President Joe Biden erroneously claimed his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is “one of our nation’s top legal minds,” even though no legal scholars consider her as such.
“I did that four days ago, when I nominated Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of our nation’s top legal minds, who will continue Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence,” Biden said during his State of the Union address on Tuesday.
“A former top litigator in private practice. A former federal public defender. And from a family of public school educators and police officers. A consensus builder,” he added.
However, the only reference to Jackson as a “consensus builder” comes from Biden himself. Additionally, no one in the legal community has considered Jackson a “top legal mind.” For example, Jackson was considered to be at the bottom of the pack of the roughly ten district judges former President Barack Obama appointed to the D.C. federal district bench.
The progressive organization Demand Justice even left Jackson’s name off its lengthy list of “diverse, progressive” Supreme Court candidates released in 2019.
In fact, Jackson is notorious for her high record of opinions reversed by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. “She’s someone who has a record of being regularly overturned by the D.C. Circuit, including the most liberal judges in that circuit,” said Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network. An Ethics and Public Policy Center senior fellow also called Jackson’s reversal record “striking.”
Legal scholars have also criticized Jackson for her “clunky” writing style. American lawyer Ed Whelan said Jackson’s opinions have “clunky verbiage,” “clumsy images,” and “mischosen words.”
Jackson was also criticized for using “shocking” political language when she wrote “presidents are not kings” in a 2019 opinion regarding a House Judiciary Committee subpoena request for former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify. Ironically, that decision was reversed by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.