Senate Democrats Praise National Review For Helping Their Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmation Efforts

Senate Democrats praised National Review on Monday during U.S. Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings for helping them with their efforts to confirm the leftist judge to the highest court in the land.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, opened up the day by citing a National Review article which takes aim at Republican Sen. Josh Hawley for pointing out Jackson’s “soft on crime” track record.

Much like the White House and its cronies in the corrupt corporate media, National Review was quick to accuse Hawley of orchestrating a smear about the Breyer replacement nominee.

“Despite your record, we’ve heard claims that you are ‘soft on crime.’ These baseless charges are unfair,” Durbin claimed. “A conservative National Review columnist called claims brought by one of my colleagues ‘meritless to the point of demagoguery.’”

Durbin also cited false “fact checks” from the propaganda press as justification to discount any of Hawley’s concerns about Jackson.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut also testified in defense of Jackson’s record on Monday and cited the same National Review article to discredit Hawley’s claims.

“I’m likely to be followed by one or more colleagues who have raised allegations about your record that are simply unfounded in fact, and indeed irresponsible. They’re unproven and unprovable. They’re simply false,” Blumenthal said. “There is simply no evidence to support these unfounded attacks. I found the commentary in National Review cited by Senator Durbin says about those allegations they are ‘meritless to the point of demagoguery.’ I agree.”

As Hawley noted on Twitter and in his speech on Monday, Jackson has a history of going easy on criminals who possessed and distributed child pornography.

“Judge Jackson has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker. She’s been advocating for it since law school. This goes beyond ‘soft on crime.’ I’m concerned that this [is] a record that endangers our children,” Hawley tweeted.

During his speech in the Monday hearings, Hawley responded to the attacks on his vetting process directly.

“Judge Jackson handed down a lenient sentence that was below what the federal guidelines recommended and below what prosecutors requested. And so I think there’s a lot to talk about there and I look forward to talking about it,” he said. “And I will note that some have said that the federal sentencing guidelines are too harsh on child sex crimes, especially child pornography. I’ve heard that argument a lot in recent days. The chairman quoted someone earlier today who takes that point of view. I’ll just be honest, I can’t say that I agree with that. I mean, the amount of child pornography in circulation has absolutely exploded in recent years.”

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordangdavidson.

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