Senate Republicans are furious Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) debunked their false claims and accusations, and outright lies during Tuesday’s confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Wednesday morning the very powerful Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), an attorney who holds not one but two law degrees, complained that Chairman Durbin “editorialized’ after each Republicans’ 30 minutes of questioning.
And he specifically complained that Chairman Durbin corrected the record after he falsely accused Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of calling President George W. Bush and his late Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld “war criminals.”
“I noticed that after every series of questioning on this side of the aisle, he told Durbin, referring to Republicans, “you choose to editorialize and contradict the points being made by this side of the aisle. I don’t know whether we will have an equal opportunity to editorialize about the advocacy that you and your colleagues, the points that you’re trying to make,” Cornyn complained.
“I especially was concerned that after my questioning yesterday, 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 with regard to whether the judge accused President George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld of war crimes. My language was I asked her whether she called them a war criminal and she said under oath to you ‘No, I did not,’ although the record is plain as it can be that she accused them of war crimes,” he said, switching his own language.
“Now I don’t understand the difference between calling somebody a war criminal and accusing them of war crimes, maybe in some, some other foreign language that I don’t frankly, understand, maybe that would make sense but not in accordance with a common understanding of the English language,” Cornyn said, falsely.
Senator Cornyn not only holds two law degrees, but he was also the Texas Attorney General, an associate justice on the Texas Supreme Court, and a Texas district court judge.
“So I just don’t, I just want to lodge a protest and say that I don’t think it’s appropriate for the chairman after every time somebody on this side of the aisle, asks questions of the judge, you come back and you denigrate, and you attack and you criticize a line of questioning. I think the judge is doing a pretty good job of defending her own position and answering questions. So thank you for giving me a chance to express my objection to the way that you’ve been editorializing after each time this side of the aisle asks questions.”
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