Republicans accused Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee of hiding documents from them during the confirmation hearing Tuesday for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson related to her sentencing of felons convicted of child porn crimes.
They say she has been weak on defendants in child pornography cases.
Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said Judge Jackson faced seven cases involving possession of child pornography where she had discretion in sentencing, and in each of them she came in below the non-binding sentencing guidelines and under what prosecutors had sought.
Mr. Hawley also pointed to her comments to an 18-year-old whom she sentenced to three months in prison and apologized to him for the difficulties the conviction would put him through. She suggested he was looking at images of his “peers.” In that case, the defendant was viewing images of children as young as eight.
Judge Jackson said her decisions were not out of line with what other judges were doing on child pornography cases.
“For every defendant that comes before me and suggests — as they often do — that they are just a looker … they’ve collected these things on the Internet and it’s fine,” she said. “I say to them, ‘There is only a market for this kind of material because there are lookers, that you are contributing to child sex abuse.’”
But minutes later, Sen. Mazie Hirono, Hawaii Democrat, cited some of the judge’s probation documents that Republicans apparently did not have.
Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, complained Democrats had been given more documents than their GOP colleagues when reviewing the judge’s record ahead of this week’s hearings.
“We were just told the White House gave it to Democrats earlier today,” Mr. Cruz said. “Is there anything else that Democrats have access to in this case that they aren’t sharing to Republicans on this committee?”
He said the one document showed the probation office had requested 18 months for the defendant that Judge Jackson only sent to jail for three months, saying she had claimed to rely on the probation officer’s recommendation.
“You can get more than that almost for a speeding ticket,” Mr. Cruz said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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