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Happy Monday morning.

President Joe Biden heads to Europe on Wednesday to meet with NATO, the European Council and the G-7 as world leaders grapple with the growing crisis in Ukraine.

The White House announced late Sunday night that Biden was adding a trip to Poland to the itinerary. Biden will travel to Warsaw on Friday. On Saturday, Biden will meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda to discuss “the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war on Ukraine has created.”

Biden will also host a call this morning with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

This, of course, is an enormously important trip for Biden, NATO, U.S.-Russian relations and possibly Ukraine’s future. We’ll have a lot more on this as the week unfolds.

On Capitol Hill, the Senate is in session and the House is out.

The SCOTUS schedule: The Senate’s focus this week will be Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet Monday through Thursday to consider Jackson’s nomination. Jackson is the first Black woman tapped for a seat on the high court. She’s also aiming to be the first Democratic nominee to actually be confirmed to the Supreme Court since Elena Kagan in 2010. Yes, it’s been that long a drought for Democrats.

Today is just the opening round of the hearings. The Judiciary Committee kicks things off at 11 a.m. Each of the 22 members of the Judiciary Committee get 10 minutes to talk about Jackson’s nomination. Then the pair formally introducing Jackson to the panel – retired Circuit Judge Thomas Griffith and Prof. Lisa Fairfax of the University of Pennsylvania – will speak for up to five minutes each. This will be followed by a 10-minute opening statement from Jackson herself.

There won’t be any questioning of Jackson today; that begins tomorrow and will last into Wednesday. On Thursday, the Judiciary Committee will hear from the American Bar Association – which unanimously gave Jackson its highest rating, “well qualified,” to serve on the Supreme Court – and other outside witnesses.

The stakes: Jackson is the first Black woman to be nominated for the Supreme Court, so the historic nature of her confirmation process is enormous. Yet in some ways, this is the least contentious nomination fight in a long time given that it won’t shift the ideological balance of the court. Conservatives currently enjoy a 6-3 advantage, and Jackson replacing Breyer won’t change that ratio. This a liberal taking over for a liberal.

Yet every Supreme Court nomination is important in and of itself. Jackson would only be the 116th justice ever to serve if confirmed. More importantly, Jackson – who got both her undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard – is only 51. Like her predecessor, Jackson could be on the Supreme Court for decades to come.

And the Jackon nomination is being conducted by a 50-50 Senate controlled by Democrats. There is literally no room for error here. So far, Jackson has made zero news, and there have been few controversies. Jackson’s meetings with senators went off without a hitch, and there’s been nothing new uncovered about her background. This is exactly what the White House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin want – boring, drama-free proceedings that result in Jackson being seated on the Supreme Court in a matter of weeks.

Sunday’s news that Justice Clarence Thomas was hospitalized with an infection – and not Covid-19 – is another stark reminder of just how important the KBJ nomination could turn out to be. Thomas, who was hospitalized on Friday, is expected to be fine, although he will miss oral arguments today at a minimum.

There are some other interesting dynamics at play.

→	We’ll get a better look at the GOP line of attack against Jackson. So far, most of the criticism has centered around suggestions that Jackson is “soft on crime” and criminals, including sexual predators. This was pushed by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) on Twitter the other day.

The White House and Senate Democrats have pushed back hard on these Republican claims. During an interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Durbin noted that Jackson has already been confirmed by the Senate three times, each time undergoing a review by the Judiciary Committee as well.

Durbin also lashed out at Hawley, saying he was “the man who was fist-bumping the murderous mob that descended on the Capitol on January 6 of last year.”

According to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “attempts to smear or discredit her history and her work are not borne out in facts.”

But GOP senators will also go after Jackson’s record as a public defender, her representation of Guantanamo Bay detainees and her tenure on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which works to “reduce sentencing disparities and promote transparency and proportionality in sentencing.” Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee – who also happens to be up for reelection in November – complained that the Judiciary Committee won’t have the sentencing commission’s full records by the time the hearings start.

→	The universe of potential GOP votes for Jackson is small. As our friends Manu Raju and Alex Rogers of CNN noted here, Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 “was the first justice to be confirmed without bipartisan support since Reconstruction.”

We don’t expect that to happen to Jackson, but GOP “yes” votes may be hard to find. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who backed Jackson for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last year, is definitely in play. Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who also backed KBJ’s appeals court nomination, are tougher to predict. Graham wanted another candidate, J. Michelle Childs, to be selected and hasn’t said how he’s voting. His face-to-face session with Jackson was a brisk 20 minutes. Murkowski is in the middle of an election cycle facing a GOP challenger backed by former President Donald Trump, so it may be very tough for her to back Jackson again.

A possible “yes” vote could come from one of the retiring GOP senators, although none of them is signaling openly that they may vote for Jackson at this time.

So this may very well end up a 51-49 vote for Jackson – if Collins votes yes. Democrats will take it, although President Joe Biden would definitely love to have more Republican votes.

→	Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s comments on Jackson have also been somewhat harsh, although the Kentucky Republican says he hasn’t made up his mind on her nomination just yet (We’re gonna stick him in the “no” column anyway ‘mkay.)

Here’s McConnell on the Senate floor the other day:

McConnell’s repeated use of the word “empathy” here intrigued us, especially since the Kentucky Republican is always precise in his wording. The “empathy” issue was raised by McConnell with another Democratic nominee – Sonia Sotomayor in 2009.

And the way the Jackson nomination has unfolded so far is somewhat reminiscent of the Sotomator confirmation fight too. Once former President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor, Republicans moved carefully. Sotomayor was the first woman of color and first Hispanic selected for the high court. She was nominated in spring 2009, after Republicans were crushed in the 2008 elections, especially with minority voters. It wasn’t until shortly before her confirmation hearing that Republicans really criticized Sotomayor.

“Empathy,” as Obama discussed it in the lead-up to picking Sotomayor, isn’t a quality McConnell favors as a guidepost for judges. McConnell made that very clear in a July 20, 2009, floor speech laying out his opposition to Sotomayor:

It’s worth noting that Sotomayor very clearly rejected empathy as one of her criteria for judicial rulings during her appearance before the Judiciary Committee. Obama also made no mention of it again when he nominated now Justice Elena Kagan in 2010.

The Coverage:

→	NYT: “On Eve of Confirmation Hearings, G.O.P. Steps Up Attacks on Jackson,” by Carl Hulse

→	CNN: “How Ketanji Brown Jackson is preparing for questions about her record on crime,” by Ariane de Vogue

→	LA Times: “Jackson supporters gear up to protect her historic Supreme Court bid from racist, sexist attacks,” by Nolan McCaskill

→	Politico: “The Senate’s Supreme Court peacekeeper prepares for his moment,” by Marianne LeVine and Burgess Everett

→	WSJ: “Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Hearings to Focus on Legal Experience, Record on Crime,” by Ken Thomas and Siobhan Hughes

And … in other news

→	There has been no announcement yet on official tributes by the House for the late Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), whose death on Friday shocked members and party leaders. Young, 88, was the dean of the House, having served in Congress since 1973. We’ll keep you filled in on the latest developments here.

→	The Senate may end up reaching a deal this week on several Russia sanctions related issues, including a ban on Russian oil imports.

The House approved legislation last week rescinding preferred trading status for Russia and Belarus. It included language on the Global Magnitsky Act, which calls for sanctions on human rights violators. The House has already approved a separate bill banning Russian oil imports.

Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has been pushing his own legislation on the Russia oil ban and trading status, but it didn’t include the Magnitsky provisions. Republicans say Crapo’s bill is based on the existing bipartisan agreement between chairs and ranking members of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance Committees and actually goes further than the House-passed bill.

A Senate aide said there will be discussions between Crapo, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on all this. President Joe Biden has already issued an order banning Russian oil imports, but the White House has been looking to avoid enacting new legislation on the matter. That will give Biden flexibility on the issue in case there are new developments in the Ukraine crisis. But there may be too much momentum on Capitol Hill to prevent a Russian oil import ban bill from being approved by both chambers.

The Senate will vote today on a motion to invoke cloture on the America COMPETES Act, a major high-tech bill that could include big new investments in U.S. semiconductor chip manufacturing. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer hopes to begin a House-Senate conference on that legislation before the Senate finishes this work period in early April.

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