'Appealing to QAnon': CNN's Toobin smacks down Josh Hawley's latest smear against Judge Jackson

During Tuesday's Supreme Court hearing for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) went out of his way to rehash a claim that the judge had been soft on child sex predators — a claim that has already been picked apart by fact-checkers.

On CNN, chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin was aghast at Hawley's effort to double down on the attack — and suggested he is trying to pander to conspiracy theorists, rather than actually do his senatorial duty of vetting a Supreme Court nominee.

"This was extraordinary," said Toobin. "You have a judge who has been on the bench for ten years, almost. And we had the entire half hour of Senator Hawley's question about a single case where he got to recite the grisly details of, and say pedophilia over and over again."

RELATED: Josh Hawley’s attacks on Judge Brown undermined by fellow GOP senator: ‘There is no there, there’

"This is about appealing to the QAnon audience, this cult that is a big presence in Republican Party politics now, that is where Senator Hawley is trying to ingratiate himself," Toobin continued. "This has very little to do with Judge Jackson, who, as has come out throughout the hearing today, is one of many judges who have found the sentencing guidelines in these child porn possession cases excessive. But that was extraordinary in half hour, all about a single case."

Watch below:

Jeffrey Toobin on Josh Hawley's attacks on Ketanji Brown Jacksonwww.youtube.com