Jackson forcefully pushes back against GOP child porn sentencing attacks

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson opened the second day of her confirmation hearing Tuesday with a forceful defense of her record of sentencing child pornography offenders, pushing back against a recurring Republican attack line leveled against her.

Under questioning from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Jackson was asked to address a claim by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Monday that her treatment of sentencing child sex offenders showed an “alarming pattern” of leniency. 

“As a mother and a judge who has had to deal with these cases, I was thinking that nothing could be further from the truth,” Jackson told Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.