Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) promised on Monday that the Senate confirmation for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson “won’t be a circus.”
And yet, by Wednesday afternoon, the conservative lawmaker had thrown overdramatic fits and dramatically stormed off for two straight days after contentious Q&A sessions with President Joe Biden’s pick for the high court.
During his second go-round with Judge Jackson, the South Carolina senator once again used his time to air well-worn right-wing grievances, particularly over the way Democrats have supposedly mistreated conservative judicial nominees. At one point, he suggested that Jackson, a Black woman, should be happy about how “easy” her confirmation process has been.
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Referencing the 2003 filibuster of Bush nominee Janice Rogers Brown, who is Black, to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Graham huffed that “if you are a person of color, a woman, supported by liberals, it is pretty easy sailing.”
Eventually, Graham went down the same misleading road a few other politically-ambitious Republicans have trodden throughout this hearing, berating Jackson over her sentencing in child-porn cases while suggesting she is sympathetic to pedophiles.
Of course, experts have noted that her sentences were “pretty mainstream,” and even conservative legal experts have labeled attacks against her as “disingenuous” and “meritless to the point of demagoguery.”
And yet, Graham bombarded Jackson with pointed questions about her sentences in a handful of cases while repeatedly cutting her off before she could provide a detailed explanation—instead taking the opportunity to further browbeat Jackson.
“If you’re listening to my voice today and you’re on a computer looking at child pornography and you get caught, I hope your sentence is enhanced because the computer and the internet is feeding the beast here,” he groused, objecting to Jackson’s attempt to explain the antiquated guidelines in some of these cases.
Eventually, as he reached the end of his allotted time, Graham pressed Jackson on Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial and fiery confirmation hearings.
Asserting that Democrats “ambushed” Kavanaugh with allegations of sexual assault, Graham insisted he wouldn’t treat Jackson that way before asking her to express her feelings about the 2018 hearings.
“How would you feel if I had a letter from somebody accusing you of something, a crime, or misconduct, for weeks, and I give it to Sen. Durbin just before this hearing’s over and not allow you to comment on the accusation? How would you feel about that?” Graham wondered.
“Senator, I’m not sure,” a confused Jackson responded. “I don’t understand the context of the question.”
As Graham continued to grill Jackson on the Kavanaugh hearings, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) told the Republican lawmaker that his time was up.
“Please, Mr. Chairman,” Graham sneered. “She filibustered every question I had and she has the right to give an answer but I’m trying to make a point in 20 minutes.”
After some back-and-forth about Kavanaugh, Jackson said she would like to respond to Graham on her sentencing decisions in child-pornography cases.
“The point of the guideline is to assist judges in determining what punishment to provide in cases and they are horrible cases, but the idea is that between the range of punishment that Congress has prescribed, judges are supposed to be providing proportional punishment based on what a person has done,” she noted. “The sentencing scheme doesn’t place everybody at the same level.”
Graham continued his pattern of interrupting her, despite Durbin repeatedly reminding him that his allotted time was over. “I’m going to give the witness is an opportunity to respond to you, senator,” Durbin stated.
“Finally,” exclaimed Graham, who proceeded to cut Jackson off over and over again for the next few minutes.
Ten minutes after Graham’s time had expired, the Trump-boosting senator got in one final shot while again suggesting Jackson was going easy on sex offenders.
“All I can say is that your view on how to deter child pornography is not my view,” he seethed. “I think you are doing it wrong and every judge who does what you‘re are doing is making it easier for the children to be exploited. If you are on a computer looking at a kid in a sexually compromising situation and you get caught I hope no one gives you a break because you used a computer.”
The committee chairman chastised Graham for his performance, ultimately prompting the media-savvy senator to cap off his grandstanding with another storm-off.
“The conduct described is reprehensible and I think everyone in this room agrees. The fact of the matter is, I’m a co-sponsor of your bill, the Internet Act. And I believe we should be doing our job here,” Durbin said. “But part of our job, we failed in responding to the changing circumstances that face this crime.”
The chairman added: “What has it been, 15 or 16 years? She is currently not an outlier in sentencing. Seventy percent of federal judges face the same dilemma and wonder why Congress has failed to act and when it will act!”
“This is our fault?” Graham shot back, throwing his hands in the air.
Durbin replied that “partially it is” as he moved on to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to begin her questioning of Jackson.
Graham, as he did the previous day, rose from his chair and appeared to walk off in a huff.
