As Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's confirmation hearings before the United States Senate kick off on Monday, there will be a different kind of evaluation than what Americans saw for nominees during the Trump administration. Conservatives were all too used to Code Pink protests disrupting the hearings and Democrats embracing and elevating baseless smears against originalist justices to delay proceedings. Trump nominees' families, faiths, and originalist beliefs were all fair game for attacks leveled by opponents that were legitimized by Democrat senators and repeated endlessly by the mainstream media.
This time around, with Biden in office and his nominee being propped up by leftist groups even before Biden swore his oath, the hearings will take a different tone as Democrats seek to swiftly move through the hearings and onto the confirmation vote by the full Senate. Here are five things Townhall is watching:
Public Relations Help from the Mainstream Media
In the days leading up to this week's confirmation hearings, leftist talking heads on TV accused conservatives of inciting violence against Judge Jackson — simply because they've pointed to the verified record of Biden's nominee on previous courts and related positions. Liberal opinion writers have already painted Republicans as misogynistic racists for asking questions about Judge Jackson's record — arguably the main point of confirmation hearings held by the Senate. The mainstream media's newfound concern for the wellbeing of a Supreme Court nominee is, of course, contradicted by their antics over the previous 5 years. It's safe to say the biased liberal media will continue taking its talking points from Democrats and leftist groups as it seeks to do damage control for any issues that develop out of this week's hearings and go on the offensive against any conservatives who elicit troubling revelations about KBJ's record.
Does KBJ Believe Some Sex Offenders are Just Geeks Seeking Community?
The impetus for the mainstream media's backlash against conservatives came after Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) raised questions about Judge Jackson's views on sex offenders and their punishments, especially regarding cases that involved child pornography. Both her statements while serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the sentences she handed down deserve additional scrutiny. What's been seen already suggests that KBJ thinks some sex offenders who were prosecuted for possessing or distributing child porn were not doing so because they were pedophiles, but because they were interested in the technological side of that underworld, or were seeking community. And, as Townhall covered, Senator Hawley's review of KBJ's sentencing record found that every time she sentenced someone in a child porn case, she gave them a punishment less than what federal guidelines recommended. If, as the mainstream media said, there's a rational explanation for her strange comments on and handling of such crimes, it's safe to say Republican senators are ready to hear it.
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What Else Might KBJ and Democrats Be Hiding About Her Time on the Sentencing Commission?
In addition to what Senator Hawley's office found about KBJ's comments related to sex offenders' sentences, it's what wasn't included in the information provided to the Senate for review that has Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) raising new questions. As Katie reported earlier, The White House has been telling the Senate that KBJ's time on the U.S. Sentencing Commission is one of her greatest strengths — but has since failed to turn over "any internal records from her work there" despite the fact that senators receive "these records for other SCOTUS nominees. Why not Judge Jackson?" Grassley asked.
What *Is* Judge Jackson's Judicial Philosophy?
No, it's not a trick question — it's the larger question that underlies other more specific inquiries conservatives and Republican senators have made so far. As Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) pointed out, "Normally, we're familiar with a nominee's approach to the law well before her hearing begins. But as of now, all we have to go on is one single sentence provided to the judiciary committee last year when she was up for a seat on the DC circuit court: She said 'I do not have a judicial philosophy per se, other than to apply the same method of thorough analysis to every case regardless of the parties,'" Blackburn reminded. That explanation, Blackburn added, left her "both shocked and confused – how is it that a judge who can't say how or if she will apply the constitution in her rulings is up for a seat on the Supreme Court?"
Can She Spin Her Radical Record?
Aside from not expressing any sort of concrete judicial philosophy and the questions already raised by Republicans in the Senate, the final piece will be watching KBJ and how she attempts to portray herself and her record while under consideration for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in America. Will she seek to moderate her past statements and record in an attempt to sway undecided senators? Or will she lean into her radical past and go all-in on confirming her own activist agenda? So far, KBJ has refused to give Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) an answer on whether she supports the radical movement to pack the Supreme Court with leftist justices — something even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opposed. Her prior work as a public defender has suggested KBJ believes in keeping criminals out of jail, even when they have proven to be violent and uncooperative with terms of prior release — does she support the work of Democrat DA's and others to return violent criminals to the streets rather than incarcerate them?
Americans and their senators will find out this week, so stay tuned to Townhall.com, follow @Townhallcom on Twitter, and join us on Tuesday and Wednesday as our team live-blogs the hearings.
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