The White House did not include in materials given to the Judiciary Committee a grisly case in which Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson departed significantly below probation office recommendation, the Republicans say, and are raising questions of whether the White House “intentionally left it out,” which the White House disputes.
The case was sentenced less than a year ago by Jackson, President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, as she was about to be elevated to the D.C. Circuit Court. Titled U.S. v. Cane, it involved “over 6,500 files depicting children appearing to be of elementary, middle and high school ages, engaged in s-xual acts or posing s-xually.”
84 months were recommended in the case by the probation office, but Jackson sentenced the man to 60 months in prison, which was the mandatory minimum, per report.
A Republican Judiciary Committee aide said that “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.”
The Cane case was unintentionally left off a list given to the committee which compared Jackson’s sentences to the probation office recommendations in 14 child abuse cases because it happened so close to the end of Jackson’s tenure on the D.C. District Court, the White House said.
“This case, 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 s-x crimes, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were either consistent with or above what the government or the U.S. Probation Office recommended,” said Andrew Bates, the White House deputy press secretary.
“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 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the same crimes in the same way, both in terms of giving sentences below guidelines that are widely considered to be out of date across the judiciary and below timelines sought by the prosecution,” Bates added.