Republicans struggle for an effective attack on Ketanji Brown Jackson

Some GOP senators have targeted Jackson’s representation of criminal defendants when she was a public defender, but that line of attack has made other Republicans uncomfortable. “I’m not going to criticize her for any client she’s represented. We’ve all represented clients that we didn’t agree with and in some cases, didn’t even like,” said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.). “But everybody has the right to counsel.”

The panel’s top Republican, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), has been particularly coy about the lines of questioning he plans to pursue. He has mostly raised procedural complaints, about the documents Jackson should be asked to produce — an issue that has done little to derail previous nominees…

Privately, some GOP officials —while perplexed at the Senate Republicans’ current approach— argue that spending significant time and effort going after the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court is not worthwhile politically, and that it makes far more sense to focus on pocketbook issues ahead of the midterms.