Tag: sextape

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson broke down in tears during the evening session of the third day of hearings of her nomination on Wednesday after Democratic Senator Cory Booker gushed over her appointment. 

Jackson had been sitting silently listening to Booker when suddenly the pressure of the moment appeared break through. It was the first time in three solid days of questioning from senators that she had showed such raw emotion. 

Jackson reached for a tissue and wiped away tears that had begun to stream down her cheeks. 

But had little time for her tears, noting the glee took when GOP-nominees Brett Kavanaugh was left sobbing during his hearing.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz pointed out that Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett faced a much tougher grilling under questioning during the Trump administration.

‘You played clips of the Democrats slamming Republican nominees, going personal, going into the gutter, going after their character,’ Cruz said to ‘If you look at the hearing the last two days, the questions that Republicans focused on were her record and in particular, her judicial record.’

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, who is white, called Booker’s speech an ‘epic Senate moment and also a moral reset after some truly poisonous, cynical behavior that trolled through the absolute bottom of what the Senate has done in dark times past.’ 

But during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in 2018, Whitehouse decided to ask the now Supreme Court Judge about a ‘ralphing’ contest at a beach party.

Cruz, who plans to oppose her confirmation also defended the tough line of questioning that Jackson has had to deal with over the last few days noting that she simply needed to defend her record.  

‘If you look at her record as a federal judge in criminal cases and particularly cases concerning child pornography over and over and over again, she gives incredibly lenient sentences,’ Cruz said. ‘In every single case where she had discretion a child pornography case, she gave dramatically lower sentences than the sentencing guidelines provide for, and that the prosecutor asked for.’

‘And the Democrats just kept getting upset, saying, “How dare you focus on her actual record?” You know, I think the American people are concerned whether we’ll have a Supreme Court justice that’s going to follow the law, or we’re going to have a Supreme Court justice that is looking for loopholes to let violent criminals out of jail,’ he said.

‘And I’ve got to say, her answers and her record in this regard were really concerning,’ Cruz said.

Earlier in the hearing on Wednesday, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham tore into Jackson as he lambasted the nominee for thinking ‘supervision’ was an adequate deterrent for child pornography distributors and viewers. 

Graham suggested that the only punishment should be putting their ‘a** in jail.’

Jackson pushed back against the South Carolina senator’s claim that she believes the number of images viewed or distributed shouldn’t be considered in child porn cases’ sentencing. She insisted instead that her judicial record does show that she imposed ‘substantial’ internet supervision on violators.

‘Wait, you think it is a bigger deterrent to take somebody who is on a computer, looking at sexual images of children in the most disgusting way, is to supervise their computer habit versus putting them in jail?’ Graham questioned, raising his voice and showing visual disgust.

‘No, I didn’t say versus,’ Jackson tried to clarify but was interrupted by Graham’s irate line of questioning. 

‘That’s exactly what you said,’ the Republican lawmaker asserted.

‘I think the best way to deter people from getting on a computer and viewing thousands and hundred – and over time maybe millions, the population as a whole – of children being exploited and abused every time somebody clicks on is to put their a** in jail,’ he offered. ‘Not supervise their computer usage.’

Graham had time to ask Jackson about a host of other issues, including on whether an illegal immigrant should be allowed to vote or if a 20-week-old fetus can feel pain, to which she said she did not know.   

Senator Booker’s emotional outburst after he  said he could no longer hold back his emotion over how Jackson had conducted herself in the face of combative questioning about her handling of child pornography cases, her representation of accused terrorists and her views on anti-racism teaching in schools.

‘You faced insults here that were shocking to me,’ Booker said, speaking directly to Jackson, who is nominated to become the first black woman on the high court.

‘Nobody’s taking this away from me,’ Booker continued ‘Don’t worry, my sister. Don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here, and I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.

‘I want to tell you, when I look at you, this is why I get emotional, I’m sorry, you’re a person that is so much more than your race and gender. You’re a Christian. You’re a mom. It’s hard for me not to look at you and not see my mom. I see my ancestors and yours,’ Booker said.

‘You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American,’ he added. 

Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, recessed immediately after Booker’s remarks for a short break. Jackson left the room quickly, accompanied by her husband.

During the recess, a line of people, including Jackson’s father, approached Booker and hugged him, several wiping away tears.

Since the beginning of Jackson’s hearings Monday, Democratic and Republican senators have saluted the nominee’s history-making appointment, praised her pedigree, and noted her pleasant temperament and empathetic approach to the law.

Jackson tried to defend herself again on Wednesday, claiming that in the age of the internet it’s a lot harder to differentiate between severity of child porn offenders. She claimed before the time of the web, you could easily distinguish sentencing of someone who had received one image versus one thousand.

‘In comes the internet,’ she explained of the changing landscape of the child pornography industry. ‘With one click you can receive, you can distribute tens of thousands.’

‘You can be doing this for 15 minutes and all of a sudden, you are looking at 30, 40, 50 years in prison,’ she said.

‘Good! Good! Absolutely, good! I hope you are!’ Graham shouted back.

‘I hope you go to jail for 50 years if you’re on the internet trolling for images of children and sexual exploitation,’ he said.

Also in the midst of Graham’s re-questioning period Wednesday he asked Jackson about abortion.

‘Can an unborn child feel pain at 20 weeks in the birthing process?’ Graham asked.

‘Senator, I don’t know,’ she replied.

He explained that anesthesia is administered to an unborn fetus if there is an operation to save their life at this period in a pregnancy because they ‘can, in facet, feel pain.’

She said she was also unaware of that.

Graham said that these types of issues may ‘come before you one day’ and asked that she ‘keep an open mind’ when it comes to the issue.

In another highlight of questioning,Senator  tried to get Jackson to define the word ‘woman’ following her exchange with Senator Marsha Blackburn on Tuesday where she conceded  she couldn’t define it because she isn’t a biologist.

Cruz took it a step further and pressed Jackson on how she would decide if an individual was a woman if it came to discrimination cases.

‘Yesterday under questioning from Senator Blackburn, you told her that you couldn’t define what a woman is, that you are not a biologist, which I think you are the only  nominee in history who has been unable to answer the question, ‘What is a woman?” Cruz asked Jackson.

‘I know that I am a woman, I know that Senator Blackburn is a woman,’ Jackson said said as she managed to skirt the question.

‘And the woman who I admire most in the world is in the room today – my mother,’ still not giving a definition of the word ‘woman.’