Two Republican senators chastised Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during a confirmation hearing on Tuesday, claiming she used language in the past while challenging the indefinite detention of clients held without charge at the Guantanamo Bay military prison.
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina alleged that Jackson had gone “just too far” in, he claimed, calling the government “a war criminal in pursuing charges against a terrorist.” Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn posed the question to Jackson
“Why in the world would you call Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and George W. Bush war criminals in a legal filing while representing a Taliban member? It seems so out of character for you.”
In each document, Jackson and her colleague stated that “any references” to respondents’ conduct were meant to include “respondents’ agents or employees, other government agents or employees, or contractor personnel.”
“Judge Jackson never filed habeas petitions that named either President Bush or Secretary Rumsfeld war criminals,” a White House official said in an email on Tuesday.
But in Judge Jackson’s response, she said that she didn’t remember such a reference, quickly adding that “I did not intend to disparage the president or the secretary of defense.”
