Ketanji Brown Jackson Defends Representing Gitmo Detainees: ‘Federal Public Defenders Don’t Get to Pick Their Clients’

President Joe Biden’s pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, is standing behind her representation of Guantanamo Bay detainees during her time as a public defender.

The judge’s representation of detainees has been a GOP point of criticism during the confirmation process.

During her nomination hearing on Tuesday, Jackson said:

September 11 was a tragic attack on this country. We all lived through it. We saw what happened, and there were many defenses, important defenses, that Americans undertook. There were Americans whose service came in the form of military action. My brother was one of those Americans, those brave Americans who decided to join the military to defend our country. There are others of you in this body who have military service, and I honor that. To protect our country.

After 9/11, there were also lawyers who recognized that our nation’s values were under attack, that we couldn’t let the terrorists win by changing who we were, fundamentally. And what that meant was that the people who were being accused by our government of having engaged in actions related to this, under our constitutional scheme, were entitled to representation. Were entitled to be treated fairly. That’s what makes our system the best in the world. That’s what makes us exemplary.

Continuing her answer, Jackson remarked that “federal public defenders don’t get to pick their clients.”

“They have to represent whoever comes in, and it’s a service. That’s what you do as a federal public defender,” she continued. “You are standing up for the constitutional value of representation.”

If confirmed, Jackson would succeed Justice Stephen Breyer, whom she clerked for, and become the first Black female Supreme Court justice.

Watch above, via MSNBC.