Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise on another matter that I have addressed the Senate on quite frequently lately, and that is about Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

One week from today, Brett Kavanaugh will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first day of his confirmation hearing. After reviewing Judge Kavanaugh's very extensive record, I am convinced he is perhaps the most qualified person ever nominated to the Supreme Court.

Some of my colleagues on the other side, including all of the Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee, have asked that I delay Judge Kavanaugh's hearing. They have asked me to delay the hearing because of legal issues surrounding some of President Trump's former associates. It is absolutely not clear to me what one has to do with the other. But this is, by my account, at least the third strategy Democratic leaders have used to try to delay Judge Kavanaugh's hearing.

Liberal outside groups, if you recall, announced their opposition to every one of the 25 potential nominees before the President made his decision. Those 25 potential nominees were, for the most part, given to the people of the country probably 6 months before the President's election. No other President has told you the types of people he was going to put on the Supreme Court and given you those examples. Some Democrats joined these outside liberal groups, and many others announced their opposition immediately after the nomination.

The minority leader, before he even had a chance to meet with Judge Kavanaugh or review Judge Kavanaugh's record, said that he would fight the nomination with everything he has.

Democratic leaders' first strategy was to try to argue that the Biden rule, which bars the confirmation of Supreme Court Justices in a Presidential election year, also applies during midterm election years. This was a strange argument to make given that many of those Senators argued in 2016 that the Biden rule didn't even exist for Presidential elections.

Fact checkers and outside observers widely rejected their argument. The historical record was clear: The Biden rule has never applied during midterm election years.

The second strategy Democratic leaders pursued was to attempt to bury the Judiciary Committee in irrelevant paperwork--mountains of it. I have discussed the issue at length previously, so I will only give you a bottom line. The bottom line is, we have received more pages of documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time as an executive branch lawyer than we did from any previous Supreme Court nominee. In fact, we have already received over 430,000 pages of Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch legal records, which is nearly as many as the last 5 nominees combined. This is on top of the 307 opinions he wrote and hundreds more he joined as a judge on the DC Circuit over the past 12 years. The public already has access right now to every one of those more than 10,000 pages of judicial writings, as well as the nearly 18,000 pages we received in connection with his judicial questionnaire. Those were supplemental to the 110 pages he filled out in the questionnaire. By the way, that happens to be the most robust questionnaire ever issued to a Supreme Court nominee.

Democratic leaders now are asking me to delay Judge Kavanaugh's hearing because of some of the President's former associates' legal troubles, but this is just another obvious and opportunistic attempt to push the confirmation process past the midterm elections. After all, both Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Stephen Breyer were confirmed while President Clinton was personally under investigation for the Whitewater controversy. In fact, Justice Breyer was confirmed while President Clinton's personal documents were under grand jury subpoena. Moreover, between June 1993 and February 1999--a period during which President Clinton faced significant legal jeopardy--the Senate confirmed 248 district judges and 50 circuit judges for lifetime appointments.

It is clear that the Democratic leaders' latest attempt to delay the confirmation is unsupported by law or history.

Another reason Democratic leaders have focused on these issues is to divert attention from the great record and abilities of Judge Kavanaugh. They know that Judge Kavanaugh is exactly the type of Justice the American people want because that is what the Constitution calls for--somebody to interpret the law, not to be a superlegislator.

Judge Kavanaugh has served for 12 years on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals--a court many consider to be the second most powerful court in our country. During that time, he authored more than 300 opinions and joined hundreds more. The Supreme Court has in at least a dozen separate cases adopted legal positions advanced by Judge Kavanaugh in his opinions. Historians of the Supreme Court would say that is a very impressive record.

Judge Kavanaugh has demonstrated that he understands the proper role of a judge. I also would say he sees himself as a judge and not a superlegislator. In numerous opinions and in speeches and publications, Judge Kavanaugh has eloquently expressed that judges must find and apply the law as it is written, not how they wish the law were written. If they followed how they wish the law were written, that would fall into a category where I would say a Judge becomes a superlegislator.

Judge Kavanaugh recently said this on that point: ``When courts apply doctrines that allow them to rewrite the laws (in effect), they are encroaching on the legislature's Article I power.''

If you ever wonder why judges shouldn't be superlegislators, that is because they have lifetime appointments. If you don't like what they do, you can't vote them out of office; whereas if the legislating is done by the Congress of the United States and you don't like the laws the Congress passes, you can vote those Members of Congress out of office.

Judge Kavanaugh has also argued that judges must apply the same approach to all cases. He said this: ``Like cases should be treated alike by judges of all ideological and philosophical stripes, regardless of the subject matter and regardless of the identity of the parties to that case.'' Judge Kavanaugh's judicial record reveals that he follows his own advice. He decided cases based on his understanding of law as written, not his own personal policy preferences or who the litigant is.

In addition to his impeccable qualifications and record of achievement, Judge Kavanaugh has shown a dedication to public service, mentorship, and diversity. He spent all but 3 years of his legal career in public service. He volunteers his time to coach both his daughters' youth basketball teams, and he serves meals to the homeless with Catholic Charities. Judge Kavanaugh is a proven mentor to law students and young lawyers. Judge Kavanaugh has taught courses at Harvard Law School on separation of powers and the modern Supreme Court since 2008.

The Senate Judiciary Committee received a letter in support of his confirmation from his former students. They wrote this:

We . . . represent a broad spectrum of political and

ideological beliefs, as well as perspectives on judicial

philosophy. We may have differing views on political issues

surrounding the confirmation process, but we all agree on one

thing: Judge Kavanaugh is a rigorous thinker, a devoted

teacher, and a gracious person.

But this letter goes on with other things that are important about Judge Kavanaugh, so I quote again:

Both inside and outside the courtroom, Judge Kavanaugh

evinced a genuine warmth and interest in his students and

their careers. . . . He was exceptionally generous with his

time, making himself available to meet with students not only

to discuss the class, but also to assist with their scholarly

writings or to offer career advice. In many instances, he has

continued to provide advice and support long after the class

ended by writing letters of recommendation and serving as a

valued mentor. In our view, his genuine interest in helping

young lawyers demonstrates a deep commitment to the legal

community as a whole.

That is from students of his of differing political views.

Federal judges also play an important role in mentoring the next generation of lawyers. They typically hire four new law clerks each year to help them research and decide cases. A law clerk is like a judge's right arm. A judge's law clerks know the judge better than anyone else. Day in and day out, law clerks work closely with a judge in chambers every day on complex legal issues.

Judge Kavanaugh has clearly taken seriously his mentorship role with his clerks. His former law clerks submitted a letter to this committee strongly supporting his confirmation. They wrote:

It was a tremendous stroke of luck to work for and be

mentored by a person of his strength of character, generosity

of spirit, intellectual capacity, and unwavering care for his

family, friends, colleagues, and us, his law clerks. . . . He

is unfailingly warm and gracious with his colleagues no

matter how strongly they disagree about a case, and he is

well-liked and respected by judges and lawyers across the

ideological spectrum as a result. . . . He always makes time

for us, his law clerks. He makes it to every wedding, answers

every career question, and gives unflinchingly honest advice.

That advice often boils down to the same habits we saw him

practice in the chambers every day: Shoot straight, be

careful and brave, work as hard as you possibly can, and then

work a little harder.

That is from his law clerks.

One of the areas where Judge Kavanaugh has had a particular impact is his commitment to diversity. More than half of his law clerks have been female. Indeed, during one year, all four of his law clerks were female, which was a first for the DC Circuit.

Judge Kavanaugh's female law clerks sent the committee a letter. These law clerks wrote:

We know all too well that women in the workplace still face

challenges, inequality, and even harassment. Among other

things, women do not enjoy a representative share of

prestigious clerkships or high-profile legal positions, but

this committee and the American public more broadly should be

aware of the important work Judge Kavanaugh has done to

remedy those disparities. In our view, the Judge has been one

of the strongest advocates in the Federal judiciary for women

lawyers.

Additionally, Judge Kavanaugh has a track record of recruiting and hiring diverse law clerks from the best law schools. It is clear that he cares about expanding opportunities to unrepresented groups in the law. The legal profession should be open to anyone, regardless of where they grew up or where their parents emigrated from. Judge Kavanaugh's clerks reflect this important principle.

In sum, Democratic leaders committed 1 month ago to oppose Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation. They have thrown a lot against the wall to try to delay his confirmation, but none of it sticks. Judge Kavanaugh will have his hearing next week, and I am looking forward to it.

Based upon my review of Judge Kavanaugh's extensive record, it appears that he is extremely qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. He understands the proper role of a judge in our constitutional system, and he has devoted time to serving his community and improving the legal profession.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to pay tribute to a devoted public servant from my home State of Iowa. Congressman Leonard Boswell passed away this month after a long battle with cancer. A decorated military officer, he served 20 years in the U.S. Army, a dozen years in the Iowa Senate, and 16 years in the U.S. House of Representatives.

That adds up to nearly a half-century in service to the country he so dearly loved and served with honor and distinction. After being drafted into the U.S. Army, Leonard rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and served two tours of duty as an assault helicopter pilot in Vietnam. His distinguished service in uniform groomed him for political battles on the campaign trail and in public office at the State and Federal level.

In civilian life, as well as in both the military and political arenas, Leonard Boswell was an officer and a gentleman. He brought integrity to the campaign trail and to the halls of Congress. Anyone who underestimated Congressman Boswell failed to appreciate the gritty combination of a decorated war veteran and a cattle farmer from southern Iowa. In fact, an armed intruder who broke into the Congressman's farm home in 2011 found out right quick. At age 77, Leonard's instincts to protect his family kicked into overdrive, and he tackled the intruder to the ground.

Notwithstanding those instincts, Leonard Boswell was widely known as folksy and plain-spoken. He was Iowa through and through. That included answering the call to help his neighbors and a local grain elevator struggling during the 1980s farm crisis. From there, he threw his hat into the ring for public office.

Congressman Boswell's funeral service was last Saturday, and unexpectedly, it became a double ceremony as his beloved wife of 63 years died just hours before the service, 8 days after Congressman Boswell passed. Leonard and Dody's life together was filled with deep faith, love of family and friends, and service, as she taught elementary school for 37 years, mainly in Lamoni. Dody's family rightly described her as spiritual, adventurous, vibrant, with a wonderful sense of humor who lived with love, tenacity, and compassion.

Although Congressman Boswell and I were members of two different political parties, we shared many things in common as lifelong Iowans, farmers, octogenarians, and outspoken champions for rural America.

On many issues of the day, we had different points of view on how to achieve a particular goal, but at the end of the day, we shared an unequivocal commitment to work on behalf of Iowans, especially farmers and veterans. From farm bills to transportation and infrastructure spending, Leonard and I largely saw eye to eye on legislation that would help Iowans weather the storms of natural disasters or downturns in the farm economy.

As members of the Iowa congressional delegation, there is an unspoken understanding that, when it comes to matters important to Iowa, we work all for one and one for all. I recall when Leonard first came to Washington in 1997, he was the only Democrat in the Iowa House delegation. Shortly after his swearing in, Congressman Boswell invited my staff and me to his office to get acquainted. We enjoyed his Iowa hospitality very much and returned the invitation shortly thereafter. After our initial meet-and-greets, it was understood that our doors and lines of communication were always open. We shared a very good working relationship during our service together in Congress.

There is one particular piece of legislation that we worked on together in our respective Chambers of Congress. I was the lead Senate Republican cosponsor, and he was the principal author in the House of Representatives. It is called the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Act. We named the bill for an Iowan who took his own life in 2005 after returning from duty in Iraq. Our bill was enacted in 2007. It sought to improve mental health services for veterans. Here in the Senate, I will continue working to carry out our shared mission of suicide prevention for servicemembers. As a decorated war veteran and longtime advocate for the veteran community, Congressman Boswell cared deeply about fulfilling the promises made to America's veterans. The law he worked to enact has paved

the way for even more resources and programs to get veterans in crisis the help they need.

In closing, I salute a widely respected patriot, whom I am proud to call my friend. Leonard leaves behind a legacy of service, civility, and integrity. Barbara and I extend our deepest condolences to the Boswell family as they mourn the loss and celebrate the lives of Leonard and Dody. God bless them both.

Madam President, I am glad to join my friend in this effort

because this fits into a lot of things we are trying to accomplish that Congress has done for decades--trying to give consumers information.

Remember maybe 40 years ago--I don't think it is 50 years ago--that Congress passed legislation that you had to have a window sticker on cars of the cost of the cars so that consumers wouldn't be bantering back and forth between dealers, not knowing what they were dealing with. You can't buy gas today without going to the filling station with a big sign knowing what it costs.

Even the pharmaceutical companies themselves want to educate consumers with these ads. I have always supported the advertising of these pharmaceutical drugs. They want to educate you not only about the value of their drugs but down to the bottom, and then half the ad usually tells you, if you take this drug, what the side effects are going to be, maybe implying that they are even life-threatening or dangerous. That is a very important thing to educate the public about.

So all we are trying to do here is to have the consumer get the additional information they need if they want to consider that drug, because everybody ought to want to consider the price, just like you consider the price of a car.

I try to buy gas at the cheapest filling station I can because it is just common sense, right? So that is what Senator Durbin is pointing out. This is a Midwestern commonsense approach to educating the consumers. They want you to buy their product, and then they kind of have some question about it: Could you really afford this? A lot of these ads even indicate to the consumer: Well, maybe if you check with the company or check with somebody, you will even get some help buying the drug.

So the pharmaceutical companies are already interested in consumer education. We just want them to take it one step further. Part of it is because of the high cost of prescription drugs. We have an opportunity now to do what we all talk about doing--doing something about the cost of pharmaceutical drugs. This is just a very small step in that direction. It directs Health and Human Services to require drug companies to include the list price of these drugs in their TV ads.

The drug companies want you to know that there is a drug out there to help you. They want you to know the benefits of the drugs. So why don't they also want you to know about the price of the drug?

By not having that information out there, it is simply not a transparent way of doing business. In every other way you want to be transparent. We are just asking you to take one little small step and tell people what it is going to cost--like the price of gasoline, like the price of cars, or if you seem to be worried a little bit about the high cost of the drug, maybe some people can't afford it and you might be criticized for that. You can get help.

What we are up against here is a very powerful interest in this town. It happens to be an interest that has made life better and provided longevity for people, for a longer life. So we aren't here to find fault with the pharmaceutical companies. We are here to encourage the pharmaceutical companies to let the public know what they need.

Around here it seems to me that we are running up against the big pharmaceutical companies all the time. The CREATES Act came out of my committee 15 to 6. We can't seem to get that up.

This amendment is being offered. We know who is fighting this amendment that Durbin and Grassley are sponsoring. It is the same companies. There is a scheme out there that they will keep their patent drug on the market longer if they pay a generic company to keep their drug off the market. We call it ``pay for delay.'' The Klobuchar- Grassley bill doesn't get very far because of these interests.

They don't like the fact that they ought to have some competition from the importation of drugs. They don't like it now that the FDA's new Director is moving in the direction of getting generics on the market a little bit sooner, but we are not fighting those things now.

What we are trying to do is pretty darn simple. Think of what is behind this now. How often do you get Senator Grassley and Senator Durbin cooperating on the same thing? Not too often. So that is something people ought to take into consideration. We have a very good chairman--a very thorough chairman--Mr. Alexander of the HELP Committee. He is backing this effort and has even had a colloquy on that point.

We have Mr. Azar, the Secretary of HHS, who says that this is a good thing to do. Maybe 2 months ago now, President Trump and Secretary Azar had a news conference on the high cost of drugs and what they could do administratively to move that along. Just this very day, Mr. Azar is announcing some regulations going to OMB to move along some of those things that the President was talking about 2 months ago.

Everybody gets irritated about Trump's tweets. Do they do any good? Probably, most of the time people don't think they do much good, but he tweeted at about the same time these big pharmaceutical companies announced about a whole bunch of their drugs that they were going to increase their prices by 35 percent and 40 percent, and he tweeted how outrageous that was. A week later a company said: We are not going to go ahead. A week later, another company said they were not going to go ahead. Now, whether other companies have said that, I don't know, but what I am trying to say is you have Chairman Grassley and Chairman Alexander and you have the Secretary of HHS and the President of the United States trying to do something about pharmaceuticals. Here we have just a little simple amendment that we are trying to get on this bill, and we are running into this obstacle that you run into all the time, when all we are trying to do is to educate the consumer the same way the pharmaceutical companies want to educate the consumers. By the way, 76 percent of Americans in a poll support this.

I think Senator Durbin did better than I did about the interests, but I will summarize. Doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, and the AARP support this amendment. So, really, it is so sensible. It is right in line with what the pharmaceutical companies are trying to do with all of their TV ads to educate the public, with what Congress has tried to do other times to educate the public, with what we are trying to do through some of our education to have transparency in the prices that you pay when you go to the hospital or what we are trying to do through health savings accounts to get the consumer involved to do some shopping to save the consumer some money. That is what this is all about.

It is so simple. I can't understand where commonsense stuff--well, this isn't a town for common sense, I guess, but we ought to get some of this commonsense stuff done.

So I want to thank Senator Durbin because he led this effort, and I am glad to help him. I say thank you for doing it, and we are going to get this done one way or the other. If we don't get this done on this bill, we will get it done because it is the right thing to do.

People, if you try long enough and if you are right, you eventually get something done in this town.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about a recent tragedy that has deeply impacted my home State of Iowa and I think all of the country because cable television is well aware of this.

Yesterday, authorities announced they found the remains of a 24-year- old University of Iowa sophomore, Mollie Tibbets, of Brooklyn, IA. After searching tirelessly for months, State and local law enforcements announced the unthinkable, Mollie was murdered in cold blood.

I would like to commend the efforts of all who were involved in searching for this remarkable young woman, including the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the FBI, Homeland Security, and the individual members of the community who volunteered tirelessly to find Mollie.

Americans watched the news every night, all of us, holding out hope that Mollie would soon be found and returned to her family. I extend my sincerest condolences and sympathies to Rob Tibbetts, Mollie's father, and Laura Calderwood, Mollie's mother. They spent the last month and a half searching the State for their missing daughter. Rob and Laura traveled across the State, raised awareness on TV, and handed out buttons, T-shirts, and missing person fliers at the Iowa State Fair. Both Rob and Laura showed remarkable bravery in the face of tragedy.

Know that our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family during this difficult time.

For those of us in Washington, we ought to try to learn something from Mollie's character and the example she set. As Mollie's boyfriend Dalton Jack said, ``She's not just a missing person flyer.'' Mollie was an avid reader who enjoyed the choir, theater, and writing.

Mollie loved her friends and had a natural ability working with children. Her friends say she had a gift for making everyone feel like the most important person in the room. There is no doubt her nurturing character and her ability to be everyone's counselor--as a friend put it--led her to the University of Iowa to study psychology. While there, Mollie spent her summers taking classes and working at a day camp with the Grinnell Regional Medical Center, where she mentored children. It is no surprise that when Mollie went missing, over 200 people showed up for a vigil in her honor.

While we mourn the loss of Mollie Tibbetts, it is the duty of this Senator and every other Senator to act to prevent further tragedies such as this one from devastating a family and an entire community.

We now know that Mollie was murdered by a 24-year-old, undocumented immigrant who has been in the United States illegally for 4 to 7 years. That is right. For 4 to 7 years, this man was here undetected and unaccounted for. This raises questions about his immigration, employment, and criminal history, and we must receive answers.

So, today, I sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security seeking any immigration history on this man and a briefing to better understand how he was able to get to and stay in Iowa. This isn't too different from what I have done in many cases with some undocumented person, particularly those who had been deported and returned, asking for answers when there was a tragedy such as what happened to Mollie. I think of recent cases, maybe within the last 2 years, of murders in Northern Virginia and in Maryland. The Tibbetts family, the people of Iowa as well, and I hope all of the American public feel they deserve answers.

Based on the information I do have, it seems this murder was preventable. Stricter border security measures, including increased personnel, enhanced technology, and modernized infrastructure could have prevented this man from crossing the border--in other words, secure the border.

Stronger interior enforcement and addressing weaknesses in E-Verify could have prevented this individual from working and would have allowed immigration enforcement authority to initiate removal proceedings years ago.

Earlier this week, President Trump invited officers and agents of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the White House to thank them and the people under them for all they do on a daily basis to protect Americans. Recent events are a stark reminder as to how much we need these hard-working men and women.

Amidst cries from the radical far left to abolish law enforcement agencies, such as ICE, I am proud to stand in support of the brave men and women of that agency. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement are tasked with protecting the homeland, a duty they willingly accepted on behalf of all Americans and, of course, the No. 1 responsibility, the Federal Government.

Every day, men and women of the Border Patrol and ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement, put themselves in harm's way because Congress tasked them with this great responsibility.

So to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who call for abolishing immigration enforcement, I urge caution. We have heard a lot of that lately about abolishing immigration enforcement.

Scapegoating our uniformed officers, who are simply executing the law, to launch future Presidential campaigns only moves us further away from one another and further away from a lasting solution.

To put their efforts into perspective, let's take a look at some data. During fiscal year 2017, ICE arrested more than 127,000 aliens with criminal convictions or charges. ICE made 5,225 administrative arrests of suspected gang members. Last year, the criminal aliens arrested by ICE were responsible for more than 76,000 dangerous drug offenses, 48,000 assault offenses, 11,000 weapon offenses, 5,000 sexual offenses, 2,000 kidnapping offenses, and 1,800 homicide offenses. Those statistics are just for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations.

Last year, ICE Homeland Security Investigations made over 4,800 gang- related arrests. ICE also targets illicit drug flows, human trafficking operations, and transnational criminal and terrorist organizations.

ICE is part of our broader national security apparatus and often works hand in hand with their partners at the Department of Justice, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, and hundreds of Federal prosecutors.

In 2017, ICE identified or rescued 904 sexually exploited children and 518 victims of human trafficking. ICE seized more than 980,000 pounds of narcotics just last year, including 2,370 pounds of fentanyl and almost 7,000 pounds of heroin.

To my colleagues who have spoken strongly about combating the moral stain of human trafficking or about ending the opioid epidemic gripping our country, I ask: How is ICE anything but an indispensable partner in this fight? How can we expect to combat the flow of lethal narcotics without the brave men and women of the Border Patrol and ICE?

Just last week, I sent a letter to Secretaries Nielsen and Pompeo about an Iraqi national who lied about his active membership in ISIS and al-Qaida in Iraq so he could claim refugee status and settle safely in Sacramento, CA. ICE played a very vital role in his arrest.

This weekend, ICE deported a Nazi prison guard who was living in Queens, NY, and yesterday ICE was immediately there on the scene in Brooklyn, IA, when State and local authorities determined the suspect was a foreign national.

Congress has been dancing around the issue of securing our borders and strengthening interior enforcement for far too long. We have told voters we will fix the problem, but we don't seem to get the bills passed. Stories like those of Kate Steinle, Sarah Root, Kayla Cuevas, and now Mollie Tibbetts continue to appear in the news, and we ought to come to the conclusion that enough is enough.

Sarah's Law

Mr. President, I urge the Senate to put partisanship aside and support Sarah's Law. That is a bill that some of us from the Midwest have introduced, but we also would like to see justice for Kate Steinle's murder because people who have been deported, coming back to the United States to do this killing--just for coming back and violating our law over and over and over by crossing into the country without papers, they should have mandatory sentences.

Sarah's Law is a bill I introduced with Senator Ernst in honor of a fellow Iowan, Sarah Root, who was killed by an undocumented immigrant driving drunk and was three times over the legal limit.

Sarah's Law is a commonsense bill that requires the Federal Government to take custody of anyone who entered the country illegally, violated the terms of their immigration status, and had their visas revoked and is thereafter charged with killing or seriously harming another person. It also requires ICE to make reasonable efforts to identify and provide relevant information to crime victims and their families.

I end thinking about Mollie's death, but you can continue to think about Sarah Root, Kate Steinle, and others. We haven't responded to it very well. We can and we must do better.

Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh

Mr. President, if I may, I want to continue to speak but on another subject.

Over the past day, several of my colleagues issued statements calling for Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing to be delayed. A lot of these colleagues have written me very personal letters calling for Judge Kavanaugh's hearing to be delayed. Some of them have written me very personal letters about coverups or hiding or handling documents in ways they perceive to be different from what other committee chairmen have done. In regard to the delay of the hearing, they claim that it is because President Trump's former lawyer recently pleaded guilty to criminal violations of campaign finance law, allegedly at President Trump's direction.

I am not going to delay Judge Kavanaugh's nomination hearing. There is no precedent for delaying a hearing in these circumstances. In fact, it is just the opposite. There is clear precedent pointing in the other direction. I will give my colleagues at least one.

In 1994, President Clinton nominated Justice Breyer to the Supreme Court. At that time, President Clinton was under investigation by Independent Counsel Robert Fiske in connection with the Whitewater land deal. Indeed, President Clinton's own records were under grand jury subpoena. Yet the Senate confirmed Justice Breyer by a vote of 87 to 9 during all of that.

In fact, President Clinton was under investigation for much of his Presidency and was even impeached for committing perjury. Obviously, he wasn't convicted. But through all of this, the Senate didn't stop confirming his lifetime appointments to the bench. President Trump is not even close to being in the same legal situation as President Clinton, but obviously some people around here think he is.

So my colleagues' plea to delay the hearing rings very false considering the precedent I just gave, and maybe historians can give us more precedents.

So I want to tell my colleagues why liberal outside groups and Senate Democratic leaders decided to oppose the President's Supreme Court nominee by any means necessary. They even said so. Some even announced their opposition before Judge Kavanaugh was nominated. The minority leader said he would fight Judge Kavanaugh with everything he has.

Members of the Judiciary Committee announced their opposition before giving Judge Kavanaugh any consideration whatsoever. One Member said that voting for Judge Kavanaugh is ``complicit in evil.'' Another Member said that Judge Kavanaugh threatens ``destruction of the Constitution of the United States.''

The goal has always been the same: to delay the confirmation process as much as possible and hope that the Democrats take over the U.S. Senate in the midterm elections.

The Ranking Member's hometown newspaper reported on this strategy recently, and the headline called it an attempt to stall. The strategies may change, but the goal to obstruct the confirmation process remains unchanged. First, Democratic leaders tried to apply the Biden rule, which bars confirmations in Presidential elections and which many Democrats previously said doesn't even exist. They tried to apply it even to midterm elections. When they used it, it was applied just to Presidential elections.

Now, when this strategy failed, because it was completely and flatly false, they changed strategies. They tried pushing for an unprecedented disclosure of Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch documents, even though we have already received more pages of such documents than any previous Supreme Court nominee. This is on top of Judge Kavanaugh's 12-year judicial track record and other more relevant publicly available materials.

Now they are trying to latch on to the legal troubles of President Trump's former associates, but, as I just explained, there is no precedent or logical reason for the Senate to decline to proceed on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination in these circumstances. It is just another attempt to block Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation by any means necessary.

On a related note, we are working to make available as many of the documents relevant to Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court when we receive them--to make them publicly available as soon as possible.

It is common practice--I hope everyone knows--to receive documents with a restriction called ``Committee Confidential'' until we can assure ourselves that we will not disclose sensitive, confidential information to the public in violation of the Presidential Records Act. Chairman Leahy, who is here on the floor with me, did so during Justice Kagan's confirmation process, and I am doing the same. This gives Judiciary Committee members a jump start on reviewing documents because, otherwise, if you had to wait until they were all cleared, you wouldn't even be reading them yet.

The goal is to make as many publicly available as possible as soon as possible.

I have promised to work with President Bush and President Trump to waive committee confidentiality, when the law requires it, for specific documents that my colleagues would like to use at the confirmation hearings. This is also consistent with how the Judiciary Committee has handled this issue in the past. And, of course, all of my Senate colleagues are welcome to review committee-confidential documents at their convenience. Simply get in touch with my staff. The staff there will make sure that they have full access to the range of committee- confidential documents.

One of my colleagues tweeted, and I am not going to name this colleague because there is no point in embarrassing anybody to make a very strong point here about how ridiculous some of this argument has become. This is the tweet:

Chairman Grassley unilaterally deemed Kavanaugh records

Committee Confidential. Penalty for release could include

`expulsion' from the Senate, which hasn't happened since the

Civil War, for disloyalty to the Union. GOP is going that far

to keep them secret.

I hope all of my colleagues see the absurdity of that tweet.

Now, that person is kind of acting like the Senate has never received committee-confidential documents before. It is common practice, and it has happened in previous Supreme Court nominations, even under Democratic chairmen.

So to sum up, it is so regrettable that some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have politicized this process so much, but also, at the same time, they have short memories.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Aakash Singh, immigration counsel with my Judiciary Committee staff, and Robert Shifflett, a detailee from the Department of Homeland Security, be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. President, as I have now for several weeks spoken to my colleagues about the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, I return to further elaborate on where we are in that process.

Two weeks from today, Judge Brett Kavanaugh will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the first day of his confirmation hearing. I am quite excited to finally hear from him in that forum. He is one of the most qualified nominees to have ever been picked for the Supreme Court, and he has contributed a great deal to his community and the legal profession, besides being an outstanding judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Apparently, the other side has found very little in his record that is objectionable. The only thing I keep hearing is their unprecedented demand for millions and millions of pages of irrelevant documents on top of the hundreds of thousands of pages we have already received. Indeed, the Senate Democratic leaders have demanded the search of every email and every scrap of paper from every one of the hundreds of White House aides who came

and went for the entire 8 years of the George W. Bush Presidency. The Senate Democratic leaders have even refused to utilize search terms-- and other ways--in order to limit the universe of millions and millions of pages of records that would require a consecutive review by the Archives and both the former and incumbent Presidents' teams of lawyers even before the Senate Judiciary Committee could have begun its own search. These reviews would have taken many months, and some people have said they would have taken beyond this year.

We know the true reason for their unprecedented document demand, which is to deny Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation until after the midterm elections, when the Senate Democrats hope to win back the Senate and block Judge Kavanaugh's nomination forever.

Democratic leaders announced their opposition to Judge Kavanaugh immediately after he was nominated. Can you believe that? Some Senators announced their opposition to any one of the 25 potential nominees before the President even announced he was picking Judge Kavanaugh. The minority leader said he would oppose Judge Kavanaugh with everything he has.

This desire to obstruct the entire process explains their partisan push to bury the Senate Judiciary Committee in a mountain of irrelevant paperwork. They also want to divert attention from the very impressive record Judge Kavanaugh has. Democratic leaders know Judge Kavanaugh is the exact type of Justice the American people want. By the way, when he was a candidate--way before his election--the President named the people whom he was going to appoint and the types of people he was thinking.

Judge Kavanaugh has served for 12 years on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. During that time, he has authored more than 300 opinions and has joined in hundreds of others. In 13 separate cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has adopted legal positions that have been advanced by Judge Kavanaugh's opinions on the DC Circuit. That is a very impressive record that few people on the circuit court of appeals can claim.

The majority's staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee has already received more than 10,000 pages of judicial opinions Judge Kavanaugh wrote or joined, more than 17,000 pages of materials Judge Kavanaugh provided in response to the most robust questionnaire ever submitted for a Supreme Court nominee, and more than 260,000 pages of emails and other records from Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch legal service. This morning, the committee received close to 170,000 pages of additional records from Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch legal service. We now have more than 430,000 pages from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the executive branch--by far, the most ever received for a Supreme Court nominee. The majority's staff will finish reading every one of these pages before Judge Kavanaugh's hearing, which will start the day after Labor Day.

I am following the precedent that was established during Justice Kagan's confirmation, when the Senate asked for many but not all of Justice Kagan's executive branch documents. We received documents from two out of three executive branch positions that Justice Kagan held. We received documents from Justice Kagan's time in the White House Counsel's Office and on the U.S. Domestic Policy Council. Senators from both parties agreed not to request internal documents from her time in the Office of the Solicitor General because of their sensitivity. Likewise, then, we are asking for documents from two of Judge Kavanaugh's positions in the executive branch but not from a third, which follows the practice of Justice Kagan's confirmation.

We have asked for documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Independent Counsel, but we didn't ask for documents from his time as Staff Secretary because, even more so than Justice Kagan's Solicitor General documents, they are incredibly sensitive to the executive branch. I will add that both positions for which we requested Judge Kavanaugh's documents were legal positions. Those documents could shed some light on his legal thinking.

The Staff Secretary, another position that Judge Kavanaugh held at the White House, is a nonlegal position, and it wouldn't reveal anything about Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking.

On the other hand, we didn't receive documents from Justice Kagan's time in one of the two legal positions that she held. We didn't receive her Solicitor General documents, despite a heightened need for them to assess Justice Kagan's legal thinking. After all, Justice Kagan had no legal or judicial experience. In other words, she was not a judge prior to going to the Supreme Court, as Judge Kavanaugh is.

In contrast to Judge Kavanaugh's 12-year judicial track record, the 307 opinions Kavanaugh wrote, and the hundreds more he joined, Judge Kagan wrote or joined zero opinions. Judge Kavanaugh wrote or joined over 10,000 pages of judicial opinions, compared to Justice Kagan's zero pages. In short, we have received many more pages of more relevant documents for Judge Kavanaugh than we did for Justice Kagan.

This more thorough and more transparent production is also on top of the thousands of pages of Judge Kavanaugh's publicly available materials, including his extensive and impressive judicial record. Nevertheless, Democratic leaders accuse me of hiding documents. Consider the hundreds of thousands that are available, and I am being accused of hiding documents.

They are doing that because I have agreed to hold some documents as committee confidential. But during Justice Kagan's and Justice Gorsuch's nominations, we agreed to receive as committee confidential documents that contain material that are restricted by the Federal law that we call the Presidential Records Act.

As the current chairman, that is exactly what I have agreed to do this time. As I have explained many times over the last month, I agreed to receive documents on a committee-confidential basis as an initial matter to allow the committee to accelerate our review of Judge Kavanaugh's record, while at the same time making sure that restricted material, such as Social Security numbers for individuals, bank information for individuals, or confidential advice given to the President, are not exposed to the public, as everybody would expect us to be that careful.

Then-Chairman Leahy also agreed to receive documents on a committee- confidential basis in 2010 ``to permit the Committee prompt access to them.'' I have done exactly the same thing in the case of Judge Kavanaugh.

All of those documents don't necessarily remain confidential forever because there is a process. They are reviewed a second time, and if they don't contain any material restricted by law for public access, we quickly release those documents to the public. Thus, we end up in exactly the same place as we did with Justice Kagan and Justice Gorsuch: Material restricted by the statute is held committee confidential, while nonrestricted material is released to the public.

I would like to add that all documents we have received, including committee-confidential documents, at this very moment are available to every Member of the Senate. My staff is happy to make these documents available to any Senator interested in reviewing them.

Now, my friends on the other side of the aisle complain that a lawyer by the name of Bill Burck, rather than the National Archives, is deciding what is considered restricted, but that is not true at all. The National Archives has been reviewing Judge Kavanaugh's emails, as I requested. These archivists are public employees, and they have informed President Bush and President Trump that, in the opinion of the professional archival staff, nearly two-thirds of the emails that these public servants have reviewed thus far contain restricted material and should not be released to the public. That means that under the same standard applied to Justice Kagan and Justice Gorsuch, the Committee will have to hold two-thirds of the documents reviewed by the National Archives as committee confidential when we receive them.

Following historical practice, official records generally are produced to the Senate for our review, and personal records generally are not. The Obama-appointed Archivist of the United States and his team of career archivists are making the ultimate decision

on whether Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch records are official-- available to the committee and to the public--or personal. It is simply absurd to suggest that anyone is hiding anything. So I hope I don't hear that complaint anymore.

I hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle put aside politics and reconsider their reckless demands for the immediate release--for the whole world to see--of documents that contain full names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, personal communications with family members, other sensitive matters affecting personal privacy, and, of course, some of the more sensitive issues related to the President's core constitutional duties.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Nathan Williams, a law clerk with my Judiciary Committee staff, be granted floor privileges for the duration of today's session.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill to update and extend the Missing Children's Assistance Act. Senators Feinstein, Hatch, Klobuchar, and Portman have joined as original cosponsors, and I thank these colleagues for their support. I also want to thank Congressman Brett Guthrie and the chairman of the House Education Committee, Virginia Foxx, for championing a related companion measure in the other chamber.

The purpose of this bipartisan bill, entitled the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 2018, is to ensure the continued availability of federal resources for the work of missing children's organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Since its inception in 1984, the National Center has served as the official national resource center and clearinghouse on missing and exploited children. The National Center works in partnership with State child protective services agencies to help locate children who go missing from foster care. It also works in partnership with families, schools, corporate and nonprofit entities, the FBI, the Marshals Service, and the Secret Service, as well as other federal state and local entities, to prevent child abductions and facilitate the recovery of children who may become victims of sex trafficking. Each year, thousands of children run away or go missing in the United States, which is why this work is so important.

The names Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin and Jetseta Gage, for example, still bring heartbreak to all Iowans. Johnny Gosch was a 12-year-old paperboy delivering newspapers in West Des Moines, Iowa, when he disappeared in 1982. Two years later, 13-year-old Eugene Martin disappeared in Des Moines, Iowa--also while delivering newspapers. And 10-year-old Jetseta Gage was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a convicted sex offender in rural Johnson County, Iowa in 2005. Theirs are not isolated cases. Too many other children across the country have had to cope with the physical and emotional trauma of being abducted, trafficked or sexually exploited.

Under the legislation that I have proposed, the Justice Department will continue to play an important role in implementing the Missing Children's Assistance Act. Through its Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Department will continue to annually award grants to the National Center and other nonprofit organizations to further their important work of preventing and responding to offenses committed against vulnerable children. Extending this authorized funding at $40 million annually for five more years, as proposed in this bill, will ensure that the Office can continue to support these nonprofit organizations in their important efforts in public-private partnerships with families, private entities, and federal, state, local, and international law enforcement agencies.

The bipartisan legislation I have sponsored also includes several important updates to the Missing Children's Act, which Congress last reauthorized in 2013. Some of these reforms already are included in another bipartisan bill, known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which I sponsored and the Senate passed last year. Other changes would help increase public awareness of methods to prevent abductions and support the recovery of missing children.

The activities authorized by the Missing Children's Assistance Act will expire on September 30th unless Congress acts quickly to adopt a reauthorization measure. As a parent, as a grandparent, I call on my colleagues to join me in supporting the prompt passage of this bill.

Mr. President, today I am introducing a bill to update and extend the Missing Children's Assistance Act. Senators Feinstein, Hatch, Klobuchar, and Portman have joined as original cosponsors, and I thank these colleagues for their support. I also want to thank Congressman Brett Guthrie and the chairman of the House Education Committee, Virginia Foxx, for championing a related companion measure in the other chamber.

The purpose of this bipartisan bill, entitled the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 2018, is to ensure the continued availability of federal resources for the work of missing children's organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Since its inception in 1984, the National Center has served as the official national resource center and clearinghouse on missing and exploited children. The National Center works in partnership with State child protective services agencies to help locate children who go missing from foster care. It also works in partnership with families, schools, corporate and nonprofit entities, the FBI, the Marshals Service, and the Secret Service, as well as other federal state and local entities, to prevent child abductions and facilitate the recovery of children who may become victims of sex trafficking. Each year, thousands of children run away or go missing in the United States, which is why this work is so important.

The names Johnny Gosch, Eugene Martin and Jetseta Gage, for example, still bring heartbreak to all Iowans. Johnny Gosch was a 12-year-old paperboy delivering newspapers in West Des Moines, Iowa, when he disappeared in 1982. Two years later, 13-year-old Eugene Martin disappeared in Des Moines, Iowa--also while delivering newspapers. And 10-year-old Jetseta Gage was kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a convicted sex offender in rural Johnson County, Iowa in 2005. Theirs are not isolated cases. Too many other children across the country have had to cope with the physical and emotional trauma of being abducted, trafficked or sexually exploited.

Under the legislation that I have proposed, the Justice Department will continue to play an important role in implementing the Missing Children's Assistance Act. Through its Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Department will continue to annually award grants to the National Center and other nonprofit organizations to further their important work of preventing and responding to offenses committed against vulnerable children. Extending this authorized funding at $40 million annually for five more years, as proposed in this bill, will ensure that the Office can continue to support these nonprofit organizations in their important efforts in public-private partnerships with families, private entities, and federal, state, local, and international law enforcement agencies.

The bipartisan legislation I have sponsored also includes several important updates to the Missing Children's Act, which Congress last reauthorized in 2013. Some of these reforms already are included in another bipartisan bill, known as the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which I sponsored and the Senate passed last year. Other changes would help increase public awareness of methods to prevent abductions and support the recovery of missing children.

The activities authorized by the Missing Children's Assistance Act will expire on September 30th unless Congress acts quickly to adopt a reauthorization measure. As a parent, as a grandparent, I call on my colleagues to join me in supporting the prompt passage of this bill.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, last week I announced that the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination for the Supreme Court starting on September 4. The hearing will begin 57

days after the President announced Judge Kavanaugh's nomination, more than a week longer than the period between the announcements and hearings for the last three Justices--Sotomayor, Kagan, and Gorsuch.

The Senate has already received more documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the executive branch than we did for any previous Supreme Court nominee. We have so far received more than 184,000 pages of documents, of which more than 124,000 are currently publicly available to anybody in this country going to judiciary.senate.gov.

The team of lawyers who work for the majority have already reviewed more than 10,000 pages of the 307 judicial opinions that Judge Kavanaugh wrote, along with hundreds more opinions that he joined, in his 12 years of service on the DC Circuit. The team of lawyers who worked for the majority have reviewed 110 pages of written answers and over 17,000 pages of materials Judge Kavanaugh submitted to the committee in response to its bipartisan questionnaire--the most robust questionnaire ever submitted to a Supreme Court nominee.

The team of lawyers who work for the majority has already reviewed every page of the more than 184,000 pages of emails and other records that the committee has received so far from Judge Kavanaugh's time as a government lawyer in the White House and also serving with Judge Starr when Starr was independent counsel.

I expect that we will receive even more documents this very night or, at the latest, tomorrow and that all remaining documents responsive to our request will be produced next week. We will work to make every unrestricted record publicly available as quickly as possible.

As I predicted, this confirmation process is the most transparent ever, particularly as it relates to the number of documents that we are receiving. We have already received more documents from Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch service than any nominee in history, with many more to come.

Senators have more time to review Judge Kavanaugh's record than they did for at least three Supreme Court nominees. So I am very confident that the committee and the Senate will have ample information and time to carry out our responsibilities under our Constitution to advise and consent.

But some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are attempting to manipulate the American people. I just described to you the largest document production in the history of a Supreme Court nomination. But guess what. The minority leader describes it as ``unprecedented secrecy.'' This argument is very ridiculous on its face, and the American people aren't buying it.

I got a lot of questions at my town meetings across Iowa over the last week. In 20 different counties in Iowa, this issue about the Supreme Court always came up--that shouldn't surprise anybody--but there was hardly any mention of this document issue, which was cooked up by the Washington insiders.

Let's not forget how this document issue started. First, liberal dark money groups and their Senate allies announced immediate opposition to Judge Kavanaugh. Some of them even announced it before the name Kavanaugh was announced by the President. The minority leader said that he would oppose Judge Kavanaugh with everything he has.

So their first tactic was to argue that the Senate shouldn't confirm anyone during a midterm election year. They attempted to invoke the Biden rule, which bars confirmation of Supreme Court Justices during a Presidential election year, to make this argument. Of course, this was a ludicrous position, unsupported by precedent and widely rejected by objective observers and even fact checkers.

The minority leader and his allies abandoned that argument, but they didn't abandon their goal, which is to stall Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation until after the midterm elections and hope that the other party will take control of the Senate. That is why the minority leader refocused his tactics and manufactured a very phony controversy regarding Judge Kavanaugh's White House documents.

How do we know it is phony? On the one hand, the minority leader has publicly stated that he would oppose Judge Kavanaugh's nomination with everything he has. On the other hand, he is insisting that the Senate needs millions more pages of documents on top of what we already have in order to make an informed decision.

Indeed, the Senate Democrats demanded the search of every page of every email and every other record from every one of the hundreds of White House staffers who came and went during every one of the 8 years of the Bush administration just because the name ``Kavanaugh'' could have been in those emails. In other words, the Senate Democrats demanded the search of every scrap of White House paper for the entire Bush Presidency.

As I stated repeatedly, I am not going to put the American taxpayers on the hook for the Senate Democrats' fishing expedition. How much more information do the minority leader and his outside dark money allies need if they have already made up their decision to vote no on Judge Kavanaugh?

When they are in that position, they don't care about Judge Kavanaugh's record because they know what their vote is going to be. How much more do they need to know to vote no?

They simply want to bury us in a mountain of paper so there is no chance that we can hold a confirmation vote on Judge Kavanaugh's nomination any time this year. There is already a mountain of paper for our committee members to go through and their staffs. The Democrats want to make it be Mount Everest.

Let's not forget that Judge Kavanaugh has a 12-year judicial track record from his time on the DC Circuit. During that time, he authored more than 300 opinions and joined in hundreds more. These opinions provide the most relevant information for assessing Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking and whether or not he ought to be approved to be on the Supreme Court.

I go back to something my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said back in 2009. My Democratic colleagues were making this very same argument with respect to Justice Sotomayor. Of course, they are flip- flopping now. The current minority leader said in 2009 that ``everybody knows'' a judge's record on the bench ``is the best way to evaluate a nominee.'' He said to Justice Sotomayor: ``I want to turn to your record on the bench, which I believe is the very best way to get a sense of what your record will be on the bench in the future.'' Then Chairman Leahy said:

We have Judge Sotomayor's record from the Federal bench.

That is a public record that we had even before she was

designated by the President. Judge Sotomayor's mainstream

record of judicial restraint and modesty is the best

indication of her judicial philosophy. We do not have to

imagine what kind of a judge she will be because we see what

kind of a judge she has been.

Well, Senator Schumer, the same logic applies to Judge Kavanaugh's long judicial track record of 12 years. Despite this record being more than sufficient to assess how Judge Kavanaugh approaches legal issues, I requested hundreds of thousands of additional pages from his time as a government lawyer, in the interest of full transparency.

But even the most transparent confirmation process in history is not enough for those who decided to oppose Judge Kavanaugh before they even saw his record.

The document requests for Justice Kagan's confirmation provide strong support for how the Judiciary Committee is proceeding now. Then, the Senate requested Justice Kagan's White House records, but not internal documents from the Solicitor General's Office. We refrained out of respect for the sensitivity of internal deliberations in the Solicitor General's Office. We did so even though these documents would have been extremely helpful to our assessment of Justice Kagan's views on the law given that she lacked any judicial experience or record. Justice Kagan herself testified that Senators should look at her time as Solicitor General in order to evaluate her, but we didn't ask for those records. This precedent supports my decision not to ask for documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time as White House Staff Secretary. If internal Solicitor General documents were too sensitive to produce, then, of course, documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time as Staff Secretary at the White House are as sensitive as well.

The Staff Secretary serves as the in-box and out-box for the President of the United States. These documents include some of the most sensitive documents in all of our government, implicating our national security and the President's other core duties. These documents are at the heart of what the Constitution recognizes as executive privilege. In addition to being the most sensitive documents, they are the least probative of Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking. The Staff Secretary's primary role is to make sure that the President sees advice from a range of policy advisers across the entire executive branch and that he not provide his own policy or legal advice as Staff Secretary.

To recap, Judge Kavanaugh wrote more than 300 judicial opinions and joined in hundreds more in his 12 years on the bench. Justice Kagan, by contrast, had written or had joined zero judicial opinions before her nomination. Despite having less of a need for Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch records--in light of his substantial judicial record-- the Senate has already received more such documents than it had for Justice Kagan or for any other nominee, and we will still receive many more. In fact, for Judge Kavanaugh, we could receive up to 1 million pages, which is more than for the five prior Supreme Court nominees combined.

Democratic leaders have also tried to argue that Judge Kavanaugh's White House records are being cherry-picked by a lawyer by the name of Bill Burck, whom they label as a partisan lawyer. I guess they have forgotten how the Senate received documents for the last three Supreme Court nominees. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made this silly argument. The Senate received documents for Justice Sotomayor's confirmation after they were reviewed by Leslie Kiernan. She represented Obama campaign manager David Plouffe and former Representative Charlie Rangel, and she eventually became Deputy White House Counsel in the Obama administration.

As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in an editorial yesterday, the Senate received documents for Justice Kagan after they were reviewed by Bruce Lindsey. Mr. Lindsey overlapped with Justice Kagan in the White House, which was a Democratic White House. He also served as President Clinton's national campaign director in 1992, as President Clinton's hyperpartisan senior lawyer and a really big fixer in the White House, and as the CEO of the Clinton Foundation for 10 years, including when Justice Kagan was nominated.

Now, I would think anybody who raises questions about a lawyer by the name of Burck ought to be really embarrassed by bringing up that issue when you look at how it was handled with previous nominees to the Supreme Court by people who were partisan. How much more partisan can you get than the people I just mentioned who handled issues of Presidential privilege for Democratic nominees Sotomayor and Kagan?

It happens that Bill Burck is President Bush's Presidential Records Act representative, as Mr. Lindsey was for President Clinton. Mr. Burck has held this position not just recently because of this nomination-- no--but since the year 2009. He is a partner, it happens, at one of the most liberal law firms in America. Mr. Burck also served as President Bush's Presidential Records Act representative during the Gorsuch nomination, but I didn't hear any Democrat objecting to Mr. Burck's involvement in that nomination. They also didn't object to Ms. Kiernan's or Mr. Lindsey's involvement during the Sotomayor and Kagan nominations. Their objection to Mr. Burck's role now is another opportunistic attempt to discredit the process and to avoid talking about Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications.

I would like to correct one additional misconception before I yield the floor.

As has been claimed by some people, the National Archives is not being cut out of this process. Under the Presidential Records Act, President Bush has the right to request his own administration's documents. He can choose to make a document public or claim that it is protected under executive privilege. This is precisely what he is doing now. President Bush is providing a very valuable public service to the American people at what is a very considerable cost but happens to be a nonpublic expense. He is expediting the review process and making sure that the Senate has all of the documents it needs to conduct a timely and efficient confirmation process. President Bush and his legal team should be thanked, not scorned, for providing this tremendous service to the American people.

I want to tell you how much on top of this former President Bush was. On the day after Kavanaugh's nomination, he called me and said: I want to do everything I can to cooperate so you get all of the records you need to make sure that you give a fair and thorough hearing to Kavanaugh.

Thanks to these people, we have Judge Kavanaugh's papers in time to hold a confirmation hearing and to vote this very year just as the American people expect us to do.

Democratic leaders have played up this phony document controversy to deflect attention from Judge Kavanaugh's extraordinary qualifications and sterling reputation as a judge of 12 years on the second most important court in this land. In his 12 years on the bench, the Supreme Court has on 13 occasions adopted legal opinions from Judge Kavanaugh's opinions. This is an exemplary track record in the Supreme Court--to have one's opinions backed up by the Supreme Court not once but 13 times.

Judge Kavanaugh is dedicated to judicial independence. He is not afraid to tell another branch of government when that branch has exceeded its lawful authority. At the same time, he has great respect for the separation of powers, and he will interpret the law as it is written by the people's representatives in Congress, instead of trying to be a superlegislator. As I am, I hope all of my colleagues are looking forward to hearing from Judge Kavanaugh when he will appear before the Judiciary Committee on September 4.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, over the last several days, the minority leader has again continued his unprecedented partisan interference with the business of the Senate Judiciary Committee. In addition to these partisan interventions being unwelcomed, many of the minority leader's assertions are just plain false, and other assertions omit significant context. So, as I have done several times in recent days, I am here to correct the record.

Let me start by reiterating that the confirmation process for Judge Kavanaugh will be the most transparent in history. That is from the availability of all the documents that are out there for our colleagues to study about this nominee. Senators already have access to the most important part of Judge Kavanaugh's record--his more than 300 opinions written during his 12 years on the DC Circuit, in addition to the hundreds more opinions he joined, and the more than 6,000 pages that were submitted in connection with his Senate Judiciary questionnaire.

Moreover, the Senate will receive more pages of executive branch documents than the Senate will have received for any Supreme Court nominee ever--I anticipate up to 1 million pages of documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel's Office and his service in the Office of the Independent Counsel, along with records related to his 2006 confirmation to be a judge on the DC Circuit. The production could be larger than those of the last five Supreme Court nominees combined. Hence, one understands

why I am saying this will be the most transparent confirmation process of any Federal Supreme Court Justice.

The other side is pretending like the most expansive and transparent confirmation process in history is not good enough. Despite this expansive and transparent confirmation process and that Senators already have Judge Kavanaugh's entire judicial record in front of them already, Democratic leaders continue to make unreasonable demands for more and more documents. In fact, they demand access to every email and every other document ever written or received by every staffer who ever worked in the Bush White House. They want these records in order to fish for documents that merely mention Brett Kavanaugh's name. In other words, they, essentially, want access to every document that ever went through the Bush White House.

Now, this is really beyond unreasonable, and it is not a very serious proposal. During Judge Kagan's confirmation, then-Chairman Leahy was adamant that documents merely mentioning Justice Kagan's name shouldn't be produced. This is just one example of Democratic leaders' not following the Kagan standard.

The motive behind the unreasonable demands for documents is obvious: Democratic leaders want to stall Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation in any way possible. They hope to bury the Senate in mountains of irrelevant documents to delay his confirmation hearing and to perhaps deny him a vote during this current Congress.

The ranking member's hometown newspaper reported this scheme over the weekend. The headline used the word ``stall.''

The San Francisco Chronicle called it ``a tactic that could postpone a decision until after the midterm elections.'' The article explained: ``The Democrats' strategy . . . is to demand to see every document that crossed Kavanaugh's desk while he served as President George W. Bush's staff secretary from 2003 to 2006.'' In other words, the Democratic leaders are demanding these documents in order to needlessly delay the process rather than for legitimate purposes. Yet these tactics aren't going to work.

Let me address some of the minority leader's specific points.

He says, traditionally, the Senate Judiciary Committee sends a bipartisan letter that requests documents, and he said we should have sent out this letter 2 weeks ago. What the minority leader fails to point out is, my staff worked extensively with the ranking member's staff to attempt to identify specific Staff Secretary records that might be of some interest to the Democrats, but the Democratic staff was not interested in a reasonable compromise, including my attempts to get them even more documents than the up to 1 million pages of documents we were already in the process of receiving.

After multiple rounds of negotiation, the ranking member's staff still had not budged from its position that it was entitled to access any of the millions and millions of pages of documents that ever went through the Bush White House. These demands were unprecedented, were unreasonable, and were obviously intended to delay the confirmation process.

I couldn't allow this tactic to further delay this important business of the committee. So, as chairman, I sent a records request for the White House Counsel's documents because we needed to keep this process moving. We couldn't be stalling. It is unfortunate the ranking member didn't agree to sign it because the letter requested documents that both sides agreed we should have. Both sides agreed with the documents that were in my letter, but there was no signature from the minority.

The minority leader, Senator Schumer, also says we should have followed the precedent established during Justice Kagan's nomination. In suggesting this point, he is rewriting history. He may not know that, but he is. He conveniently forgets that both Democrats and Republicans agreed we shouldn't have requested documents from Justice Kagan's time as Solicitor General. Everyone agreed that the Kagan Solicitor General documents were too sensitive for disclosure and, in fact, could chill the candidness of internal deliberations for future Presidents and their counsel--their Solicitor General.

This same respect for confidentiality should apply with greater force, then, to Staff Secretary documents, which include some of the most sensitive policy advice going directly to a President. In this case, it was President George W. Bush. Indeed, the White House Staff Secretary is essentially the inbox and outbox for the President of the United States. Now, that is not to say that it is not a very important position, but it doesn't get involved in much policy.

The Senate's current task is to evaluate the qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh, not to relitigate every political and policy disagreement from President George W. Bush's 8 years in the White House.

As my Democratic colleagues keep pointing out, Judge Kavanaugh has described how his time as Staff Secretary was a formative experience for him. Well, Justice Kagan said the same thing about her time as Solicitor General, but in the case of Kagan, the Democrats refused to request her records.

On top of the undisputed relevance of Solicitor General material, Judge Kagan, however, lacked a judicial record. In other words, unlike the more than 300 opinions that Judge Kavanaugh authored and the hundreds more opinions that he joined in during his 12 years of service on the DC Circuit, Justice Kagan had zero judicial opinions that she offered, zero judicial opinions that she joined, and zero years of judicial service.

Her Solicitor General documents were, therefore, even more relevant. Democratic leaders, then, are rewriting the Kagan standard to further their stalling tactics.

The minority leader also tried to draw a parallel--or parallels--with the request for documents from Justice Sotomayor's time as a board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. This, however, was a narrow request, closely tailored to a specific need for information. It resulted in the production of approximately 100 documents, not millions of documents, as are involved with the White House Staff Secretary.

In contrast, Democratic leaders demand access to every single one of the millions and millions of pages of emails and other records from every one of the 100 staffers who served in the White House with Judge Kavanaugh. As I have said repeatedly, I will not put the American taxpayers on the hook for the Senate Democrats' fishing expedition.

Clearly, losing on the substantive arguments, the minority leader has even resorted to personally attacking Mr. Bill Burck, President George W. Bush's attorney. Mr. Burck has been one of President Bush's designated representatives for the Presidential Records Act, going way back to 2009. He is a leading partner in one of America's most respected and, I think, most liberal law firms.

I am told that he has insisted that no lawyer be selected to participate in the review of President Bush's White House papers on the basis of his or her party affiliation or political ideology. Moreover, Mr. Burck has taken the time to personally meet with the ranking member's staff and answer all of their questions about the document review process that I am describing to you here.

The minority leader said at a press conference today that the review by President Bush's lawyers ``wouldn't be so bad if he also got a full set of documents from the Archives.'' Well, that is exactly what I expect to happen--in other words, a full set of documents from the Archives.

President Bush has offered to give us access to copies of documents that we requested from the Archives so that we on the committee can quickly begin our review of Judge Kavanaugh's record while the Archives works through our document request. The minority leader could have learned this by simply having a conversation with me instead of putting on a political show in front of TV cameras earlier today.

I must also address the minority leader's unprecedented intervention into the business of the Judiciary Committee. The minority leader is not a member of that committee. We are not going to let him run the committee. I am the chairman of that committee. He has no business inserting himself

into the committee's business, including the manner in which the committee will obtain the documents needed to review Judge Kavanaugh's record.

But last week he sent a letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to release all records from Judge Kavanaugh's service in the White House, while at the same time criticizing the way that President Bush has chosen to review those records. This letter was an inappropriate attempt to meddle in the committee's business, and I am disappointed that my Democratic colleagues on the committee are tolerating that sort of intervention.

I have also learned that the minority leader called the Archivist on Monday and asked him to ``do the right thing'' with regard to the documents.

I was disappointed to hear that the minority leader was attempting to pressure a government official--one appointed by President Obama, can you believe--with regard to the committee's business.

I also want to address one argument that my colleague on the Judiciary Committee, the senior Senator from Illinois, has made. My colleague believes Judge Kavanaugh misled the committee during his 2006 confirmation hearing when he said he was not involved in developing the Bush administration's detention and interrogation policies. The senior Senator pointed to a media report that described a 2002 meeting in the White House in which Judge Kavanaugh advised whether his former boss, Justice Kennedy, would accept a legal argument about American citizens' access to counsel.

These allegations have no merit, and here is why. Offering advice on the potential success of a legal position suggested by others--meaning others in the White House Staff Secretary's Office--does not show involvement in developing detention and interrogation policies.

Multiple sources have confirmed that Judge Kavanaugh wasn't involved in developing detention and interrogation policies. Moreover, these allegations were already referred to the Department of Justice, which concluded that they didn't even warrant opening an investigation.

I will further point out that this 2002 meeting occurred while Judge Kavanaugh was in the White House Counsel's Office and, as I have explained, the entire Senate--or at least the entire Judiciary Committee--is going to have access to Judge Kavanaugh's White House Counsel records.

In short, I am proud to preside over what will be the most transparent confirmation process in history. As they have said publicly, Democratic leaders are firmly opposed to Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation, and they have also said that they will do whatever it takes to defeat Judge Kavanaugh. They would like to bury the Senate in a mountain of irrelevant documents to delay the confirmation process as long as possible. As you can tell from my remarks today--and my remarks three or four times since Judge Kavanaugh was appointed--I am not going to allow the minority to abuse the process.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I want to visit with my colleagues for the same reason Senator Durbin, about 15 minutes ago, spoke to my colleagues about the high price of pharmaceutical drugs and maybe at least one little thing we can do to help moderate that price or at least inform the public, accordingly, in a better way than we have so far.

Every American within earshot of a television has heard ads for prescription drugs. Almost every night, as I watch television, I see something along that line. These ads promise patient relief from nearly every medical problem, and informing the public is important for us to do in many areas.

The pharmaceutical companies want you to know that their drug is on the market to help you. They want you to talk to your doctor about the newest drugs.

As many of my colleagues know, I am an outspoken supporter for transparency. I hope it is one of my attributes I bring to the U.S. Senate. From the Physician Payments Sunshine Act to whistleblower protections, I am a strong believer that transparency keeps citizens informed, and, for sure, transparency in government brings accountability from those of us in government.

Senator Durbin and I have amendments to the current funding bill which would shine transparency light on prescription drug prices. These amendments would allow patients and their doctors to make informed decisions. Drug advertisers want to tell consumers all the benefits of the drugs. At the same time, drug advertisers are required to tell you about the side effects. In fact, half of an ad has something about side effects. That is usually in the small print and when somebody is babbling something very rapidly about the side effects, but they aren't as gung-ho to show how much that particular drug would cost. I believe it is something the public would like to be well-informed on when they are considering the advertisement and the purposes of the drug.

Six billion dollars is what pharmaceutical companies spent on direct- to-consumer advertising last year. Why would they spend that amount of money on TV commercials? Because it works. By bypassing the trusted physician and the ability of patients to decide for themselves, TV ads increase prescription drug utilization and, with it, drug spending. This increases drug costs to patients and taxpayers. In one case, a single drug in Medicaid costs the taxpayers an additional $207 million just because of ads.

The President's blueprint to lower drug costs includes a provision for FDA to require the inclusion of the list price in these drugs. Senator Durbin and I agree on that. I hope, since it is in the President's blueprint as one step to bring the high cost of drugs, it would be easy to get bipartisan support for the Grassley-Durbin amendment. This is a very simple, commonsense step to get drug prices down for consumers.

I have to confess to you, it is not the only answer, but it is a concrete first step. If you want to know other steps to get drug prices down, I would point out enacting the CREATES legislation, introduced by Senators Leahy, Lee, Klobuchar, and this Senator; or we could enact Pay for Delay, introduced by Senator Klobuchar and this Senator; or Commissioner Gottlieb of FDA could come up with a plan for the importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada and other trusted countries.

Consumers today are promised the Sun, the Moon, and the stars if they will simply get a prescription filled. Senator Durbin and I want to improve transparency and prescription drug advertising so consumers can decide for themselves. Our amendments would simply clarify that the Secretary of HHS has the authority to require drug companies to report the list price on advertisements.

I had a telephone conversation this morning with that Secretary of HHS, at his instigation, and he suggested that this would be very helpful, not only for him to accomplish the goals he wants to but to carry out the President's blueprint. One of several steps in that blueprint is to get the price of pharmaceuticals down for the consumer.

Consumers know the price of every other item they purchase before they

make their decision. Just think what a benefit it was to the consumers of this country when, maybe four decades ago, the Congress decided that we ought to have on the windows of a car what the cost of that car was so everybody had to play by the same rules of the game. This is a very simple free-market principle. I urge all of my colleagues to support this effort that will lower drug prices for all Americans.

Thank you.

Mr. President, this morning I listened to the remarks by Senator Schumer, the minority leader, and for a minute, while listening to him, I was worried that Senator Harry Reid was back disguised as Senator Schumer. After all, I used to hear a lot of false comments about the Judiciary Committee's work from the misinformed former minority leader.

This year, the minority leader first fretted that this Senator, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, would be ``twisted by leadership'' in the course of reviewing Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. Of course, that is false, but it was strange to hear a complaint about leadership intervening in committee business from a Democratic leader who appears to be doing just that.

As far as his other comments on the Supreme Court confirmation process, I would like to reiterate a few points I made over the last couple of weeks.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will have a thorough, modern, and efficient process for reviewing Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications. As I explained yesterday, Senators already have access to Judge Kavanaugh's 307 opinions that he offered over a 12-year period of time when he was a DC Circuit Court judge, the hundreds more opinions he joined, and of course the 6,168 pages of materials he submitted as part of his Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

For the benefit of the public, if you want to get into the weeds on this stuff, you can go to the Judiciary Committee's website and get all of this information that I just mentioned. These materials are the most relevant to assessing Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking.

We expect to receive more than 1 million pages of documents from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Independent Counsel. This will be the largest document production in connection with a Supreme Court nominee ever. By comparison, we received only about 170,000 pages of White House records for Justice Kagan.

Democratic leaders want gratuitous and unnecessary paper from Judge Kavanaugh's time as White House Staff Secretary. This is an unreasonable request, and I think they know it.

Democratic leaders are already committed to opposing Judge Kavanaugh. We have minority Leader Schumer himself saying he would fight Judge Kavanaugh ``with everything he's got.''

Yesterday one colleague said that supporting Judge Kavanaugh is ``complicit'' and ``evil.'' That is quite an offensive statement. It doesn't sound like they are interested in assessing Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications in the way everybody ought to approach this--with an open mind.

Their bloated demands are an obvious attempt to obstruct this confirmation process.

It gets worse. The Democratic leaders are even demanding to search each and every email from other White House staffers that even mentions Judge Kavanaugh while he served in the White House. That is beyond unreasonable. Such a request would not help us understand this nominee's legal thinking. And shouldn't that be what we are concentrating on? If you want to know what kind of a Justice a person is going to be on the Supreme Court, that involves his approach to all of the legal matters that he has to confront now and if he gets on the Supreme Court.

The Obama administration, with Senate Democrats' strong backing, refused to approve such records for Justice Kagan's confirmation. And this stunning demand is clear evidence that the Democratic leaders aren't interested in anything but obstruction.

Democratic leaders insist on all of these extra documents because the Senate received Justice Kagan's relevant White House records in 2010. But let me point out to my colleagues that there is a significant difference between this nominee, who has served 12 years already on the court and Justice Kagan, who was not a judge. Of course, with Justice Kagan not being a judge, there was no judicial track record for us to follow. She was an esteemed dean of the law school at Harvard University. That is very prestigious and shows a lot of high qualifications, but it is not the record of a judge for us to look to.

There was a higher need for additional information that might shed light on her legal thinking then. Judge Kavanaugh, by contrast, has offered more than 300 opinions and joined in hundreds more.

The Staff Secretary is undoubtedly an important and demanding position, as Judge Kavanaugh himself and many others have said. But Staff Secretary documents are not very useful in showing Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking. His primary job as Staff Secretary at the White House was not to provide his own advice. Instead, he was primarily

responsible for making sure that documents prepared by other executive branch offices were presented to the President.

In addition to being the least relevant to assessing Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking, the Staff Secretary documents contain among the most sensitive White House documents. They contain information and advice sent directly to the President from a wide range of policy advisers.

Democratic leaders now say they want to follow the so-called ``Kagan standard,'' but they seem to forget how we approached that nomination. Republicans and Democrats alike agreed to forgo a request for her Solicitor General documents because of their sensitivity.

Senators Leahy and Sessions, because they were the ranking Republican and chairman at the time, came to that agreement, even though Justice Kagan had no judicial record to review. And they agreed to these terms despite Justice Kagan's own statement that her tenure in the Solicitor General's office would provide insight into the kind of Justice she would be.

Obviously, with his long record on the DC Circuit, Judge Kavanaugh doesn't have this problem. There is plenty of paper for people to observe the kind of person we could expect him to be on the Supreme Court.

The need for confidentiality is substantially higher for documents passing through the Staff Secretary's office than the Solicitor General's office. Under the precedent set by Justice Kagan, we shouldn't expect access to Staff Secretary records. We already have access to a voluminous judicial record, and we will have access to the largest document production for a Supreme Court nominee ever.

The Democrats' demands for even more documents are unreasonable and clearly intended to obstruct this confirmation process.

I yield the floor

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I want to bring my fellow Senators up to date on a subject that was sparked by the remarks made this morning by the minority leader. I also want to add some additional context that the minority leader left out.

He spoke on the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately, he didn't come to the floor to talk about the judge's excellent qualifications, the judge's well-regarded temperament, or the judge's judicial philosophy. He didn't come to the floor to announce that he would finally extend to the judge the courtesy of a meeting, which is customary in this body. He came to speak about what he thinks will satisfy leftwing outside groups. He demanded that I sign a letter that will put the American taxpayers on the hook for a Democratic fishing expedition, and I am not going to do that.

I agree that we should have a thorough vetting process for the nominee--and we will--and that we should review materials that will reveal Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking. That is our job. We are not going to be a rubberstamp. Fortunately for us, we have immediate access to the most valuable documents that are out there that will reveal Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking. We have access to the more than 300 opinions Judge Kavanaugh authored in his 12 years on the DC Circuit, as well as to the hundreds more opinions he joined. In these opinions, he addressed some of the most significant legal issues of the past decade from the second most powerful court in the land.

This morning, the minority leader brought up a statement that I had made in 2010 in connection with Justice Kagan's Supreme Court nomination. At that time, this Senator was interested in reviewing documents from her time in the Clinton administration.

What the minority leader neglected to mention was that, unlike Judge Kavanaugh, Justice Kagan had not served as a judge before being nominated to the Supreme Court. Besides the Federal Government service she had had at the time she was nominated, she had been the dean of a law school. Other than Kagan's materials that she had submitted as part of the Senate Judiciary questionnaire for her nomination, her White House Counsel's Office and Domestic Policy Council documents had been some of the few categories of documents that could have shed light on her legal thinking since she hadn't had any judicial writings, meaning as a judge. Justice Kagan had written or joined a grand total of zero judicial opinions before her nomination. For those of us on the Senate Judiciary Committee to have carried out our constitutional advice and consent responsibilities as Senators, we had needed to better understand her legal thinking and potential jurisprudence.

Judge Kavanaugh, by contrast, has authored over 300 judicial opinions in his 12 years on the bench. That is over 300. That doesn't include the hundreds of other decisions in which he has joined an opinion or some sort of order. When you add those to the mix, those are thousands of pages of judicial writings that the American people have access to at this exact moment. You don't have to wait to get this information about Judge Kavanaugh. To the contrary, Justice Kagan, of course, had zero pages of judicial opinions. This is in addition to the 6,168 pages of records Judge Kavanaugh just included in his response to the Senate Judiciary questionnaire, which we put on the website last weekend for the whole public to view if it wants to know everything about Judge Kavanaugh as a judge and about the things of which he spoke and wrote documents about other than just his judicial opinions.

Despite the fact that Judge Kavanaugh's judicial record is much more substantial than Justice Kagan's was, I agree that we should still ask the White House for documents pertaining to Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel's Office. My Democratic colleagues say they want the White House's records. I am pleased to let them know that in the coming weeks, the Senate will receive what will likely be the largest document production in history for a Supreme Court nomination. I expect that the Senate could receive up to a million pages of documents that will be related to Judge Kavanaugh's time in the White House Counsel's Office. We will also see the White House's nomination file for Judge Kavanaugh's 2006 nomination to the DC Circuit--where, as I have told you, he now sits--along with records from Judge Kavanaugh's time in the U.S. Office of the Independent Counsel. By comparison, we received fewer than 180,000 pages for Justice Kagan's time in two White House offices.

Let's recap. We have more than 300 of Judge Kavanaugh's actual judicial opinions to Justice Kagan's zero. We could have up to five times as many pages from his time in the White House as we received from Justice Kagan's time, and we will have those documents despite the fact that they are less necessary now than they were for Justice Kagan. In short, there will be much more transparency in this Supreme Court confirmation process than ever before.

I am ready now to send a letter to the National Archives to request relevant White House Counsel documents. I would like to do this with the ranking member, but unfortunately she has declined this request. This is unfortunate. Both sides agree that the White House Counsel documents are relevant. I would like to get them over here as quickly as possible so we can begin reviewing them.

Yet, as I noted, the Democratic leadership has already decided to oppose

Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation. They would like to slow down the process as much as possible. I think that explains why the ranking member will not sign a letter that requests documents both sides want.

I have heard that some of my Democratic colleagues would like to request all of Judge Kavanaugh's records from his time as White House Staff Secretary, but these documents are both the least relevant to Judge Kavanaugh's legal thinking and the most sensitive to the executive branch. The Staff Secretary is the in-box and out-box of the Oval Office. Passing through the Staff Secretary's office is a wide range of communications that request things like flying the flag at half-mast to somehow including daily lunch menus, to draft speeches, to sensitive national security papers.

The Staff Secretary's primary charge is not to provide his own substantive work product; the Staff Secretary makes sure that the President sees memos and policy papers that have been produced by other offices in the White House. It is a very important job. It requires someone who is smart, someone who is hard-working, and someone who is talented.

The documents that passed through Judge Kavanaugh's office while he was Staff Secretary are not particularly relevant to his legal thinking or for the consideration of whether he should be on the Supreme Court. It is like saying, in a sense, that the Senate Secretary--someone who has a very difficult and demanding job--is responsible for all of the positions taken by each of the Senate offices. It is absurd.

The Senate should focus its efforts on reviewing his tens of thousands of pages of judicial opinions and other legal writings. Not only would a broad review of Staff Secretary documents be a waste of time, but it would also be a waste of taxpayers' money.

Moreover, Staff Secretary documents contain some of the most sensitive information and advice that went directly to President Bush from a range of policy advisers.

Back in 2010, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Justice Kagan, because of the sensitivity of the documents, shouldn't produce internal communications while she was Solicitor General.

If we are going to talk about a Kagan standard, then we need to talk about taking sensitive communications off the table. That is what all sides had agreed to in 2010 and what I will insist on now.

I appreciate the minority leader's efforts to ensure some transparency and thoroughness, but let's get right down to brass tacks: I don't think the minority leader actually wants to read the millions of pages that crossed Judge Kavanaugh's desk way back in 2004 and for probably the 3 years he held the position of Staff Secretary.

The minority leader said he will fight this nomination with everything he has, which proves what I have been talking about, and his request proves that he is willing to do that because this bloated document request is part of that fight. This is not about anything other than obstruction--to bury us under millions and millions of pages of paper so we cannot have a confirmation vote on Judge Kavanaugh this year.

Liberal, dark money outside groups want to drag this confirmation out just as far as they can--till the end of time. I will not let them. This confirmation process should focus on Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications, not become a taxpayer-funded fishing expedition.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to pay tribute to an outstanding businessman and citizen John G. Deery, Sr., of Cedar Falls, IA. Mr. Deery passed away recently at the age of 88. He leaves behind a close-knit and loving family--his beloved wife, Marlene; his two sons, John and Dan, both of Cedar Falls, IA; and a host of children and great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

A veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, John was an active parishioner of St. Patrick Catholic Church and a respected civic and business leader who left his mark throughout Cedar Valley. Following his military service--1948/ 1951--and startup ventures in the Quad Cities and Wisconsin, John purchased a Buick dealership in the late 1960s in Cedar Falls. This Wisconsin native became an Iowa transplant and never looked back. From then on, he and his family business paved a road to prosperity by winning the business of generations of satisfied customers.

A look back through the rearview mirror shows a life well lived. He was a member of the Cedar Falls AMVETS Post 49, Iowa Auto Dealers Association, Knights of Columbus, and a founding father of Community National Bank.

The patriarch of the family, John carved out his slice of the American dream. After opening the Buick dealership, the business eventually grew into a series of enterprises, eventually employing a workforce of more than 200 people. For six decades, he owned the Deery Automotive Group, encompassing John Deery Motors, Dan Deery Motors, and Deery Brothers Collision Center that provided livelihoods for generations of local families and a trusted place to buy and repair the family car.

After turning the reins of the automobile business over to the next generation, John launched yet another successful enterprise in real estate development. An active octogenarian, John didn't let any grass grow underneath his feet and continued looking for ways to make his community a better place to live. A decade ago, he was nominated for the Waterloo Courier's inaugural Eight Over Eighty Award.

The residents of Cedar Valley have benefited from John and Marlene's generous commitment to giving back their time, talent, and treasure. A number of nonprofit agencies and community organizations have benefited from their philanthropic pursuits, including my alma mater, the University of Northern Iowa, the Black Hawk County Sheriff's Office, the Cedar Falls and Waterloo police departments, St. Patrick Catholic Church and School, and El Kahir Shrine.

Today I pay my respects to this American veteran, successful Iowan, and civic leader. John Deery, Sr., steered a steady and honorable journey on the road of life and he will be greatly missed by those who loved him the most.