Less than a year ago, Senator Lindsey Graham voted to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which is often seen as a stepping stone to becoming a Supreme Court justice. Now he’d like people to know that not only does he believe she’s a danger to the rule of law, but he opposes her SCOTUS confirmation so vigorously that he’s going to go nuclear over it should Republicans take back the Senate.
Despite the fact that Jackson is all but certain to be sworn in to the highest court in the land in short order, Graham took the time on Monday to rage against her nomination, stating that he’d be voting against her—the first time he’ll oppose a Supreme Court pick since joining the Senate in 2003. Because apparently, he’s just that much of what congressional historians call a “petty little bitch.”
“If we get back the Senate, and we’re in charge of this body, and there’s judicial openings, we will talk to our colleagues on the other side. But if we were in charge, she would not have been before this committee. You would have had somebody more moderate than this,” Graham said, not adding that the Senate famously refused to hold a hearing for Barack Obama nominee Merrick Garland, who was, in fact, widely viewed as a moderate.
Graham, who spent much of Jackson’s confirmation hearings complaining about how mean Democrats were to Brett Kavanaugh nearly four years ago, noted that Joe Biden’s nominee “has got a lot to be proud of. She’s accomplished a lot in her life. She’s a good person. I’m sure she’s a great mother and a very gifted person. She’s fought hard to be where she’s at in life.” Nevertheless, he said he’d be casting a nay because of his newfound belief that Jackson—the woman whom he, again, voted to confirm to the D.C. Circuit less than a year ago—“will not be deterred by the plain meaning of the law when it comes to liberal causes.”
Graham’s most shameless GOP colleagues offered similar rationales for voting against Jackson on Monday. Ted Cruz, last seen asking Jackson if babies were racist, claimed the she “will prove to be the most extreme and furthest-left justice ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court.” Josh Hawley, who smeared Jackson with the baseless accusation that she was soft on pedophiles as a judge, used his time today to defend his QAnon-style line of questioning, saying, “Sex crimes against children are not fiction. They are not a conspiracy.”
Meanwhile, on Sunday, Senator Roy Blunt admitted that Jackson’s ascendancy to the Court would mark a “high point” in U.S. history—and that we could mark him down for a “no.”
