Supreme Court: Republicans grill Ketanji Brown Jackson as Trump Jr attacks on Twitter

Follow the latest updates live

Watch live as Senate Judiciary Committee begin hearing on Biden's Supreme Court nominee

Ketanji Brown Jackson, Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the first of her confirmation hearings. The first Black woman to be nominated to the court, she will if confirmed replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.

With the Democrats in control of the Senate and the court now heavily tilted in conservatives’ favour, Ms Brown Jackson – currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia – is expected to be confirmed barring some unforseen event.

However, some Republicans have lately begun attacking her for her past work as a public defender, focusing in particular on her work defending sexual offenders. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, yesterday questioned her aggressively about supposedly lenient sentences she handed down to certain child sexual offenders.

The White House condemned his line of questioning – which is based on largely debunked misrepresentations of the decisions in question – calling it an ‘embarrassing, QAnon-signalling smear’ in reference to the conspiracy theory that the world is run by a cabal of cannibalistic paedophiles.

Key points

• Judge is first Black woman nominated to Supreme Court
• If confirmed, Ms Brown Jackson will replace liberal Clinton appointee Stephen Breyer
• Some Republicans have attacked Ms Brown for record defending sexual offenders
• Ted Cruz is using hearings to attack critical race theory

[23 March 2022 03:15 · John Bowden]

ABC News spots adorable note from Jackson’s daughter

While her mom was facing her first day of questions from senators on the Judiciary Committee, Ketanji Jackson Brown’s daughter Leila was apparently hard at work offering moral support to her mom.

A hand-drawn sign with balloons bearing the message “you got this!” was spotted on her chair by a reporter from ABC News.

A note reading "YOU GOT THIS!" sits on the seat of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's daughter Leila during Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation hearing. https://t.co/71FRWk3CXr pic.twitter.com/75GycEZGxS

— ABC News (@ABC) March 22, 2022

[23 March 2022 04:05 · John Bowden]

GOP senators air grievances of nominations past on first day of questions for Ketanji Brown Jackson

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee returned on Tuesday ready to air more grievances related to Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in 2018, three years ago.

Others focused their time instead on mischaracterisations of her record or off-topic rants about critical race theory.

The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg looks back at day 2 of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s historic confirmation battle:

[23 March 2022 05:05 · Shweta Sharma]

Ketanji Brown Jacksons rejects Republican criticism on past cases

Under attack from Republicans for her past legal representation, Ketanji Brown Jackson defended her legal representation of Guantanamo Bay detainees and rejected allegations of lenience as a judge in child pornography cases.

“I did my duty to hold the defendants accountable,” she said during the 13-hour hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ms Jackson pledged to be an independent jurist who would not inject her own views into rulings.

She said being a mother herself, she found the cases involving sexual crimes against children particularly harrowing as several Republicans focused their queries on child pornography cases.

“These are the cases that wake you up at night because you’re seeing the worst of humanity,” Ms Jackson said.

[23 March 2022 06:15 · Shweta Sharma]

Senator Marsha Blackburn grills Jackson with abortion rant

Senator Marsha Blackburn, who is pro-life, attacked Ketanji Brown Jackson by bringing up abortion and slammed her for her language in a brief she filed as a young attorney.

“Can you explain to me, on a constitutional basis, the court’s decision in Roe -- and where is abortion protected in the constitution?” Ms Blackburn asked.

Ms Jackson said that the American constitution does not mention abortion, but added that: “Abortion is a right that the Supreme Court has recognised is one of the kinds of rights that is unenumerated.”

It came as Supreme Court is set to discuss one of the largest challenges to abortion protections which were guaranteed by Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey to whether uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban.

“Whatever the Supreme Court decides in Dobbs will be the precedent of the Supreme Court. It will be worthy of respect in the sense that it is the precedent and I commit to treating it as I would any other precedent,” Ms Jackson said.

Ms Blackburn also asked Ms Jackson how would she define the word “woman”. Ms Jackson replied: “Not in this context -- I’m not a biologist.”

“In my work as a judge, what I do is I address disputes. If there is a dispute about a definition, people make arguments and I look at the law and I decide,” Ms Jackson said.

[23 March 2022 07:05 · Shweta Sharma]

Jackson grilled on religious faithfulness by senators

Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back when GOP Senator Lindsey Graham fired a series of questions about her faith, including how often she attends church.

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how faithful would you say you are in terms of religion?” he asked.

Ms Jackson replied: ”I am reluctant to talk about my faith in this way just because I want to be mindful of the need for the public to have confidence in my ability to separate out my personal views.”

Ms Jackson who spoke strongly of the role of her faith in her life said her faith is important but noted the Constitution prohibits any religious test for public office.

On Monday, Ms Jackson invoked faith and said: “I must also pause to reaffirm my thanks to God, for it is faith that sustains me at this moment.”

Her remarks were similar to her opening remarks after President Joe Biden introduced her last month as his nominee.

[23 March 2022 08:05 · Shweta Sharma]

Defending her record, Jackson back for 3rd day of hearings

Ketanji Brown Jackson is returning to the Senate for a third day of hearings as Republicans try to paint her as soft on crime and Democrats herald the historic nature of her nomination to become the first Black woman on the high court.

She was grilled aggressively by Republicans in Tuesday’s marathon hearing and questioned on sentences she has handed down to sex offenders in her nine years as a federal judge, her advocacy on behalf of terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, her thoughts on critical race theory and even her religious views.

At one point, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas read from children’s books that he said are taught at her teenage daughter’s school.

Read details in AP’s report

[23 March 2022 09:06 · Andrew Naughtie]

Tucker Carlson: KBJ more like a white liberal than a “rap star off the street"

Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who has called for Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s decades-old LSAT scores to be released as a measure of her judicial acumen, pursued a strange line of argument on his show last night, claiming that what he views as the judge’s elitist radicalism puts her at odds with a more common tendency of American thought.

The segment has not been received well. Watch the clip below.

[23 March 2022 10:16 · Andrew Naughtie]

Catch up: Josh Hawley’s ‘QAnon-signalling’ questioning

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley introduced his main line of attack against Ketanji Brown Jackson with a series of tweets that presented her sentencing decisions in various cases involving child abuse. He provided little context for the information he related, and despite the criticism he received, he continued the attack yesterday.

As Eric Garcia writes, Ms Brown Jackson parried his questions calmly:

[Mr Hawley] specifically cited her statements where she seemed to give a rationalisation for a lenient sentence.

“I just want to ask you about that because I just have to tell (you) I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around it,” he said. Ms Jackson said that she had seen some of the content in her role as a judge.

“It is heinous. It is egregious,” she said. “What a judge has to do is determine how to sentence defendants proportionately consistent with the elements that the statutes include with the requirements that Congress has set forward. Unwarranted disparities is something that the Sentencing Commission has been focused on for a long time in regard to child pornography offences are horrible.”

She laid out how the guidelines that Mr Hawley referenced are being departed from despite the government’s recommendation.

“That the guidelines in this area are not doing the work of differentiating defendants as the government itself indicated in this very case,” she said. “And so that’s what I was talking about, but I want to assure you, senator, that I take these cases very seriously. That these cases include the notion by many defendants that the folks at issue, the defendants themselves are collecting these images on the internet. They’re terrible things that have happened but they’re not involved, say the defendants.” She said that part of her sentencing was about redirecting the defendant’s attention.

“It’s about understanding the harm of this behavior. It’s about all of the other kind of restraints that sex offenders are ordered rightly to live under at the end of the day.”

Read Eric’s full report below.

[23 March 2022 11:04 · Andrew Naughtie]

Lindsey Graham complains again about Amy Coney Barrett’s treatment

Coming off his questioning of Ms Brown Jackson, Senator Lindsey Graham went on Fox News last night to discuss why he questioned her about how “faithful” she was.

While he said he does not thing the judge’s faith will have bearing on her decision-making, he also used the appearance to complain about the discussion of Amy Coney Barrett’s devout Catholicism during her hearings in 2020.

Ms Barrett’s nomination of course proceeded at a remarkable clip given the proximity of that year’s general election and Republicans’ eagerness to get a Trump nominee through in case he lost.

[23 March 2022 12:51 · Andrew Naughtie]

Compilation: Ted Cruz’s critical race theory fixation

Critical race theory, or at least the misrepresented version of it that’s become a central Republican talking point in the last year, played a major role at yesterday’s Supreme Court hearing. That was largely thanks to Ted Cruz, who used much of his time to question Ms Brown Jackson about books and texts that she explained had no bearing on her work as a judge.

Here’s a clip reel illustrating how hard he stressed the issue.