Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
- Sen. Ted Cruz aggressively questioned SCOTUS nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson on Wednesday.
- Immediately afterward, the Texas Senator was pictured checking Twitter.
- A photojournalist with the Los Angeles Times tweeted that Cruz was “searching for his name.”
Sen. Ted Cruz was photographed checking his Twitter mentions immediately after he aggressively questioned the Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson in a confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
During the hearing, Cruz went over his 20-minute allotted questioning time and repeatedly ignored requests from Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to stop grilling Jackson.
He had been asking her about her sentencing record on child-pornography cases, a topic which she repeatedly defended throughout the week.
Shortly after the heated exchange between Durbin and Cruz, Los Angeles Times reporter Nolan D. McCaskill tweeted a photo of the Texas senator in which he appears to be looking down at his phone.
“Ted Cruz looks like he’s checking his mentions after his back and forths with KBJ and Durbin,” McCaskill wrote alongside the picture. “He’s had his head down during all of Coons’ testimony, even as Sasse and Tillis are clearly listening to their Democratic colleague and the nominee before them.”
Kent Nishimura, a photojournalist also working for the Los Angeles Times, confirmed this observation, posting another photo of Cruz on his phone, but from a different angle.
“Can confirm this. He was searching Twitter for his name, this was right after his exchange with Chairman Durbin,” Nishimura wrote.
—Kent Nishimura (西村賢一) (@kentnish) March 23, 2022
During her confirmation hearings this week, Jackson faced sharp questioning from Cruz and several other Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Topics included her sentencing record on child-pornography cases, her position on unauthorized immigrants, and critical race theory.
Cruz and others have been rebuked by Democratic senators for their lines of questioning. Durbin accused them of using the hearing as “an opportunity to showcase talking points for the November election,” Reuters reported.
But Jackson doesn’t need any GOP support because she can be confirmed by Democrats through a simple-majority vote.
If confirmed, Jackson — who was put forward by President Joe Biden last month — would make history as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
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