Sen. Chuck Grassley is calling for records related to Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson’s sentencing of child sex offenders ahead of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing next week, amid Republican claims she was overly lenient to child pornographers — a charge that the White House is branding a “debunked” and “desperate” conspiracy theory.
“Judge Jackson’s history of sentencing below guidelines, particularly in cases involving child exploitation, raises legitimate questions about her views on penalties for these crimes,” Grassley, ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement on Saturday.
“This is exactly why I asked for her Sentencing Commission records – the same types of records the committee traditionally reviews when vetting a Supreme Court nominee,” he said.
Grassley said the records from the Sentencing Commission were being withheld and said that a full review could not properly be conducted without them.
“Unfortunately, somebody somewhere doesn’t want us to see that information. How can this be a thorough review if this information is withheld?” Grassley said. “And why aren’t Democrats interested in allowing the committee to have this information to conduct a thorough review?”
Grassley’s call comes after Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., this week used a lengthy Twitter thread to accuse Jackson, who President Biden nominated to fill the seat of outgoing Justice Stephen Breyer, of “a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”
Hawley laid out evidence for what he said was a consistent theme of Jackson both calling for more lenient treatment of some sex offenders and deviating from federal sentencing guidelines in favor of child sex offenders.
In particular he said that, when serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Jackson “advocated for drastic change” in a report on mandatory minimums for those engaged in child pornography.
It’s a series of claims that led to pushback from media fact checkers — which Hawley himself has issued a response to — and blistering criticism from the White House.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Friday called Hawley’s push “a last-ditch, eve-of-hearing desperation attack on her record on sentencing in sexual offense cases.”
White Houe spokesperson Andrew Bates on Saturday took aim at both Hawley and Grassley in a statement to Fox News Digital, in which he noted that the Sentencing Commission recommendations were from a bipartisan panel that included Trump-era pick Dabney Friedrich.
“Josh Hawley’s desperate conspiracy theory has been conclusively debunked by multiple fact checks in the press, including the Washington Post, the AP and CNN,” he said. “What’s more, Senator Grassley – in addition to every other Senate Republican – voted to confirm one of the Republican signers of the same unanimous, bipartisan sentencing commission report when Donald Trump nominated her in 2017.”
Bates also dismissed calls for further document releases, saying that the sentencing commission’s work “is almost entirely in the public record, and Judge Jackson has already provided thousands of documents on top of that.” He also pointed to comments Grassley made during then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings that were dismissive of Democratic document requests.
The Republican concerns center on both what Jackson has said, and how she has ruled. An analysis by Senate Judiciary Republicans of Jackson’s record, reviewed by Fox News Digital, pointed to comments she made in 1996 in which she showed skepticism toward notifying communities of sex offenders in their midst.
“Community notification subjects exconvicts to stigmatization and ostracism, and puts them at the mercy of a public that is outraged by sex crimes. Civil commitment sacrifices a fundamental right – freedom – indefinitely, based solely upon unreliable assessments of the convict’s predilection to commit future sex crimes,” she wrote as a law student.
The analysis by Judiciary Republicans found also that as a judge, she routinely handed out light sentences, but was especially lenient in child pornography cases. On average, Jackson’s sentencing was just over three years below the sentence requested by government prosecutors, and approximately five years below the bottom of the applicable sentencing guidelines range, the analysis found.
This is an excerpt from Fox News.
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