“The View” co-hosts raged Friday over Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley questioning Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record on child pornography rulings.
“What’s crazy, is the Republicans, like Josh Hawley, are already trying to derail her path to the bench,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg began. “Claiming that there’s past cases that showed that she let sex offenders off too easy and takes issue with the fact that she defended Guantanamo detainees — which is the law. It is literally the law! If you are detained, we must provide you with a lawyer to make sure you’re not being railroaded. That’s the law! All you got to do is look it up!”
Guest host Eboni K. Williams accused Hawley of “cherry-picking,” saying every legal citizen and detainee gets legal representation under the Sixth Amendment.
“Let me remind people who Josh Hawley is,” co-host Ana Navarro chimed in. “Josh Hawley is the guy who was promoting the big lie … who was one of the promoters of the insurrection that happened on Jan. 6. So I don’t think he’s got much of a moral standing to be talking about the Constitution, frankly. Because if you can’t defend democracy, and you can’t defend election results, you really don’t have much moral standing.”
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Navarro then said that it is “incredibly important” that “great scrutiny” be applied during the confirmation hearing and that she hopes Jackson presents her “intellectual breadth, judicial temperament [and] character.” She then said the Senate Judiciary Committee will be questioning her on legal issues and not “sexual harassment or assault” in a possible jab at Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who faced allegations during his confirmation process that the Judiciary Committee and FBI found to be unsubstantiated. (RELATED: ‘It’s Another Left-Wing Pick’: Rep. Jim Jordan Reacts To Biden’s SCOTUS Nominee)
Goldberg said Jackson can “outshine” the past three justices confirmed to the Court, to which Williams replied that the nominee’s qualifications are in question because of her race.
“But Whoopi, let’s not pretend like we don’t know what it’s about, right? We know what bus is always on time, the one that indicts the terminations of the qualifications of black women in this country,” Williams said. “That bus is never late.”
Hawley alleged Wednesday that Jackson questioned requiring child pornography convicts to register as sex offenders and accused her of ignoring mandatory minimum guidelines on sentencing. He also alleged that she questioned sending sex offenders to civil commitment and attempted to remove mandatory minimum guidelines for child porn while serving on the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
The senator cited her sentencing in the case United States v. Hawkins, where he said she gave a convicted adult three months of imprisonment despite the guidelines recommending 10 years. He also claimed she sentenced a felon possessing thousands of child pornographic images up to 57 months in prison, though guidelines suggested 97-121 months.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back Thursday, saying Jackson’s rulings were consistent with sentencing recommendations, then added that Hawley took a snippet of a transcript out of context when Jackson repeated a witness’ remarks in order to ask a question about her testimony.