South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson that her hearing would not be a “circus,” promising that the disruptions and underhanded tactics used by Democrats during the Kavanaugh hearings would not be repeated.
Graham made the comments during his opening statements at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing on Monday. Graham began his remarks by congratulating Jackson on her accomplishments and her nomination. He said that the hearings would be challenging for her, informative for the public, and respectful by members of the committee. “It won’t be a circus,” Graham continued. “We’re off to a good start. [Then-Chairman Chuck] Grassley couldn’t get the first word out of his mouth before [protestors] shut down the place…Most of us couldn’t get back to our offices during Kavanaugh without getting spit on. Hope that doesn’t happen to y’all,” he said, pointing to the Democrat side of the bench.
“As to the historic nature of your appointment, I understand,” Graham continued, before pointing out that Democrats filibustered the nominations of Judge Janice Rogers Brown and Miguel Estrada to federal circuit courts, several of whom were present in the hearing room. “If you’re a Hispanic or African-American conservative, it’s about your philosophy. Now it’s gonna be about the historic nature of the pick. It’s gonna be about your philosophy,” Graham stressed, adding that calling Republicans “racist” for asking tough questions “is not gonna fly with us.” “We’re gonna ask you what we think you need to be asked, and Senator Hawley, you need to ask her about her record as a district court judge, you should, I hope you do, and we’ll see what she says. Very fair game.”
Graham then took issue with the fact that left-wing advocacy groups had mounted “vicious” attacks on Judge J. Michelle Childs and argued that those groups had a hand in Jackson’s nomination. “You say, Judge Jackson, [that] you don’t have any judicial philosophy per se. Well somebody on the left believes you do, or they wouldn’t have spent the money they spent to have you in this chair. So we’re gonna find out how that statement holds up over time.”
“I want to know about your judicial philosophy, because people on the left, the far, extreme part of the left, believe that you are the best pick. I want to know why they reached that conclusion,” he added.
“Now when we say this is not Kavanaugh, what do we mean?” Graham continued. “It means that no Republican Senator is going to unleash on you an attack about your character when the hearing is virtually over. None of us, I hope, have been sitting on information about you as a person for weeks or months, [and] you come into our offices and we never share it with you to allow you to give your side of the story, [and] we wait to the very last minute, when the hearing is about to be gaveled, concluded, and say ‘oh, by the way, I’ve got this letter,’ and it so happens that every media outlet in the country had the letter too … None of us are gonna do that to you. And if any of us does that to you, all hell will break out. And it should.”
You can watch Graham’s full opening statement here.