GOP Senators Accuse Dick Durbin of “Editorializing” During SCOTUS Hearings

At the start of the third day of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson‘s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings Wednesday, a pair of GOP members complained that Democratic Chairman Dick Durbin is “editorializing” between Republican talking points.

The complaints began with Texas Sen. John Cornyn after Durbin claimed Jackson’s hearings have become a “testing ground for conspiracy theories” against President Joe Biden’s high court nominee, who is tapped to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer and would become the first black woman on the Supreme Court if confirmed by the Senate.

“Mr. Chairman, I think you’ve in the main provided both sides an opportunity to be heard and asked for questions. But unfortunately, I noticed that after every series of questioning on this side of the aisle, you choose to editorialize and contradict the points being made by this side of the aisle,” Cornyn said.

The complaint was echoed by Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Mississippi, who told Durbin: “I appreciate your input, but they’re not offered in an even-handed way. And I just don’t think it’s productive.”

DURBIN SLAPS DOWN CORNYN FOR CLAIMING KETANJI BROWN JACKSON CALLED BUSH A WAR CRIMINAL

Durbin responded, “It’s called ‘chairman’s time,'” adding that the input of a chairman between committee members “has been treated as a tradition in this committee exercise by Sen. Lindsey Graham as chairman and Sen. [Chuck] Grassley” in past Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

Cornyn raised his point regarding a line of questioning he posed to Jackson on Tuesday, in which he asked if she ever referred to former President George W. Bush and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as a “war criminal” or accused them of “war crimes” when she represented Guantanamo Bay detainees as a public defender, which later followed an interjection by Durbin.

“I left the hearing room, and you chose to come back after a break and raise with the judge a point that I had asked her about and which I frankly think was misrepresenting my position and what the facts are,” Cornyn said of Durbin on Wednesday.

After returning from recess on Tuesday, Durbin sought to clarify that Jackson filed several habeas petitions against the United States that named Bush and Rumsfeld in a brief advocating on behalf of people alleging they were tortured.

“To be clear, there was no time where you called President Bush or Secretary Rumsfeld a ‘war criminal,'” Durbin said.

“Correct, senator. Thank you. That was correct,” Jackson said Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Jackson was given the opportunity by Durbin to clarify her role further as one of several lawyers in 2005 who signed boilerplate habeas corpus petitions on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainees.

“Lawyers were helping the courts to assess the permissible extent of executive authority by making arguments, and we were assigned as public defenders,” Jackson said. “We had very little information because of the confidentiality or classified nature of a lot of the record, and as an appellate lawyer, it was my obligation to file habeas petitions on behalf of my clients.”

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Other complaints about Durbin’s interjections were briefly raised Tuesday night by GOP lawmakers after the Democratic chairman referred to Republican Sen. Josh Hawley’s critical questioning of Jackson’s record of sentencing against child pornography offenders as “attacks.”