Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing is already heating up, and it hasn’t even gotten started.
A member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is tasked with conducting the hearing of President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court justice nominee, is sounding the alarm over Jackson’s unsettling record of going extraordinarily soft on child sex offenders, concerns that are very likely to be voiced once the GOP members of the panel are given the opportunity to question her.
Jackson, who currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, was picked by Biden in late February to satisfy his clearly stated criteria of being black and female.
However, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri is a bit more concerned about her record than her skin color — and took to Twitter on Wednesday to share what he found after looking into her habit of showing leniency to sex offenders.
“I’ve been researching the record of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading her opinions, articles, interviews & speeches. I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” the Republican lawmaker, who is himself a constitutional attorney, wrote on Twitter.
I’ve been researching the record of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, reading her opinions, articles, interviews & speeches. I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 16, 2022
Hawley alleged that Jackson has been advocating for “letting child porn offenders off the hook” since law school, a pattern that he says continued during her time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission and as a federal judge.
“As far back as her time in law school, Judge Jackson has questioned making convicts register as sex offenders – saying it leads to ‘stigmatization and ostracism.’ She’s suggested public policy is driven by a ‘climate of fear, hatred & revenge’ against sex offenders,” he continued.
As far back as her time in law school, Judge Jackson has questioned making convicts register as sex offenders – saying it leads to “stigmatization and ostracism.” She’s suggested public policy is driven by a “climate of fear, hatred & revenge” against sex offenders pic.twitter.com/2QUcPOnWPR
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 16, 2022
Hawley wrote that Jackson also opposes civil commitment (court-ordered psychiatric hospitalization) for sex offenders and that when she served on the Sentencing Commission, she supported the elimination of mandatory minimum sentences for child porn offenses.
“Judge Jackson has said that some people who possess child porn ‘are in this for either the collection, or the people who are loners and find status in their participation in the community.’ What community would that be? The community of child exploiters?” Hawley asked.
Judge Jackson has said that some people who possess child porn “are in this for either the collection, or the people who are loners and find status in their participation in the community.” What community would that be? The community of child exploiters? pic.twitter.com/JDxqf9Q1AH
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) March 16, 2022
He also highlighted Jackson’s suggestion that there might be “less serious” or “nonpedophile” child porn offenders who are motivated to engage in unthinkably evil acts by “the challenge, or to use the technology.”
Hawley said Jackson “put her troubling views into action” when she began to serve on the federal bench and listed over half a dozen cases in which she gave sentences to child porn offenders that were drastically lower than the sentencing guidelines for such crimes.
In one case, a man who was recommended for a 10-year sentence received just three months. In another, a purveyor of illicit images was given the lightest sentence allowed by law — 60 months, a far cry from the recommended 151 to 188 months.
One man who had dozens of files of child pornography and distributed lewd images of his own 10-year-old daughter was recommended for 97 to 121 months and was sentenced to just 71.
“In every single child porn case for which we can find records, Judge Jackson deviated from the federal sentencing guidelines in favor of child porn offenders,” Hawley wrote.
“This is a disturbing record for any judge, but especially one nominated to the highest court in the land. Protecting the most vulnerable shouldn’t be up for debate. Sending child predators to jail shouldn’t be controversial.
“So far, the Sentencing Commission has refused to turn over all Judge Jackson’s records from her time there. In light of what we have learned, this stonewalling must end,” he added. “We must get access to all relevant records.”
As the Washington Examiner noted, Hawley’s tweet thread is the fiercest attack so far on Biden’s SCOTUS nominee, whose confirmation hearings were probably always fated to be the photo-negative version of the wild Kavanaugh hearings of ’18.
This sounds like the first shot.
It’s rather chilling to learn that Biden’s nominee to the high court has apparently taken an interest in ensuring that child sex offenders spend less time in prison. Her interests, by Hawley’s estimation at least, seem to be aligned with that of far-left LGBT activists who are working to “normalize” and “destigmatize” pedophilia.
American parents are well aware of the ideological beast rearing its head within the public school system, entertainment industry, academia and now, apparently, the justice system — that is, the aggressively secularist post-Freudian philosophy that embodies the “if it feels good, do it” attitude toward sexuality.
The trend to sexualize children is connected to the same materialist worldview that rejects traditional sexual ethics and instead embraces a “sex-positive” approach to our bodies. Thus, it classifies unnatural and depraved sexual urges or sexual and gender confusion as simple biological phenomena that need not be “stigmatized.”
This is the worldview driving the acceptance of transgender ideology, promiscuity, premarital sex, divorce, and the most destructive attack on God’s image-bearers of all — abortion.
Now, Biden’s Supreme Court nominee may be directly faced with questions about her advocacy on behalf of child sex offenders, putting this philosophy on full display.
The question I have is whether the voting public is starting to make these connections about the ideology behind the attempt to minimize the sexual predation of children… or whether the left will successfully spin attacks on Jackson as bigotry and racism.
Pray for our country, folks. Every day it appears we are inching closer and closer to the edge of the abyss.