- Jaime Harrison called Tom Cotton the "lowest of the low" and a "little maggot-infested man."
- Harrison was outraged by Cotton's suggestion that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson might have defended Nazis accused of war crimes.
- Harrison also called the GOP "a party built on fraud, fear, and fascism."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison slammed Sen. Tom Cotton on Wednesday, calling him the "lowest of the low" and a "little maggot-infested man" after the Arkansas Republican suggested that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson might have defended Nazis accused of war crimes.
"In a Senate where there is Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton is the lowest of the low," Harrison said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
Harrison took particular offense to Cotton's suggestion that Biden's Supreme Court nominee might have defended Nazis during the Nuremberg trials. A possible future presidential candidate, Cotton was repeating the GOP's misleading attacks on Jackson's defense of Guantanamo Bay detainees during her time as a federal public defender and later in private practice.
Cotton referenced Justice Robert Jackson, who famously took a leave from the Supreme Court to lead the allies' prosecution of top Nazi officers at the Nuremberg trials, in his latest attack. Jackson was also a staunch defender of the rule of law and the necessity for all accused people to receive a zealous defense.
"You know, the last Judge Jackson left the Supreme Court to go Nuremberg and prosecute the case against the Nazis," Cotton said on the Senate floor. "This Judge Jackson might've gone there to defend them."
Harrison went on to recount a disputed anecdote about Cotton's blocking of Cassandra Butts, President Barack Obama's nominee to become US Ambassador to the Bahamas. Butts, who was a law school classmate and close friend of the then-president, died in 2016 following an acute leukemia diagnosis. Her nomination had stalled for more than 820 days before her death.
Butts told New York Times columnist Frank Bruni that Cotton told her that he was blocking her nomination in part as a way to twist the knife in Obama. Bruni described it as "a way to inflict special pain on the president" and wrote that Cotton's office did not dispute the account of the meeting. But Cotton's office did later dispute his characterization of Butts' conversation with Cotton, especially the notion that he callously blocked Butts' nomination, The Daily Caller wrote at the time.
Harrison said that Cotton's conduct shows that "he doesn't deserve to be in the United States Senate" and is indicative of a broader moral stain on the Republican Party.
"It is a party built on fraud, fear, and fascism," Harrison said. "And They don't deserve to be in power. Not because Democrats should, but because they don't deserve to be in power of this great nation."
A spokesperson for Cotton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.