Sen. Josh Hawley on Monday reiterated his allegations about Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson‘s “lenient” sentencing in several child pornography-related cases but clarified he’s not “interested in trying to play gotcha.”
Hawley, a Missouri Republican, posted a thread to Twitter Wednesday outlining 10 cases in which Jackson sentenced offenders “almost always below the government’s recommendations.” The Missouri senator’s remarks prompted backlash from legal analysts and White House officials, with the latter group accusing him of citing “cherry-picked elements of her record out of context.”
During introductory statements on Jackson’s first day before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, Hawley emphasized, “I’m not interested in trapping Judge Jackson.”
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“I’m interested in her answer because I found in our time together that she was enormously thoughtful, enormously accomplished, and I suspect has a coherent view and explanation and a way of thinking about this that I look forward to hearing and I think she deserves the chance to talk about it,” Hawley said.
One example Hawley referenced of Jackson’s “pattern” toward sexual offenders was in the case United States v. Hawkins, which involved a defendant who possessed “multiple images of child porn.”
“He was over 18,” Hawley wrote. “The Sentencing Guidelines called for a sentence of up to 10 years. Judge Jackson sentenced the perpetrator to only 3 months in prison. Three months.”
Hawley also claimed on Wednesday that Jackson, who was a commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 2010 to 2014 before her career as a federal judge, “advocated for drastic change in how the law treats sex offenders by eliminating the existing mandatory minimum sentences for child porn.”
“Here’s my point,” Hawley added Monday. “I think it’s difficult against this backdrop to argue that the sentencing guidelines are too harsh or outmoded, or that we should be somehow treating child porn offenders more leniently than the guidelines recommend, but I want to be clear about this.”
In response to Hawley, White House Supreme Court nomination adviser Ben LaBolt tweeted, “NO mainstream media outlet has found Sen. Hawley’s specious attack on Judge Jackson to be true — AND he voted for judges who gave similar sentences as Judge Jackson,” linking to an ABC News article characterizing Jackson’s sentencing of offenders as “pretty mainstream.”
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Andrew C. McCarthy penned an op-ed in National Review decrying Hawley’s allegations as a “disingenuous attack.”
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McCarthy further argued that there is a “wide variety of federal offenses that are gathered under the label ‘sex offenses,'” arguing that Hawley’s characterization of Jackson’s “treatment of sex offenders” was “a misleadingly broad claim, and Hawley is too smart not to know that.”
“I would oppose Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson because of her judicial philosophy,” said McCarthy, a Republican who repeated what many GOP lawmakers have said would be their primary lens of vetting Jackson’s appointment to the high court.
