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WASHINGTON — Sen. Mitt Romney apparently doesn't see much substance to allegations some conservative members of his party, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, leveled against Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson regarding her sentencing of child pornographers.
"It struck me that it was off course, meaning the attacks were off course that came from some," the Utah Republican told The Washington Post on Tuesday. "And there is no there, there."
Romney, who is not on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has not yet met with Jackson. Earlier this month, he called Jackson an experienced jurist and said he looked forward to reviewing her record and testimony and evaluating her qualifications to serve on the nation's highest court.
Jackson's confirmation hearings before the Judiciary Committee wrapped up with witness testimony Thursday. Lee, who is a member of the panel, did not ask questions of the witnesses.
On Tuesday, Romney had been asked about a line of questioning Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., pursued about a ruling Jackson made about the case United States v. Hawkins in which Jackson gave the 18-year-old defendant a three-month prison sentence. The sentence was below the government's recommendation of two years in prison and far below the federal sentencing guideline of a minimum of 97 months of incarceration.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee pointed out in the hearings that other federal judges confirmed by Republicans have imposed sentences that are less than the recommendations. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., put the figure at more than 70% of federal judges.
The Post reported that Romney appeared unmoved by the allegations from some of his Republican colleagues that have ignored key context such as that prosecutors also recommended sentences lower than the sentencing guidelines.
Lee and Jackson went back and forth over the Hawkins case Wednesday. Lee asserted that in considering Hawkins' sentence, Jackson overlooked the fact that he had requested and obtained pre-pubescent child pornography images.
Jackson pushed back, saying she didn't exclude that fact and imposed her sentence based on the seriousness, nature and circumstances of the crime, the history and characteristics of the defendant as well as all of the other factors that Congress prescribes.
In 2012, an 18-year-old high school student, Wesley Hawkins, started downloading pornographic images from the internet. Hawkins, who is gay, was driven by a kind of curiosity about the images, and his connection to the people in them seemed, his lawyer said, to be "one of identifying" rather than of "exploiting them sexually," according to the New York Times.
When Hawkins reposted images on YouTube, including images of young boys, police got a "cyber-tip" about him, and a detective posing as a fellow child pornography collector reached out to him by email and suggested they trade images, the Times reported.
Prosecutors say that Hawkins eventually swapped images with the undercover detective, sending some files and asking for others.
Hawkins pleaded guilty to downloading and trading scores of images and movies containing child pornography, several showing boys who were under the age of 13.
