White House press secretary Jen Psaki attacked Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley and other lawmakers as “far-right senators” for their latest criticisms of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Hawley has recently raised questions about Jackson, who previously served as a public defender, being “soft” on sex offenders, which Psaki excoriated during Friday’s White House press briefing.
“A group of far-right Republican senators, as you noted, have launched a last-ditch, eve-of-hearing desperation attack on her record on sentencing in sexual offense cases,” she said when asked about Hawley’s comments. “What is important here, I think, are the facts, and the facts are that in the vast majority of cases involving child sex crimes, broadly, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed, were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. probation recommended.”
“This attack that we’ve seen over the last couple of days relies on factual inaccuracies and taking Judge Jackson’s record wildly out of context. It dishonestly took a snippet of a transcript out of context, when in fact, Judge Jackson was repeating something a witness said in order to ask a question about their testimony,” Psaki said. “It also admits that the Sentencing Commission Report mentioned was unanimously approved by the commission, which is by law bipartisan with equal representation.”
Psaki closed by stating her hope “that those who are taking this process seriously or state that they are taking this process seriously will also look to the facts and not disingenuous attacks.”
Jackson’s four-day hearing is scheduled to begin Monday.
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You can watch Friday’s briefing in full below.
