By Henry Rodgers, the Daily Caller
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Minocqua) joined several Republican House colleagues this week in calling on the Senate Judiciary Committee to fully investigate President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s past lenient rulings for individuals convicted of sexual crimes involving minors.
The Daily Caller first obtained the lawmakers’ letter to the committee, spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) and signed by 18 other House Republicans. The letter was sent to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Ranking Member Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). In it, the House Republicans call on the committee to look into three child pornography cases from when Jackson was Vice-Chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Jackson faced another full day of questioning Tuesday during her confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee.
The letter names the three cases and says “for every child pornography case in which Judge Jackson has ruled and for which records are available, she deviated from federal sentencing guidelines in favor of the offenders.”
The Three Cases Highlighted In the Letter:
- S. v. Hawkins — “Jackson sentenced a man convicted of possessing child pornography to three months when sentencing guidelines called for 10 years.”
- S v. Stewart — “Jackson sentenced a man convicted of possessing thousands of images of child pornography, along with attempting to cross state lines to molest a 9-year-old girl, to 57 months when sentencing guidelines called for 97-121 months.”
- S. v Chazin — “Jackson sentenced the defendant to 28 months for possession of child pornography when sentencing guidelines called for 78-97 months.”
“Judge Jackson’s pattern and practice of leniency on sentencing for child sex crimes is deeply troubling. Her record of special empathy towards criminals is the fulfillment of Democrats’ soft-on-crime, defund the police movement that has caused a spike in crime across the nation,” Buck told the Daily Caller.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, first mentioned the cases Thursday and pressed Jackson about them during the first day of her Senate confirmation hearings on Monday.
The judge stood by her softer sentences under questioning Tuesday. She described her decisions as “sufficient but not greater than necessary.”
In February, Biden nominated Jackson to fill the seat of retiring liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, whom Jackson once clerked for. She has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for less than a year. Before that, Jackson served on the U.S. District Court for D.C. since 2013, after Biden’s former boss, President Barack Obama nominated her.
Read more at the Daily Caller.
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