Senator explains how the GOP swamp 'delivered talking points' to Republicans against Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

The third Republican Senator announced Monday that they'd be supporting Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the approval vote at the U.S. Supreme Court. But that wasn't what MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell wanted to talk about during his hour. He connected the dots for the groups and right-wing people who manufactured things they could use against her.

O'Donnell explained that the only Republican to support Judge Jackson when she was up for a vote the last time, is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Graham supported her then but doesn't support her now. Nothing has changed in her record. The issues he cited were all there the last time, but he didn't care about it then.

Most Supreme Court nominees come prepared for an examination of their past statements, past decisions and body of work. That didn't happen with Judge Jackson. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of cases, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) singled out a handful of cases where Judge Jackson pointed to outdated sentencing laws to account for an era of child exploitation images sent over electronics.

She urged Congress to update laws on such things to take into account the age of the internet and not the mail. The average of the sentences in those four cases was lower than the average. If the GOP averaged all of the cases, beyond those four, they'd find her sentences were over the average recommendations.

But when it came to other issues, Republicans had to come up with some unique issues. In an era of hysteria over teaching about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Republicans have complained that teaching about the Civil Rights Movement is really about "critical race theory."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the first to pick up some children's books that were read in a third-grade classroom at a private school where Judge Jackson sits on the advisory board. The book argues that people aren't born racist. Cruz appeared to take issue with that claim.

Speaking to O'Donnell, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), "Yeah I mean you actually think Ted Cruz was running around that elementary school library pulling books off shelves looking for something offensive. No, this stuff gets fed to them in this case it was his old opposite guy who was doing some of the research."

He's referring to a collection of conservative groups that all share the same address. Everything from the Independent Women's Forum to Independent Women's Voice, Independent Women's Law Center, which are attached to Leonard Leo. He is a former Executive Vice President of the Federalist Society and a close ally of Cruz who introduced him when speaking to the FederalistSociety.

His groups are The 85 Fund and The Concord Fund, which previously went under the name The Judicial Crisis Network. They're all funded by the Kochs and Betsy DeVos’ family and supported the "big lie" that Trump won the 2020 election. These networks of dark money groups also have Sen. Josh Hawley's wife working on staff.

See the full conversation below:

Dark money groups that fought Judge Jacksonyoutu.be