© Jack Gruber-USA TODAY
News: Ketanji Brown Jackson Confirmation Hearing
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal judge Ketanji Brown Jackson faced down a barrage of Republican questioning Wednesday about her sentencing of criminal defendants, as her history-making bid to join the Supreme Court veered from lofty constitutional questions to attacks on her motivations on the bench.
In her final day of Senate questioning, she declared she would rule “without any agendas” as the high court’s first Black female justice and rejected Republican efforts to paint her as soft on crime in her decade on the federal bench. On Thursday, the final of four days of hearings, legal experts on both sides will weigh in.
Though her approval seems all but sure — Democrats are aiming for a vote before Easter — Republicans kept trying to chip away at her record on Wednesday.
But the GOP criticism was punctuated with effusive praise from Democrats, and by reflections on the historic nature of her nomination — none more riveting in the room than from New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who used his time not to ask questions but to tearfully speak and draw tears from Jackson as well.
