“Perpetrators need to face harsh punishment, but severe sentences should serve as a deterrent to those thinking of exploiting society’s most vulnerable,” says retired FBI agent, Bob Hamer. 

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The 2022 election kicked off like a rocket this week during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on President Biden’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson pitting Republicans against Democrats in full regalia. 

Less than 24 hours after four days of hearings, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has announced he is not supporting Jackson’s confirmation, and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) acknowledging he will vote for her confirmation. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee members’ votes on Jackson's lifetime appointment is expected next week. The full Senate vote is expected before the April Senate recess. 

These explosive hearings revealed the U.S. Senate, judicial, and executive branches are broken. The hearings proved very dark days for children. The sentencing laws outdate the internet child pornography epidemic in the United States. Judge Jackson’s attempt to justify her past sentencing rulings for internet child pornographers threw open the doors. 

Prior to the hearings, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) claimed that Judge Jackson’s judicial record on sentencing child pornographers “endangers our children,” specifying Judge Jackson’s sentences below prosecutorial recommendations and guidelines. 

Republican senators asked heated questions. Some of Jackson’s feckless responses, when answered, blamed Congress and a U.S. Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Booker for her decisions in calculating sentences were not acceptable to some senators.  

The picture painted Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination as a gut punch to raped pre-pubescent children.

Citing Judge Jackson’s own rulings calling these “egregious crimes” were juxtaposition to several of her sentences. In one case, she sentenced the defendant to three months even though that defendant was in possession of pre-pubescent exploitative rape images. After the defendant was released, he was later arrested. 

Along with Senator Hawley, Republican Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-ARK), John Kennedy (R-LA) and others, challenged Judge Jackson’s vigorously over nearly ten cases. 

The full hearings can be watched here on C-Span. 

The hearings exemplified a frightening reminder that those nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court should have a zealous judicial understanding of the scope of child sexual exploitation in the age of the internet. 

Judge Jackson claimed that she discerned with “determination seriously in each case,” but some senators were exasperated.

 “The more images there are, the higher the sentences,” exclaimed Senator Graham, “Throw their asses in jail.” 

“Exhausted this topic,” asserted Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill), the Chair of the Judiciary Committee, on the third day of the hearings, when ten Republican senators’ requested further documentation in Judge Jackson's pre-sentencing case files.  

Judge Jackson defended her rulings on the information in those files. Senator Durbin cited “privacy” issues and denied the senators’ requests, even after Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) requested that they view the information in a secured room.  

“I am not going to have that on my conscience,” Senator Durbin forcefully exclaimed. 

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) appeared horrified with the line of questioning, and pivoted to the historical moment of a black woman being nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Senator Booker, coming to Judge Jackson’s defense, cited police and victims’ groups' endorsements.  

“Let the work I’ve done speak for me,” said Senator Booker, referring the judge's body of work. “I look at you as I see my Mom. You have earned this spot. You are a great American.”

Judge Jackson eyes became tearful.

“You faced insults here that are shocking,” said Booker. “Don’t worry, my sister. God has got you.”  

What was left on the table was if judges do not sentence criminals with severe penalties for possessing images of minor children being raped, who the hell is left to protect children and deter criminals.

Judge Jackson’s testimony evidenced her profound lack of knowledge about the internet’s history, the understanding of those who possess child pornography, and the massive recidivism rate for these crimes. 

In an exclusive email to CDM.Press, J. Robert Flores, the Former Deputy Section Chief at the Department of Justice's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section from 1989-1997 added some context from first-hand professional experience.

“Judge Jackson was accurate when she said that she was not alone in imposing significantly reduced sentences, but as a Supreme Court Justice, based on her hearing testimony, she has now raised questions as to whether she can be counted upon to support the goals of deterrence and punishment represented by stiff sentencing for such crimes as legitimate and necessary,” concluded Flores. “Such a perspective sends a message that will be surely misconstrued—that cases involving the sexual abuse and exploitation of children that involve their images, but not the original creation, are the only ones that will result in life-changing sentences. And in doing so, she did herself and child victims a grave disservice.”

In April 2009, a study was conducted at the Butner Prison in North Carolina of those serving sentences for possession of child pornography, but not for child rape. Although it was subsequently challenged, it found at that time the following. 

“The study found that the child-pornography offenders who were convicted of the possession, receipt, or distribution of child-sexual-abuse images but had no known criminal history of “hands-on” sexual abuse were likely to have engaged in the actual sexual abuse of a child. Thus, they were similar in their sexual behavioral patterns toward children to the second group examined, which consisted of child-pornography offenders with documented histories of “hands-on” sexual offending against at least one child. The men in either of the child-pornography groups who had committed sexual offenses against children were likely to have offended against more than one victim, and the incidence of “crossover” by gender and age was high. These findings challenge the frequent assertion that child-pornography offenders are “only” involved with “pictures,” such that they pose no significant risk of direct commission of a sexual offense against a child. The findings indicate the importance of online criminal investigations that target so-called “Internet sex offenders,” since such investigations are likely to result in the apprehension of child molesters. Although these men may attribute their search for child pornography to “curiosity” or a similar unthreatening motivation, the findings of the current study suggest the likelihood that they have also engaged in the sexual abuse of children.”

Three months after this study was published, President Obama appointed Judge Jackson as Vice-Chair to the Sentencing Commission.   

Although the Butner Study was controversial, the discussion of child porn possession v. child rapists was well-known in legal circles for years, and during the time that Judge Jackson served at the Sentencing Commission.

Although none of this history was put on the table during Jackson's hearing so the public could digest it, Senator Graham asked Judge Jackson a very basic question, which was pertinent since Democratic senators were more focused on her educational, judicial and historical pedigree - was Judge Jackson aware of the number of internet child porn crimes? 

Jackson claimed she did not know. 

Senator Graham referred to the current internet child abuse situation as an “epidemic.”

“In 2021, reports to the CyberTipline increased by 35% from 2020,” which Graham cited from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s website, with the staggering number of 30 million images of child abuse and rape. These reports include 85 million photos, videos and files. 

To even refer to them as photos or images or porn minimizes what they really are. That is akin to Catholic Church defense lawyers references the crimes against children as "inappropriate touchings" over two decades ago when the Catholic Church was imploding with its sex scandals. 

Each one of these images is evidence of a crime scene. All of these pieces of evidence are illegal - images of rapes and sexually abusing minors as young as infants, toddlers, and very young children are crime scenes.

According to numerous international cybercrime law enforcement officials, with first-hand knowledge, who have viewed this smut, there is a resounding agreement that these are heinous crimes. 

In one forum, my colleagues and I hosted at Georgetown University over a decade ago, a U.S. I.C.E cybercrime official, whose job was to view this smut, literally showed the audience emails of one maggot communicating with another maggot over the internet how he wanted to boil a baby and cannibalize that child. 

The question emerging is whether it is more important to have an historical moment by appointing the first black women to the U.S. Supreme Court because presidential candidate Joe Biden made a promise during the 2020 campaign, or appoint someone who understands the epidemic of these crimes against children on the internet in the 21st century?

This is a tipping point moment in American history.

Every American needs to get educated and communicate to their Senators where they stand. 

Do not allow any Senator to play the political game on this vote. 

Like Judge Jackson, I too was exposed to this smut by law enforcement in the U.S. Scotland Yard, and the Hague Porn Unit in 2000, but unlike Judge Jackson, I took on this universally because it is not only morally repugnant, abhorrent, and horrifying, it is beneath the dignity of anyone in a civilized and moral society to sit on the sidelines, and not expect more from a system that allows leadership to play politics for historical gains. 

To minimize this issue, turning Judge Jackson into a victim, as some Democratic senators tried to do, signifies that the U.S. Senate and White House is mired in a political game.  

Senator Booker criticized the Republican senators challenging Judge Jackson’s rulings in cases of child pornography.  

“This is a new low,” said Senator Booker. 

No, it is not. It is a new low of the lowest in the U.S. Senate. 

The nominee and all senators’ performances ripped open just how frightening those in power do not fully grasp the severity of internet child porn, or are willing to sacrifice children for a political agenda.  

Almost 22 years ago, this journalist was commissioned by the International Centre for Missing & Exploitative Children (ICMEC) to investigate human trafficking. This journalist then linked human trafficking on the street to the internet in its early days (before Facebook) as the internet invaded every home because the traffickers interviewed bragged about their criminal tools of the trade. This journalist reported such to ICMEC’s board before taking her investigation global. One of ICMEC’s board members then, and remains today, is retired U.S. Senator Dennis DeConcini. 

“On the first leg of this investigation through London, I asked Paul Holmes, “How old are the victims?” Looking me dead in the eyes, “As young as infants.” I had to ask him to repeat what he just said. And, then Holmes proceeded to tell me a story that seemed too bizarre and far too shocking,” I wrote in Shattered Innocence 21 years ago. 

At that point in history, Paul Holmes was a British law enforcement official, Head of Vice in Central London, and then co-founded the Interpol Trafficking Committee in 2001 with Yola Vollebreght, a Dutch law enforcement investigator, who brought me inside of The National Pornography Unit at The Hague, and introduced me to Tom Erents, one of the leading pornography agents, who educated me of these heinous and horrifying crimes.

For a Supreme Court nominee, like Judge Jackson, to put the onus of her non-deterrent sentencing rulings on Congress, and not intellectually grasping demonstrably the link between child porn possession and sexually acting out is not just frightening, but immorally sacrificing children for her own historical moment in history, and President Biden's legacy.   

It matters not that the nominee exemplified grace and dignity with her frustration of being challenged, or even graduated from Harvard College and Harvard Law School, or is endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police, or has family members in law enforcement. 

That, and this historical moment for Judge Jackson, are minimal to the grave responsibilities all legislative, judicial, and executive branches have to the protection of children on the street and over the internet in the 21st century.  

Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) quoted from Judge Jackson’s own writings, “Mistakenly thought child porn possessors were pedophiles.” 

Two former law enforcement officials who have investigated severe crimes against children have very different views from Judge Jackson's. 

Bob Hamer, veteran FBI agent and author of THE LAST UNDERCOVER, which details his infiltration of NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, notes how sometimes judges go below the minimum standards of sentencing and how that should not happen for these crimes.  

“As a society, we can have no higher calling than the protection of our children. The sexual exploitation of children needs to be rigorously investigated with minimum mandatory sentences imposed for those convicted. The perpetrators need to face harsh punishment, but severe sentences should serve as a deterrent to those thinking of exploiting society’s most vulnerable,” wrote Mr. Hamer to CDM.Press exclusively.

A recent interview with Bob Hamer and CDM.Press can be found here. 

Del Wilber, a former Intelligence and National Security Professional, and author of In the Shadow of the Swords, the Baghdad Police Academy, and Contributing Columnist for Townhall.com and America Out Loud, wrote to CDM.Press exclusively.

A recent interview with Bob Hamer and CDM.Press can be found here. 

Del Wilber, a former Intelligence and National Security Professional, and author of In the Shadow of the Swords, the Baghdad Police Academy, and Contributing Columnist for Townhall.com and America Out Loud, wrote to CDM.Press exclusively. 

“Child porn is not much different than murder.  It murders the spirit and the souls of those victimized.  I think it merits the same criminal penalties,” wrote Mr. Wilber, who years ago worked as a St. Louis police officer on the infamous Angie Houseman case. 

“Angie was abducted after getting off the school bus and walking a couple of blocks to her house.  Held and sexually abused for over a week she was eventually taken to a remote area and tied to a tree to die of exposure in the frigid winter weather.  Found a few hours too late by a deer hunter, Angie’s case went unsolved for 27 years until DNA from the crime scene was matched to an incarcerated perpetrator being held on child sexual abuse chargers in another distant state,” wrote Mr. Wilber. “He ultimately agreed to a plea deal that will keep him off the streets and away from children for the rest of his life.  It’s a credit to the police evidence and crime lab technicians who maintained the DNA evidence in her case until the technology caught up so that it could finally be exploited, and Angie could receive some justice.”

“Though no evidence of child pornography was presented during the plea agreement that sentenced Angie’s killer to prison for the rest of his life, individuals who are caught up in viewing child pornography often lose their interest in only viewing children in sexual situations, and move on to actually committing sexual acts against them. The two more often than not go hand in hand,” wrote Mr. Wilber.

With the advent of professors and others publicly pushing for the decriminalization of pedophilia, and the normalization of “minor-attracted persons” as an acceptable sexual orientation based upon the argument that those adults, who claim to be attracted to minor children do not sexually act out, when there is a plethora of irrefutable evidence otherwise, and the sexual indoctrination of children in U.S. schools, and Judge Jackson claiming that she could not answer the question, “What is the definition of a woman, when asked by Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and she answered, “I’m not a biologist,” it is time for the American public and government leaders to get their heads out of cement, and raise the bar on who is appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the responsibility of every adult to protect every children no matter what faith, nationality, race or creed across the globe. 

To not take prosecutors’ mandatory recommendations for sentencing, and not use the enhancements for sentencing relative to computers, are severe judicial failures. 

For any senator to accuse another senator challenging Judge Jackson’s reasoning for deciding below prosecutors’ recommendations for possession of internet child pornography, which is the tool of the trade these days, is perhaps one of the darkest moments in a Supreme Court nomination hearing. 

Judge Jackson’s defended herself calling the sentencing guidelines a “rationale” model.

This so-called “rationale” model mightily fails every child and family – the very people whose government leaders have sworn to protect. 

Senator Graham viscerally disagreed with Judge Jackson. Their exchange can be watched here. 

“I hope if you get caught and you are using a computer and no one gives you a break,” said Senator Graham.

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Christine Dolan is CDM.Press’ Chief Investigative Correspondent, who has covered human trafficking on the street and over the internet for 22 years in 140 countries. She has trained journalists, lawyers, law enforcement, business leaders, and judges about human trafficking. Dolan was the first female Political Director of any US network in America.

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