Romney planning ‘a much deeper dive’ on Jackson after opposing her for appeals court

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah.) said that he is planning “a much deeper dive” into Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson after he opposed nomination to the D.C. appeals court. 

“I have begun a deeper dive, a much deeper dive than I had during the prior evaluation,” Romney said on “The Source with Kasie Hunt” on CNN+. “In this case, as well, she’s gone into much more depth talking about her judicial philosophy that she had before. And we’re, of course, looking at her judicial record, as a district judge and as an appellate judge, in far more depth than we had before.”

When asked about the tone and tenor of Jackson’s hearing and how his Republican colleagues questioned her record, Romney said he thought some of them asked respectable questions to Jackson. 

“Some colleagues on my side of the aisle, I thought, asked respectful questions and were able to elicit responses from her that I think were very helpful to those that are making an evaluation,” Romney told host Kasie Hunt.

Romney added, however, that some Republicans, whom he did not name, used rhetoric that “was a little hot.”

“I think any setting like this that doesn’t show respect for the witness, or in this case the judge, is not the right way for us to go. We should show, in my opinion, more respect for one another. And so sometimes the rhetoric was a little hot,” Romney added. “But I think in the final analysis, we’ll each be able to make our decision based upon our personal interviews with Judge Jackson and with the results that come from these hearings.”

In a Senate vote last year, Romney opposed appointing Jackson to fill a vacancy on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) were the only GOP lawmakers to vote in favor of Jackson.