit Jackson’s radical record to take her potential spot in the Supreme Court but Blackburn is currently the standout after Monday’s hearings.
