Highlights from Senate vote to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson

Several GOP senators have telegraphed plans to question Judge Jackson's defense of detainees at Guantanamo Bay as a private defense attorney, her support of reduced sentences for convicted drug offenders and the backing of her nomination by outside progressive advocacy groups.

In a sign the hearings could get contentious, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri -- a former Supreme Court clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts and a potential presidential hopeful -- suggested in a barrage of tweets Thursday that Jackson has a "long record" of letting child porn offenders "off the hook" and suggested she is "soft on crime."

White House press secretary Jen Psaki pushed back last week, calling it a "last-ditch eve-of-hearing desperation attack."

"The facts are that, in the vast majority of cases involving child sex crimes, broadly, the sentences Judge Jackson imposed were consistent with or above what the government or U.S. probation [authorities] recommended. And so, this attack that we've seen over the last couple of days relies on factual inaccuracies and taking Judge Jackson's record wildly out of context," Psaki said.

While court records show that Jackson did impose lighter sentences than federal guidelines suggested, Hawley's insinuation neglects critical context, including the fact that the senator himself has voted to confirm at least three federal judges who also engaged in the same practice. ABC News' Devin Dwyer fact checks Hawley here.

-ABC News' Devin Dwyer

Judge Jackson has been vetted twice previously by the Judiciary Committee and twice confirmed by the full Senate as a judge -- most recently last year, with three Republican votes. She was also confirmed by the Senate in 2010 as vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

GOP Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Lindsey Graham voted in favor of Judge Jackson's confirmation to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in June 2021, but after private meetings with Jackson this month, all three were noncommittal about supporting her again.

While Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin has said he is hopeful more than three Republicans will support the nomination this time around, GOP Whip Sen. John Thune said last week he would be surprised it that were the case.

"I think it's important to recognize that she has been confirmed three times now, so this is not a candidate who is a blank slate to us," Collins said after spending more than 90 minutes one-on-one with Jackson. "I will, of course, await the hearings before the Judiciary Committee before making a decision."

No Republican senator has publicly disputed Jackson's qualification to be a justice, though several have raised concerns about her rulings and presumed judicial philosophy.

-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer

Monday marks the first day of four high-profile hearings where the Senate Judiciary Committee and American people will hear from Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson -- President Joe Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee and the first Black woman nominated to the nation’s highest court in its 233-year history.

The hearings will gavel in at 11 a.m. with 10-minute statements from the committee's 11 Republican and 11 Democratic members. Following member opening statements, Judge Thomas Griffith, formerly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and professor Lisa Fairfax of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School will have five minutes each to introduce Jackson, whom they know personally.

Finally, Judge Jackson will then deliver an opening statement in the afternoon for 10 minutes. ABC News will air special coverage of her remarks.

And for the first time since the pandemic, for each half-hour of the proceeding, up to 60 members of the public invited by senators will also be allowed to attend.