Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Maine (Mr. King) and the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) are necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fetterman) and the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) are necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I rise to discuss an urgent need: the confirmation of two pending U.S. attorney nominees.

U.S. attorneys across the United States represent the Department of Justice. They are the leaders we turn to locally to deal with problems beyond local law enforcement's control--problems and challenges from Federal law. Whether we are fighting fentanyl epidemics or we are fighting those who would undermine this country--many who would cheat and steal at the expense of others--we count on professional prosecutors to make those decisions.

We go through a process here where a President will name a potential U.S. attorney. That is not the end of the story. The attorney's name is then submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which I chair, and then it goes through a rigorous bipartisan process and investigation of each one of these nominees. Until they clear both sides of the table-- Democrats and Republicans--the nominees don't move. Once having been cleared, they are then put up for approval before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Traditionally, that was virtually the end of the story. The name would hit the calendar. The calendar name would be called and approved, and the person would move into action.

Under the previous President, Donald Trump, there was a lot of controversy--political controversy associated with all sorts of issues. So you have to wonder: Out of the 85 U.S. attorney nominees proposed by President Donald Trump, how many of them ran into an obstacle or were stopped on the Senate floor by Democrats for political reasons? The answer: none, not one.

Despite all the controversy of the Trump administration, the feeling was that it was only fair to these men and women, asking to serve our Nation as representatives in the Department of Justice, to give them that chance if they cleared the bipartisan background process. They did. We gave our approval. They served across the Nation.

But, unfortunately, we have come into a new era. U.S. attorneys--law enforcement officers who lead our Nation to prosecute violent criminals and protect our communities from gun traffickers, gun violence, terrorism, and so many other things--are still central to our system of justice.

I have emphasized that the U.S. Attorneys Offices in the Northern District of Ohio--that would be Cleveland--and the Northern District of Illinois--that would be Chicago--undertake important investigations and prosecutions that keep our communities safe.

The State of Ohio, like many others, suffers from the scourge of fentanyl trafficking. We know about this deadly narcotic. It is a killer. It is fourth in the Nation for drug overdose deaths. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio oversees the area's response to fatal overdoses from fentanyl through the U.S. Attorney's Heroin and Opioid Task Force. I would guess many Ohioans would want to know why that task force is waiting for Senate-confirmed leadership.

In my home State of Illinois, over the last 2 years, the Chicago Police Department has recovered more than 10,000 firearms--10,000 a year--from various criminal investigations. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois is responsible for coordinating the efforts with all the law enforcement agencies in the Chicago Firearms Trafficking Strike Force.

My constituents can't understand why one Senator from another State is blocking the confirmation of one U.S. attorney candidate in Illinois, April Perry, who has been found to be highly qualified, not only by the White House but by a bipartisan investigative committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

April Perry is well-qualified for this job. She would like to be on the job and should have been weeks ago, making it safer to live in my State.

Another point I made before is the irony that the Senator who is blocking these two nominees is considering this a ``tough on crime'' position. Tough on crime when you refuse to put a person in the role of prosecutor who is supposed to put these criminals behind bars?

When he ran for the Senate, my colleague from Ohio pledged to ``fight the criminals--not the cops.'' That is his quote. He argued that Americans will not be safe if ``politicians keep attacking police officers instead of violent criminals.''

I just have to tell him his strategy of stopping two leading U.S. attorneys, one in his State and in the State of Illinois, is the best news the criminals have had in a long time.

The same man who pledged to fight the cops now proudly brags that he wants to ``grind the Department of Justice to a halt.'' I am not making that up, and he has not denied it. He said his goal is to ``grind the U.S. Department of Justice to a halt.''

Listen to this headline from a recent article in Newsmax:

Sen. Vance to Newsmax: Blocking DOJ Nominees Makes AG's Job

Harder.

We want to make the Attorney General's job harder when it comes to prosecuting drug criminals? Is that what this is all about?

I said it before, and I will say it again: Senator Vance needs to read a resolution he proposed in this body earlier this year and take his own advice. He should give law enforcement officers the support and resources they need, rather than trying to score political points by making their jobs harder.

Unlike me, Senator Vance doesn't need to worry about sounding like a broken record. Each time I come to the floor to ask for unanimous consent, he offers a different explanation for why he is blocking the confirmation of these highly qualified nominees. First, he claimed he was punishing the Justice Department for what he falsely called ``unprecedented political prosecution'' of former President Trump. As I have pointed out, this is a weak excuse for hamstringing law enforcement, considering the former President has now been indicted 4 separate times on 91 different counts and continues to threaten judges, prosecutors, jurors, and witnesses.

Senator Vance also previously stated here on the Senate floor--and I quote; it is in the Congressional Record:

My objection is not specific to the qualifications or the

particular individuals that have been nominated.

He said he wanted to make it clear that it is in reference to both Ms. Lutzko in Ohio and Ms. Perry in Illinois.

In response, I offered the junior Senator from Ohio the opportunity to keep his promise to support law enforcement by allowing us to schedule confirmation votes on these pending U.S. attorneys--exactly what he said he wanted on the Record in the Senate. He looked me in the eye and agreed with me. He released his objection to Ms. Lutzko and Ms. Perry under the condition that we hold rollcall votes on them, which I agreed to.

Seemingly overnight, he decided that he does object to even holding confirmation votes on these nominees. He then claimed that ``expecting us to vote on cloture . . . is not too much to ask.'' I was surprised to hear that. It was a new wrinkle in his argument, considering that, just last month, the junior Senator from Ohio was on the Senate floor attempting to force the Senate to skip a cloture vote on one of his bills.

I look forward to hearing what his new argument may be today. If he is trying to punish those who are in the process of prosecuting the former President of the United States, what is his retribution when it comes to the State of Georgia? We now have so many counts naming the former President for wrongdoing, and we have four people who have been accused who have pled guilty so far in this process. Does he have a special agenda now when it comes to the State of Georgia to determine whether or not there is going to be some retribution to grind to halt the system of justice in that State?

We have reached the point where it is hard to explain why Senator Tuberville of Alabama is stopping military promotions of deserving women and men who have risked their lives in service to America, and another Republican Senator is stopping ambassadorial positions being filled, and now this Senator has decided we have enough criminal prosecutors in America to take care of crime; we don't need more.

We certainly need these two--and many more--doing a professional job.

So I ask unanimous consent that, at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the Republican leader, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations: Calendar Nos. 314 and 315; that there be 2 minutes of debate, equally divided in usual form, on each nomination; that upon the use or yielding back time, the Senate proceed to vote, without intervening action or debate, on the nominations in the order listed; that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

Mr. President, last week in my home area of Chicago, a 6- year-old Palestinian boy answered the door and was stabbed over and over again until he died and then the assailant went into another room and tried to kill his mother. The question is, Is this a hate crime because of his Palestinian origin? Does it deserve an investigation? Does it sound, in America, like this is the sort of thing we want an answer to? Whom would we turn to for that investigation? The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Illinois.

But the Senator from Ohio--because of his hurt feelings over the indictment of former President Trump by many others--has decided to say, in my region of the country, we will have no U.S. attorney; we will leave the position vacant, not because the person isn't qualified to take it over but because he is hurt and believes he wants to protest over the idea of holding a former President accountable.

Obviously, in his mind, former Presidents are above the law--not in my mind and not in any democracy. I don't know if former President Trump is guilty of any charges. We have a system of laws and law enforcement to reach that conclusion. But in the meantime, whether it is a hate crime in a suburb of Chicago or drug crimes that are claiming lives every single night in every single neighborhood in our Nation, how can we stand here in good conscience and say we want to grind the Department of Justice to a halt?

That is exactly what he said over and over again: grind the Department of Justice to a halt. To prove what? To prove what about this Nation? We deserve the opportunity to be protected by the Agencies of government we have appointed, and the men and women who are willing to sacrifice their time, their skills to serve that purpose and keep us safe deserve better treatment than what is happening on the Senate floor.

I wish I could say this is a unique experience. It has become a pattern: a House of Representatives which goes for 21, 22 days trying to find a leader on the Republican side of the aisle; military appointments, hundreds of them, men and women, qualified, serving in the military, risking their lives, whose nominations are being held up on the Senate floor by one Republican Senator; the idea that we are holding back the possibility of appointing Ambassadors in parts of the world where war is imminent and underway and could drag the United States into conflict if we are not careful.

To take that position that we want to stop government, whether it is in the Department of Defense and their promotion policy, whether it is in the Department of State and the representatives around the world, or whether it is in the Department of Justice, is shameful.

This is not public service. This is a political errand. I wish it would come to an end soon, and I wish the Senator, who is new to this body, would think twice about whether this is how he wants to write his record in the U.S. Senate.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla), is necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time be considered expired at 5 p.m. today.

For information of the Senate, Members should expect two rollcall votes starting at 5 p.m.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from California (Mr. Padilla) is necessarily absent.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 254, motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Jennifer L. Hall to be U.S District Judge for the District of Delaware. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 255, confirmation of the nomination of Jennifer L. Hall to be U.S District Judge for the District of Delaware. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 256, motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Julia Kathleen Munley to be U.S District Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 257, confirmation of the nomination of Julia Kathleen Munley to be U.S District Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 258, motion to invoke cloture on the nomination of Karla Ann Gilbride to be General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 259, confirmation of the nomination of Karla Ann Gilbride to be General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 260, Passage of S.J. Res. 32, a joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection relating to ``Small Business Lending Under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (Regulation B)''. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted nay.

I was necessarily absent for rollcall vote No. 261, adoption of S. Res. 417, a resolution standing with Israel against terrorism. Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted yea.

Mr. President, today, the Senate voted to confirm U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer Hall to the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Judge Hall's significant courtroom experience--as both a litigator and as a jurist--will make her an excellent addition to the bench. She received her B.A. from the University of Minnesota, her M. Phil and Ph.D. from Yale University, and her J.D., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Judge Hall clerked on the Federal Circuit and the Third Circuit before beginning her legal career in private practice, working on patent infringement and complex contract disputes. In 2011, Judge Hall became an assistant U.S. attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware, rising to chief of the civil division in 2015. As a prosecutor, she handled a wide range of criminal and civil matters. In 2019, Judge Hall was selected to serve as a magistrate judge in the District of Delaware. Since joining the bench, she has presided over four cases that have gone to verdict or judgment.

Judge Hall has strong support from her home State Senators, Mr. Carper and Mr. Coons. In addition, she was unanimously rated ``well qualified'' by the American Bar Association.

I strongly support the nomination of Judge Hall, and I am glad to see her confirmed on a broad bipartisan basis.

(At the request of Mr. Schumer, the following statement was ordered to be printed in the Record.)