Floor Statements

I announce that the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) and the Senator from Rhode Island (Mr. Whitehouse) are necessarily absent.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, you often wonder if the speeches you give on the floor of the Senate are heard by anyone. Most of us have spent some time working with staff to prepare remarks to state a position or to make a plea, and you wonder if anyone is listening. Well, every once in a while, something happens which renews your faith that perhaps there are people listening who can make a difference.

Late last week, I had an amazing visit in my office upstairs, here in the Capitol, from China--Pastor Ezra Jin Mingri. He had been jailed for 266 days in a Chinese prison. His crime? He had been operating a church, a Christian church. At least eight of his congregants remain in prison. Pastor Jin's daughter Grace and his 7-week-old grandson--also named Ezra--joined our meeting upstairs as well. Grace worked tirelessly to draw attention to her father's case, and it was a joy to see them reunited. In our meeting, Pastor Jin told me that his prison conditions were very stark. While in jail, in China, he was cut off from communications with his family. His lawyers were harassed and threatened as well.

President Trump raised the case with Chinese President Xi, and here in the Senate, Senator Cruz and I, on a bipartisan basis, passed a resolution calling for his release and the release of several other political prisoners in China.

I welcome the Chinese Government's release of Pastor Jin, and I call on them to release the remaining eight members of his church as well as the following who are mentioned in my Senate resolution: Dr. Gulshan Abbas, Jimmy Lai, Gao Quanfu, and his wife Pang Yu, and Epkar Asat. All of these people are noted on this poster that I presented on the floor several weeks ago. Here is Pastor Jin with a smile on his face--the same thing in my office

upstairs with his beautiful daughter and grandson.

I wish the Chinese Government would release the remaining individuals here whom I have spotlighted in this presentation: Dr. Abbas, Jimmy Lai, Gao Quanfu and Pang Yu, and Epkar Asat. This would be a welcomed move before President Xi's visit in September as there is simply no reason to fear these people who have done nothing but otherwise exercise the peaceful freedom of religion and expression.

Appropriations

Now, Mr. President, on a separate topic, last week the Senate Appropriations Committee held a hearing on President Trump's supplemental request to pay for the war in Iran.

At the hearing, I asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to give us the latest accounting of the financial cost of this war. The Secretary estimated that it had cost $37.5 billion. I might remind those who are following this statement that we are in the fifth month of the first year of this war in Iran. The cost so far, at least, is $37.5 billion. I don't know how the Secretary arrived at that figure, especially considering the fact that it does not include the cost of repairing heavily damaged United States bases in the Middle East which have been attacked by Iran--all of this to say nothing of the cost to our servicemembers who shoulder the burden of lengthy deployment and, most importantly, to say nothing of the cost of the 18 brave--brave-- Americans who have been tragically killed in Iran. We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.

So now the White House is coming to Congress with an $88 billion-- that is right--$88 billion request for more money for the war in Iran and a few other items. To those of you watching at home who don't follow the ins and outs of Congress, this is a funding request outside the normal annual government funding process. This is usually reserved for serious emergencies and unexpected costs. This is despite the fact that the administration already has more than $75 million in unspent money for the Pentagon--$75 million unspent--and they are coming and asking us for another $88 billion. They are leaving a lot of change on the dresser.

Moreover, if funding is needed for the war in Iran, the administration, at a minimum, owes Congress and the American people a plan to end this self-inflicted mess. Make no mistake, Iran is a troubling actor that has, for decades, threatened American and allied interests. It terribly represses its own people and has not given up on its pursuit of a nuclear weapon, but President Trump's war with Iran has not resolved either of these issues. All it has done is to have drawn us into a messy foreign entanglement with no clear endgame, and now a growing number of American troops have been killed and wounded. Allies in the region are facing repeated missile attacks, and the global economy has been held hostage by Iran's totally predictable stranglehold of the Strait of Hormuz.

So, before this Congress provides billions of dollars more, there are some questions that need to be answered.

I might add, I want to return--we have lost 18 brave servicemen. They can, obviously, never be replaced, and we owe them a debt of gratitude for their service to our Nation, but the administration is virtually silent with the number of troops--our troops--who have been wounded in this war with Iran--some of them seriously wounded. The numbers are over 400--400 casualties--along with the 18 who have given their lives.

This is a costly venture of a war that the President initiated without going to the American people or to Congress, as required by the Constitution, or to our allies or to the public at large.

The President did this on his own, believing it would be quick and over. We are learning again what we have learned so many times in the recent past: It is far easier to start a war than it is to end one, and we are seeing that to this day.

Ukraine

Mr. President, on another unrelated topic--well, it is related, but it is different. The war in Ukraine has turned a good corner for us, with the real possibility for the first time in over 4 years that Russia will be finally forced to negotiate.

I was at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkiye, earlier this month with several colleagues, including Senators Shaheen and Coons, the late Lindsey Graham, and Senator Rounds, and the message was clear: Momentum is with Ukraine, and this is the time for American and European support to step up.

But amid this shift, Ukraine desperately needs more air defenses to protect civilians from brutal Russian attacks. Unfortunately, too many of these air defenses have been needed in the gulf for President Trump's other war in Iran, and Ukraine still has not received $400 million we appropriated in last year's appropriations bill, signed into law by the President. They are still waiting on it for air defense.

I asked Secretary Hegseth why the Pentagon is taking so long to send this critical aid to Ukraine. He didn't have a good answer.

President Trump needs to send the $400 million in funds immediately. They are desperately needed in Ukraine to stop the Russian advances. Doing so will help bring President Putin to the negotiating table.

Secretary Hegseth also needs to move the $200 million we appropriated and the President signed into law for the Baltic Security Initiative to help frontline NATO allies prepare for Russian intimidation and retaliation.

My last point is this: It is overdue for this Chamber to act on Russia and Ukraine and the legislation which Lindsey Graham was passionate about. The last time I met with him--just 3, 4 days before he passed away--he brought this issue up, this idea of sanctions against Russia. I think it is a valuable investment of our time, and I am happy to cosponsor this measure.

Senator Graham understood the timeliness of this legislation to help force Russians to negotiate. He worked hard to find agreement on this bill--months and months of work with Senator Blumenthal and others, Senator Shaheen included.

I know the majority leader cares about helping Ukraine, so I am glad the bill is set to move this week. I look forward to its passage. It is truly a tribute to the kind of work which Lindsey Graham made his career in the U.S. Senate and makes a difference in the world.

I yield the floor.

I announce that the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from Arizona (Mr. Kelly), the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Peters), and the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Welch) are necessarily absent.

Mr President, prior to his confirmation to the district court, Judge Daniel Traynor showed his true colors as a MAGA partisan. After he was confirmed, he had a chance to show that he could be a neutral arbiter on the bench. Yet after more than 6 years as a jurist, Judge Traynor has confirmed what Democrats warned about, that he would be a rubberstamp for President Trump.

As just one example, Judge Traynor has ruled in favor of the Trump administration in all 28 cases on his docket

involving challenges from immigrants who have been detained by ICE under the administration's illegal mandatory detention policy.

That includes seven habeas corpus petitions Judge Traynor volunteered to preside over in the District of Minnesota following Operation Metro Surge.

Judge Traynor is an outlier. Of the more than 17,800 cases in which Federal district judges have ruled on ICE's mandatory detention policy, at least 15,500 were rulings against the Trump administration, including the vast majority of rulings by Trump-appointed judges.

Judge Traynor's partisanship was also made apparent when he served as a contributing author and signatory of a May 2024 letter from Federal judges to the Columbia University president. The signatories vowed not to hire anyone who attended Columbia University beginning that year.

But Judge Traynor denied a recusal motion in a case brought by Columbia Law School's Initiative for a Just Society, implausibly claiming he wasn't biased against Columbia.

While he was comfortable taking a position on this controversial political question, Judge Traynor refused to answer questions at his hearing on who won the 2020 election, calling that well-settled fact a matter of ``political controversy.''

It is very clear that Judge Traynor seeks to remain in the good graces of President Trump, at the cost of his integrity and independence.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination.

I announce that the Senator from New Hampshire (Mrs. Shaheen) is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, yesterday, the Senate voted to confirm Benjamin Flowers to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Mr. Flowers' record in both government service and private practice reflects his MAGA extremist agenda. He has given us no reason to think he will stop pursuing this agenda once he is on the Federal bench.

During his time as Ohio solicitor general, Mr. Flowers defended Ohio's severe restrictions on a woman's right to choose. Kowtowing to corporate interests, he defended a cap on damages for a victim of child sex abuse.

Mr. Flowers is an election denier. In November 2020, he authored a Supreme Court amicus brief asking the Court to reverse the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision that allowed for the counting of absentee ballots received after election day.

Mr. Flowers is currently a partner at a rightwing law firm that he claims can ``grow up with the conservative legal movement'' following President Trump's election. He has argued against birthright citizenship, demeaned LGBTQ Americans, and claimed that efforts to lower the costs of prescription drugs are unconstitutional.

Mr. Flowers's public commentary reveals his lack of judicial temperament. He has been a frequent speaker for the Federalist Society, and his commentary has been extreme even for conservative legal circles. Mr. Flowers has questioned the need for the Trump administration to follow court orders in public remarks and in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has even criticized the landmark bipartisan First Step Act, calling it ``terrible policy,'' implausibly claiming it is unconstitutional, and arguing that Congress should repeal it.

I opposed Mr. Flowers' nomination. And I urged my colleagues to join me in doing so.

Mr. President, being an air traffic controller is a hard, often thankless job. The hours are long, the stakes are astronomically high, and the work is essential to millions of families across America who are anxious to see their loved ones. Today, I would like to salute one of the best who ever served in that critical job: my friend Toby Hauck.

Toby is a veteran. He served 6 years in the U.S. Air Force, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, both of whom also served in the U.S. military. After Toby left the Air Force, he wanted to find a job that would allow him to continue to serve his country, which led him to the air traffic control. Toby rose through the ranks at air traffic control, eventually becoming president of the Chicago Air Route Traffic Control Center. For 38 years, Toby was responsible for keeping millions of airline passengers--including myself--safe as they flew in and out of Chicago.

With what little free time he had, Toby spent it advocating for his fellow air traffic controllers both in Washington and Illinois as a 28- year member of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. At NATCA, Toby served as its Illinois State coordinator, where he pushed for better pay, staffing, and benefits for his coworkers. Those at NATCA knew Toby as simply ``the Tob''; his colleagues described him as someone who ``always makes time for a fist bump and a smile, greeting everyone he sees by name.'' In May, NATCA awarded Toby the Dale Wright Award for exceptional career service, which speaks not only to his character, but to his reputation nationwide.

I have known Toby for many years. In 2019, he was my guest to the State of the Union, and he has worked diligently with me to try and improve the conditions for air traffic controllers in my State and across the country. As Toby knows, air traffic controllers have too often, and unfairly, been caught in the middle of government shutdowns, forced to continue their work--still understaffed and overworked with the same high stakes--but also with no paycheck. Since I have met Toby, during every shutdown, he has gathered a group of local controllers to share the real-life impacts of partisan stalemates, which include controllers setting up food pantries for their peers, failing to afford medical treatment for themselves or their families, and struggling to pay their bills. These stories have informed my votes and again highlighted how thankless, yet crucial, the work of a controller is.

Toby is truly the best of the best, and last month, after 38 years of service, he retired from his job as an air traffic controller. While Chicago will certainly miss Toby protecting its skies, I am sure his wife Darla will appreciate having him home. Fortunately, Toby will not be leaving his advocacy for air traffic controllers behind; he will remain working with NATCA in an advocacy role. I hope the whole Senate will join me in thanking Toby for his service and congratulating him and Darla on this milestone.

And there is a large list of air traffic controller priorities that must be tackled--especially at our Nation's and the world's busiest airport, found right at home in Chicago. Last year, more than 850,000 aircraft landed or took off from O'Hare, more than any other airport in the world. O'Hare is central to the national aviation system and is a leading hub for connections. Yet the flight towers that manage its airspace are staffed well below the targets established by both NATCA and the FAA by 25 percent. That means the air traffic controllers who are at these towers are forced to work longer hours and additional shifts, taking a significant toll on their mental health.

In a job that requires split-second and lifesaving decisions, it is dangerous to add more stress and fatigue into the equation. This is why Congress allocated $22.2 billion for the FAA for fiscal year 2026 to hire an additional 2,500 new air traffic controllers. I urge the FAA to put that investment to good use and prioritize O'Hare as new controllers become trained and as new technology and infrastructure upgrades become available.

Ensuring that there is proper staffing at towers around Chicago will become even more essential as O'Hare nears the completion of its Terminal Area Plan project, which will increase gate capacity at O'Hare by roughly 25 percent. This project was designed to accommodate growth for airlines and ensure that O'Hare remains competitive as a world- class airport for decades to come. I hope the FAA will give full and fair consideration of any requests from O'Hare to assist in this expansion, whether that be via requests for Federal grant funding or FAA resources.

As more Americans take to the skies every day, it is our job in Congress to support the men and women, like Toby, who keep them safe on their journey. Let's show our gratitude to these public servants by ending the understaffing, irregular paychecks, and insufficient workforce investment that have plagued their work for far too long. It is the least we can do for the people who have dedicated their lives to protecting us every time we fly.

Mr. President, I would like to react to the statement of my friend and colleague from Wyoming. I am against fraud. That is it. On the record: I am against fraud. I am a Democrat, and I don't know where he reached this different conclusion, but I want to make it very clear.

Having said that, I am also a realist. I know that the families I represent in Illinois and across the Nation are facing budgets, family budgets, which are impossible to live with. They are not only struggling paycheck to paycheck, they are also watching the price of groceries go up. They know the price of gasoline goes up and down, and now it is on the upward trend because of the President's war in Iran. Utility bills in my State are up 15 percent this year over last year because of President Trump's energy policy, which is opposed to sustainable, renewable sources of energy, which are the most affordable. The list goes on and on.

The Big Beautiful Bill, which Republicans brag about, was a bill that ended up with millions of Americans losing their health insurance because the cost of premiums had gone up too high.

So I think it is just great that we have tipped income exempt from taxes and that other breaks are given to working people. I would support those any day. But the bill that created those also gave the biggest tax cuts in the history of the United States to the wealthiest people in the United States--nothing, very little, for families in comparison. That is the difference.

I think we ought to be honest with the American people. The No. 1 issue in this campaign is the affordability that families worry about every single week. There is an issue I am going to address here more particularly, which gets to the heart of this as well.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons) is necessarily absent.

I announce that the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), is necessarily absent.

Mr. President, I rise in support of H.R. 1689, a bill to designate Haiti for Temporary Protected Status through March 20, 2029.

I thank my colleagues Senator Markey and Senator Blunt Rochester for their leadership on this important humanitarian issue.

This bill passed the House on a strong bipartisan vote, and the Senate should pass it as well. Supporting this legislation is the right thing to do; nationals of Haiti cannot safely return to their home country.

The Department of State has issued a level 4 travel advisory, telling Americans that it is unsafe to travel to Haiti due to the risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, civil unrest, and limited healthcare.

The Federal Aviation Administration prohibits U.S. carriers from flying to Haiti because of the danger to planes of being shot at by the gangs.

But this bill is not just a humanitarian action. Haitian TPS holders have become integral parts of their communities.

In fact, our former Senate colleague Mike Dewine--now the Republican Governor of Ohio--called the Trump administration's decision to terminate Haiti's TPS ``a mistake'' and a ``job killer'' that is ``not in the best interest of the United States nor Ohio.''

He noted that Haitian TPS holders are opening small businesses, working, and raising families in Ohio communities.

Illinois is no different; hundreds of Haitian families in Illinois will be impacted by the terminations of TPS.

In fact, there are 350,000 Haitian TPS holders nationwide, with 50,000 U.S. citizen children who will be harmed by the administration's decision to terminate Haiti's TPS.

They work in critical industries, providing essential care to our elderly and harvesting the food that we rely on each day.

Business organizations and labor unions have warned that the decision to end work authorization for many TPS holders could have sweeping consequences for both workers and the U.S. economy.

DHS Secretary Mullin has tried to deflect, saying, ``Either try to fill out the paperwork and be here underneath a permanent status, or we'll help you get back to your country.''

But he leaves out the important part: The Trump-Mullin Department of Homeland Security has indefinitely banned processing for any immigration application from a Haitian national. So there is no way for Haitians TPS holders to apply for permanent status.

The administration's goal is clear: to force Haitian TPS holders to go back to a country where they are at risk of violence, kidnapping, or death.

That should tell you everything you need to know. But the President showed his hand long ago; I was at the meeting in 2018 where he used the term ``s-hole'' nations to describe Haiti and African countries.

I will never forget it--it was an embarrassment to the White House, to the Oval Office, and to the Presidency.

At the time, President Trump denied making this statement, but now, he proudly proclaims his bigotry toward the Haitian people.

I happen to disagree with the President. Haitian TPS holders make our country better every day. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this live unanimous consent request to extend TPS for Haiti.

I announce that the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Warnock) is necessarily absent.

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

Mr. President, those seeking to recoup losses from President Trump's disastrous tariff policies will appear before what is called the Court of International Trade.

As is the case with many of President Trump's judicial nominees in his second term, his choice to fill a vacancy on this Court Kara Westercamp was tapped because of her obvious loyalty to the President who nominated her instead of her loyalty to the law.

Her offensive, inflammatory, juvenile social media posts demonstrate she lacks the independence and the maturity and the temperament to be a judge.

Ms. Westercamp tried to delete her old tweets so we wouldn't see them on the committee. She failed. Our staff was able to recover them.

In these tweets, Ms. Westercamp spread conspiracy theories about the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol and attacked Republicans and Democrats alike for being insufficiently loyal to President Trump.

She elevated claims that the January 6 attack was ``orchestrated by Members of the Senate, and members of the [Capitol] police.''

Let me repeat that. In her tweets, she claimed that the January 6 attack on the Capitol, which we all saw the news of, was ``orchestrated by Members of the Senate, and members of the [Capitol] police.

So much for the judgment of this would-be judge.

I was in this Chamber during the counting of electoral votes for the 2020 election. Vice President Pence was sitting where the Presiding Officer sits today.

Members of Congress watched as Secret Service evacuated the Vice President. Within minutes, we were told to leave as well because a violent mob of armed insurrectionists intended to prevent the certification of the 2020 Presidential election results, which Donald Trump had lost by 7 million popular votes.

But Ms. Westercamp dismissed this event entirely. She retweeted a post that read--and I quote:

We're all supposed to be sending thoughts and prayers to

traumatized Members of Congress whose workday was interrupted

for a couple of hours.

Mr. President, did you see the video? Did you see the mob? Did you see the damage they did to this U.S. Capitol Building?

Yes, we left for our lives. The Vice President was spirited out of here by the Secret Service to protect his life.

Ms. Westercamp has also repeatedly attacked Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky for supposedly ``betraying President Trump.'' She even called Senator McConnell ``a modern-day Benedict Arnold,'' and she repeatedly called him ``Cocaine Mitch''--an inflammatory nickname used by MAGA critics of Senator McConnell, the Republican Senator and former leader from Kentucky.

I am not going to be able to repeat some of the things that she wrote in her tweets. They are just too much. But of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, she wrote:

True to NO ONE but [his] own self-preservation.

She crudely called him a name that I can't repeat in the Record for not toeing the MAGA line. There is much,

much more that she had to say about Senator Graham.

Ms. Westercamp accused Senator Collins of Maine of prioritizing her ``own personal political power'' over loyalty to President Trump and called for her removal, as well as the removal of Senators Murkowski and Cassidy following their vote on the second impeachment effort against the President.

Ms. Westercamp even posted a sexually explicit image and joke about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi--a post that Ms. Westercamp herself later described as ``not safe for work.''

Notably, it appears some of her inflammatory, overtly political posts were made while Ms. Westercamp was on duty, actually, as an attorney at the Department of Justice; she was tweeting away. That would violate Federal law.

Last week, Leader Thune filed cloture so that we could move more quickly to Ms. Westercamp's nomination. After you have heard about her background, what do you think as a Senator?

Despite her disrespectful and inflammatory comments, she is a priority for the other side. It is a disgrace that Senate Republicans are moving forward on this nomination while Senator McConnell is still in the hospital and so soon after Senator Graham's passing.

Judges are chosen for judgment, for character, for maturity, for competence, for independence, and most especially, for their temperament. Ms. Westercamp does not meet that standard. I urge my colleagues to oppose her nomination.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, you heard her lay out the case of wrongdoing by a judge. I am going to ask for the Senate to take action to condemn that conduct. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Turns out, it would be the first time in the history of the Senate that we do something like this.

We asked the Congressional Research Service: Is there any Senate precedent for what the Senator from Tennessee is doing? They responded: There is no Senate precedent for either introducing or passing a Senate resolution condemning a judge's illegal misconduct.

What? Out of thousands of judges in the United States at the Federal level, surely in history, someone has done something wrong that should be condemned, but it has never been done.

Well, it gets down to some basic elements of constitutional law. You start with this, the Constitution of the United States. And the Constitution of the United States says in article I, section 2, the House of Representatives shall have the ``sole power of impeachment''-- removal from office. The sole power of impeachment is in the House of Representatives, not the Senate.

So why is that stopping us from this condemnation? Well, let me explain. Under the Constitution, Congress does not respond to judicial misconduct in the form of a Senate resolution. It never has.

It is the responsibility of the House of Representatives, specifically the House Judiciary Committee, to investigate the allegations of misconduct and consider the next steps, including impeachment.

But here is the critical element: Who is the jury? Where is the trial? It is right here. After someone has been impeached in the House of Representatives, for example a President, the case comes to the Senate for trial. I have sat through at least three of those,

maybe more. So we are juries; the U.S. Senate is a jury.

What this Constitution, again, tells us when it comes to the role of the Senate: The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. No question about that. If the House impeaches, it is our job to decide whether we agree or not. It takes an extraordinary vote to impeach.

And, also, let me be clear, this is critical:

When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or

Affirmation.

That is a pretty high standard, isn't it? You have to swear that what you are doing is constitutional or to the best of your ability. So it is an awesome responsibility. We sit like juries in criminal courts and civil courts across the United States, and we make bottom-line decisions as to whether the House impeachment shall be sustained.

So the action starts in the House. If they vote to impeach, it comes to the Senate. The Senate sits as a jury and decides whether or not the impeachment goes through. That is why this resolution needs to be defeated.

Senators serve as jurors in impeachment matters. Passing this resolution--passing this resolution, calling on the Senate to condemn this judge before there has been any effort at impeachment in the House of Representatives--is going to do what they call ``taint the jury.''

He would have already taken a position on the case as to who is right and who is wrong. You can't do that. Voir dire in the courtroom is the judge asking the basic question of potential jurors: Do you have any prejudice against this case that stops you from finding the truth?

And people say: I don't. I have an open mind, and I will listen to the evidence and the law.

Well, what the Senator from Tennessee wants us to do is to taint the jury, to get us on record before the House has any impeachment activity, before we sit as a jury as to how we are going to rule. That is why it has never been tried before on the floor of the U.S. Senate.

I also note the resolution contains multiple material inconsistencies on what the Eleventh Circuit found during its investigation of Judge Ross' misconduct. This underscores that the Senate has not engaged, prior to the election of this resolution, in its own investigation or factfinding. The only factfinding we have is from one Senator in Tennessee.

According to the Congressional Research Service, there is no precedent for the Senate adopting a resolution condemning alleged judicial misconduct. The Senate has never done this before. We should not establish a new precedent here, especially when it could taint the jury pool if the Senate later considers articles of impeachment, if that ever happens. It could also open the door to Senate resolutions about other instances of judicial misconduct.

We must have the highest standards for Federal judges, and the alleged conduct in this case is inappropriate, unacceptable, perhaps even indefensible. But the Constitution is clear. It is a matter for the House to consider at this point rather than the Senate. For these reasons, I object.

Mr. President, we are not judging by this action of objecting the conduct of this judge. That is not for us to judge. Under the Constitution, it is clear. That will be a decision by the House of Representatives and maybe ultimately by the Senate.

There is a reason why this has never been done on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and the Senator from Tennessee ignores that reality. It has never been done because it would taint the jury pool if there was ever an impeachment action against this judge. That is why I objected.

I yield the floor.