Cornyn says Judge Jackson called Bush and Rumsfeld ‘war criminals’; it wasn’t that explicit
Updated at 3:15 p.m. after Cruz questioning.
Democrats later insisted that Cornyn had stretched beyond recognition Jackson’s legal claims about the U.S. practice at the time of torturing militants. Cruz was one year ahead of the judge at Harvard Law School, and they overlapped at the law review, but there was no apparent punch pulled because of that shared history.
When the committee returned from lunch, Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., sought to refute Cornyn’s “war criminal” claim. To back up his claim, Cornyn’s office provided three petitions filed by Jackson in December 2005 that alleged that the government had sanctioned torture, a war crime under international law. At no point do those filings refer directly to Bush, Rumsfeld or anyone else as “war criminals.” But the filings assert that Bush and Rumsfeld authorized torture, and torture is a war crime.
But he said, “Being a war criminal has huge ramifications. You can be subject to the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and hauled before that international tribunal and tried for war crimes. So, it’s not a casual comment.” He cited a 2020 speech she delivered at the University of Michigan law school in which she referred to the 1619 Project and its author, Nikole Hannah-Jones, who has become despised by the right for reframing American history in the context of slavery that long predates independence.
“Your chart does not include all of the factors that Congress has told judges to consider, including the probation officer’s recommendation,” Jackson responded, schooling the senator on the realities of being a trial judge. “As Congress directs, judges don’t just calculate the guidelines and stop. Judges have to take into account the personal circumstances of the defendant.”
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