Sen. Ted Cruz brought up the confirmation process for Justice Brett Kavanaugh Monday in opening remarks during Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s hearing on her nomination to the high court.
The Texas Republican, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, mentioned his own podcast while telling Jackson her hearing would not be “a political circus.”
“A couple of years ago, I was doing my weekly podcast, and I was on with a noted liberal intellectual, who made a comment something to the effect of, ‘Well, both sides do this, both sides smear Supreme Court justices,’” Cruz said. “And I was forced to laugh out loud and say, ‘Look, I understand that’s a pretty good talking point. It just happens not to be true.’”
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Cruz said it was Democrats who politicized the Supreme Court confirmation process, arguing they went “so into the gutter with Judge Robert Bork that they invented a new verb, to Bork someone.” He also hit Joe Biden, then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, for the way he presided over Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation, calling that process “reprehensible.”
Cruz told Jackson that her hearing will not feature “that disgraceful behavior.”
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“No one is going to inquire into your teenage dating habits,” Cruz said in reference to allegations made during the Kavanaugh hearings. “No one is going to ask you with mock severity, ‘Do you like beer?’”
Cruz said the hearing should focus on Jackson’s record and “what kind of justice you would be.”
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“So, all of those questions are fair game,” he said. “Will you follow the law? What does your record indicate? Will you protect the rights of every American citizen regardless of race, regardless of party, regardless of views?”
Cruz’s remarks mirrored comments at the Monday hearing from other Republicans, who condemned Democrats’ treatment of Donald Trump’s nominees, particularly Kavanaugh, and sought to contrast what they described as Democrats’ character assassination attempts at previous hearings with their own objections to Jackson.
