PL: How do you answer the “soft on crime” charge because you were a PD?
KBJ: My brother was a cop, and my uncles. I care about public safety. I know what it’s like to have a loved one in law enforcement. Need for LE is not abstract or a political thing. “As a lawyer and citizen, I care deeply about our constitution and the rights that make us free.” As a judge “I care deeply about the rule of law.”
PL: Guantanamo Bay. Two presidents have said they wanted it closed. The world is watching us. It was a mess. We needed you in that. Unchartered legal waters, why did you get involved in it as a private attorney, too.
KBJ: Reminds that first she took the cases as public defender. As a result of that, SCOTUS ruled that, yeah, detainees have habeas and as a private lawyer, those cases started to come in. She’s doing a good job explaining the extremely complicated situation the Bush administration had created in this extra-legal detention at Gitmo (w/out getting political about it).