Missouri’s junior senator, Josh Hawley, is vying for a starring role in the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Hawley is joining other Republicans in asserting that, in her days as a public defender, she was pro-murderer, pro-pedophile and pro-terrorist. These are the cheapest of cheap shots, of course. But then, Missourians and the entire nation have come to expect nothing less of a senator who is doing all he can to raise campaign money off his calculatedly obnoxious public spectacles, including his supporting role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.
As a lawyer and legal scholar, Hawley knows fully well that the job of any attorney is to represent the client to the best of her or his ability, regardless of how the attorney might personally feel about the defendant. Jackson had the unpopular role representing murderers and a terrorism suspect held at Guantanamo Bay. Jackson did her job as a federal public defender from 2005 to 2007 and, no doubt, will defend herself when these questions come up in the confirmation hearings. For now, however, the stage belongs to Hawley.
People are also reading…
Republicans would counter that below-the-belt attacks should be expected, given the grilling then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh faced in 2018 regarding a witness’ accusation that he had sexually assaulted her in high school. The difference, however, is between Democrats’ efforts to determine whether Kavanaugh had violated the law as a youth and whether his beer-drinking escapades might reveal deeper attitudes regarding women’s rights.
For Republicans, it’s payback time, and the dirty job falls to a very willing Hawley and his Texas Republican colleague, Sen. Ted Cruz, to drag Jackson’s name through the mud as best they can. Jackson and Hawley met on March 9 as she embarked on preliminary meetings with Senate Judiciary Committee members. At the time, the two were all smiles and warmth.
On Wednesday, Hawley went for the jugular, tweeting that Jackson as a judge had been soft on child porn defendants, adding about her opinions, articles, interviews and speeches: “I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children. ... 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.”
Hawley sent out 18 tweets in all, many containing snippets of court transcripts clearly taken out of context so the senator could draw the most explosive conclusions possible. Chances are slim that his antics will be effective in blocking Jackson’s confirmation. More likely, Republican senators mindful of the pre-midterm optics — low-blow attacks by white men against the first Black woman ever nominated to the Supreme Court — will smartly choose to get as far away from Hawley as they can.