Senators: Did WH ‘Intentionally’ Leave Out Jackson’s Reduced Child Porn Sentencing?

Republican senators are questioning if the White House “intentionally” did not include materials regarding a child porn case in which Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled below the probation office’s recommendation, a Fox News report indicated.

Before ascending to the higher D.C. Circuit Court, Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, ruled in a child porn case. The accused in U.S. v. Cane, had “over 6,500 files depicting children appearing to be of elementary, middle and high school ages, engaged in sexual acts or posing sexually,” was sentenced to the mandatory minimum of 60 months in prison. But the probation office recommended 84.

“Not only does this case, which Judge Jackson left off her list of child abuse cases, undercut her argument that she followed the probation office’s recommended sentences, but it also underscores the perils of moving too quickly in the vetting process,” an unnamed GOP Judiciary Committee aide told Fox.

But, the White House, in defense of Brown Jackson, says the Cane case was not included because it happened too close to the end of Jackson’s tenure on the D.C. District Court.

“This case,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates says, “in which Judge Jackson sentenced the defendant to the term of imprisonment recommended by the government, proves to an even greater extent that in the large majority of her decisions involving child sex crimes, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were either consistent with or above what the government or the U.S. Probation Office recommended.”

“The Cane case further undermines smears that a small number of Republican Senators have made – and which moderates members in both parties have rejected.”

“Fact checkers,” Bates adds, “at multiple mainstream outlets have highlighted that the specific Senators who made these attacks have voted for Trump-nominated judges who sentenced defendants for the same crimes in the same way, both in terms of giving sentences below guidelines that are widely considered to be out of date across the judiciary and below timelines sought by the prosecution.”

While many cases regarding child porn were provided to Senators during Brown Jackson’s hearing, the Cane case was not.

“Committee Republicans only just got the sentencing transcript for this case on Friday, after the hearing had ended,” the GOP Judiciary Committee aide stated. “Clearly, the White House either didn’t thoroughly vet the nominee, or were aware of the record and the intentionally left it out in hopes that the nominee would be confirmed before the full record could be uncovered and reviewed.”

Via        Newsmax