Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz challenged President Joe Biden’s U.S. district court nominee Dale Ho on Wednesday over his past statements.
Cruz asked Ho to explain why he described himself in the past as “a wild-eyed Leftist” and someone “accused sometimes of seeing discrimination everywhere” he looked during the Wednesday confirmation hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“Senator Cruz, I think the key word in that quote is ‘accused’,” Ho responded. “I think I was characterizing how others have caricatured myself.”
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The Texas senator then went on to say that Ho had launched partisan attacks on the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the past.
Cruz also quoted Ho’s 2017 statement, in which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer called his hatred towards conservatives a source of “moral clarity” capable to “motivate the long hours needed to get the work done.” (RELATED: Biden’s FCC Nominee With History Of Net Neutrality Activism Set For Tough Hearing)
“I recognize that New York is a blue state, but imagine there is someone who considers himself or herself a conservative in the state of New York, who, God forbid, finds themselves in a courtroom where you’re wearing a robe,” Cruz said to the judicial nominee for the Southern District of New York.
“What comfort do you think that litigant would have that you described the hatred of conservatives, the righteous indignation, the anger at conservatives, as a tremendous source of power for you personally?” Cruz asked.
Ho claimed that the quoted part of his statement was a joke that he relayed during his speech at a church.
Biden’s nominee said that he did not know of any discriminatory admission practices Yale Law School, his alma mater, applied to his fellow Asian-Americans.
Ho then asserted that he would like to follow the examples of judges who hold political views as having no role “on the bench.”
“Well, your record suggests precisely the contrary,” Cruz said in response.