President Biden’s Supreme Court Nominee Testifies: What You Need To Know

Elections have consequences, and Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee for the Supreme Court to replace Justice Stephen Breyer, is testifying at confirmation hearings in the United States Senate today. If confirmed, Judge Jackson will be ruling on monumental cases as soon as this term.

In today’s hearing, Judge Ketanji Jackson tried to describe her judicial philosophy to Senator Dick Durbin: 

Over the course of my almost decade on the bench, I have developed a methodology that I use in order to ensure that I am ruling impartially and that I am adhering to the limits on my judicial authority. I am acutely aware that as a judge in our system, I have limited power. And I am trying in every case to stay in my lane.

Additionally, when asked by Senator Chuck Grassley about how she would go about deciding what a “fundamental right” is based on the Constitution, Judge Jackson responded: 

There is precedent in the Supreme Court related to various rights that the Court has recognized as fundamental. The Court has some precedents about the standards of determining whether or not something is fundamental. The Court has said the 14th Amendment – substantive due process clause – does support some fundamental rights, but only things that are implicit in the ordered concept of liberty or deeply rooted in the history and traditions of this country, the kinds of rights that relate to personal individual autonomy. They have recognized a few things in that category and that is the tradition of the Court of determining whether something is fundamental that way.

ACLJ Director of Policy Harry Hutchison gave his take on why Judge Jackson was beating around the bush when questions like these were presented:

I think they came up with an exquisite dodge for her because they did not want her to fully engage in that particular debate. If you think about that debate from a policy perspective, that debate if you aren’t incredibly conversant, it is filled with landmines, and it could indeed blow up. So, I think at the end of the day they simply settled for a kind of bland answer because I think at this point the assessment . . . is this particular nomination is hers for the taking. More likely than not she will indeed be confirmed, so let’s not raise any hackles. The last point I would make is that if she answered some of those questions on fundamental rights in depth, those words might come back to haunt her when she rules on significant constitutional cases.

A new left-leaning Supreme Court Justice is not the only consequence from the previous election. Another consequence has been America’s position around the world when it comes to foreign policy. Under former President Trump, the U.S. was energy independent. Now, the Biden Administration is trying to rely on Iran to produce oil for the United States. To make matters worse, the Biden Administration is desperately trying to reenter the Iran nuclear deal and to accomplish this, they are using Russia as a negotiator in the deal. Now, Russia is demanding to be exempt from any sanctions.

While the Biden Administration is weighing on lifting sanctions on Russia as they commit war crimes in Ukraine, the White House has warned Americans there is a potential for Russian cyberattacks. ACLJ Senior Advisor for National Security and Foreign Policy and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell explained: 

Well obviously, we know that hacking is a problem. The intelligence community watches it closely. Here, the shocking news is that the responsibility is on the private companies. . . . All of those private sector companies or local companies in some cases, they are responsible. It’s not the federal government. The federal government can somehow benchmark or give warnings, but the hacking goes into the accounts of largely, if not exclusively, private companies.  So, we have to assume the private companies are spending the money to make sure they can block or guard against these hackers. . . . We also have too many people in the public that think it’s the government’s responsibility to secure all of your systems, and it’s not.

Ric summed up what we will have to do to make sure our systems are protected:

Look remember when we go back to terrorism back in the early 2000’s what we quickly learned is that there are individuals who are committing acts of terror. There are non-government actors who rise up and do these types of activities. The same is true when it comes to cyber-attacks. There is going to be a point where governments like China, or Russia, or others are going to pretend or say well we didn’t do anything officially. . . . Our laws are going to have to catch up, the public is going to have to catch up, to recognize that it may not be a government entity coming after our cyber systems. But it absolutely could be individual actors within the governments. We are going to have to batten down the hatches so to speak and make sure all of our systems are protected and that starts with the private sector.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearings and a potential Russian cyber-attack.

Watch the full broadcast below.