Josh Hawley says he’s concerned about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record on sex crimes
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley added another item to his list of concerns about U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying he found an “alarming pattern” about Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders.
In a thread of 18 tweets Wednesday evening, Hawley claimed that Jackson had been soft on sentencing people accused of possessing child pornography and that she questioned whether people accused of sex crimes should be required to register as sex offenders.
“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 White House pushed back against the claims, saying Hawley was cherry picking Jackson’s record by selectively presenting a short transcript and failing to note sentencing practices across the judiciary.
“Judge Jackson is a proud mother of two whose nomination has been endorsed by leading law enforcement organizations, conservative judges, and survivors of crime,” said Andrew Bates, President Joe Biden’s deputy press secretary. “This is 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.”
Hawley’s statements come days before Jackson will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the first public part of her confirmation process, potentially foreshadowing what he will ask in the hearings. If Jackson is confirmed, she would be the first Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the aftermath of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination — where Democrats held an additional confirmation hearing after Kavanaugh was accused of sexual assault when he was in high school — Republicans have said they plan to keep Jackson’s confirmation process clean.
But Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, called Hawley’s claims a “sordid attack” and White House press secretary Jen Psaki called out Hawley directly in her daily press briefing and said he was attempting to smear and discredit Jackson’s previous work.
Hawley said he was within bounds.
“What they did to Kavanaugh was character assassination,” Hawley said. “What they did Clarence Thomas was a high tech lynching (those are his words). What they did to Robert Bork was character assassination. What we’re doing is asking questions about her record. And that’s our job, and you better believe we’re gonna do it.”
The criticism is Hawley’s latest about Jackson’s record. While he has said he is keeping an open mind, he has already taken issue with her record defending detainees at Guantanamo Bay and her advocacy for reducing the minimum sentence required by law for when someone commits a crime.
He voted against her nomination to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
While child pornography and child trafficking have become a frequent target for the right wing of the Republican Party, Hawley is the first senator to raise the issue in relation to Jackson. When asked if she thought Hawley’s concerns would influence Republicans who might vote to confirm Jackson, Psaki attacked his credibility.
“I’m not sure someone who refused to tell people whether or not he would vote for Roy Moore is an effective, credible messenger on this,” Psaki said. She appeared to be referencing comments Hawley made in 2017, where he said Moore should not run if allegations about sexual assault on a teenager were true but did not directly answer whether he would vote for Moore.
Hawley focused primarily on three documents — a paper she wrote as a student at Harvard Law School, questions she asked during a hearing about the minimum sentences for people accused of possessing child pornography and sentences she imposed as a judge.
As a student at Harvard, Jackson wrote a paper for the Harvard Law Review looking at requirements for released sex offenders. In it, she questioned whether requiring people to register as sex offenders was overly punitive and a result of the public’s reaction to their crime.
Hawley also highlighted three questions Jackson asked during a public hearing for the U.S. Sentencing Commission on child pornography offenses and federal sentencing guidelines, claiming she “opined” that there were less serious child pornography offenders and that not all people who possess child pornography are pedophiles.
The transcript of the hearing shows Jackson was responding to testimony about how child pornography offenders use technology and was using the language of the testifying witnesses.
Hawley then criticized Jackson’s record as a judge sentencing people who were accused of possessing child pornography. He cited seven cases where Jackson issued sentences that were less than the minimum suggested under federal guidelines.
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s most recent report, 59% of non-production child pornography offenders received a sentence below the federal guidelines.
Bates said Jackson issued sentences that were consistent with or above the government recommendations in the overwhelming majority of her cases.
McClatchy DC Bureau’s Alex Roarty and Bryan Lowry contributed reporting.
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 10:40 AM.