Oklahoma City Bombing Anniversary and Filling the Supreme Court Vacancy

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in February of this year, Justice Scalia passed away. It was an enormous loss to the Nation.

In the hours and the days following that, Republicans in the Senate had the opportunity to talk about their constitutional responsibility-- the responsibility of advice and consent. Supreme Court justices don't show up to the Supreme Court because the President just nominates them. In the Constitution, article II, section 2, lays out a 50-50 proposition.

The President has the first 50 percent. He narrows down his list, and he nominates.

The Senate then has the second 50 percent. They have the power of what is called advice and consent. The first half of that is when. Is this the right time to do a nominee? And with many nominees, historically--Ambassadors, Justices, Cabinet officers--the Senate has had a long delay to be able to say: No, this is not the right time.

So the first question is, Is this the right time? The second question is, Is this the right person? That is the process of advice and consent, and it has been for 200 years.

So what has happened since February? Since February, Republicans have been very consistent--myself included--to say: This is not the time to have a Supreme Court Justice go through the nomination process. In the hours after Justice Scalia passed away, we made it very clear so that any nominee who went through the process, regardless of who they were, would know in advance this: You will not move to a hearing because it is not the right time. Of our two-part test--Is this the right time? Is this the right person?--the first part is not complete. It is not the right time. So this nominee will not move at all throughout this entire year, and everyone knew that in advance.

So I understand Republicans have talked about the first test on that, the priority of ``is this the right time?'' Democrats have focused on ``is this the right person?'' They have focused on Judge Garland as the nominee. They want to be able to raise and talk about his profile, and I get the politics of that. But it is just the politics of it. We would expect that banter back and forth on the politics, but this is a settled issue among Republicans. He will not move through the nomination process.

But we hit a new low today on this floor, and I had to come and address it. Today, this moved from a conversation about whether this is the right time and whether this is the right person to drawing in the memory of the 168 lives that were lost in Oklahoma City 21 years ago today--April 19, 1995. It was the worst act of terrorism at that time on American soil, carried out by another American, killing 168 people at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A Ryder truck loaded with fertilizer and diesel pulled up to the front and blew it up, killing 168.

Timothy McVeigh carried that out. He got into his Ford and drove north to leave out of the State. But 90 minutes later--90 minutes later--Trooper Charlie Hanger, who was just doing his job, saw a vehicle on I-35 without a license plate on it, pulled him over, found out he also had a weapon on him, and put him in jail to be able to hold him. Trooper Charlie Hanger, doing his job, actually arrested the person who had killed 168 people just 90 minutes before, not knowing it.

Local law enforcement and individuals quickly went through the debris trying to find individuals to save and evidence to be able to identify who this was. Within a few hours, they found the axle of the Ryder truck. They called the rental company. They identified it. They did a composite sketch, and they figured out within hours who this might be-- a guy named Timothy McVeigh. Running a search on him, they figured out he was already in jail. He had been picked up by Trooper Charlie Hanger. Before he was released--because he was in the process of being released--they were able to hold him and unwind a horrific crime. It was incredible local law enforcement. It was an incredible task that happened.

Within 40 hours of that event occurring, a gentleman named Merrick Garland had come from DC, where he worked for the Department of Justice, to Oklahoma City to help on the Federal side of the prosecution, along with thousands of other people from around the country. Our State and our city was overwhelmed with the compassion of people around the country as we saw what happened, and Merrick Garland was one of those. We are grateful as a community for what he did in the prosecution of Timothy McVeigh, what he did against Terry Nichols, and what he did against Michael Fortier. We are grateful for his work there.

But today, on the floor of this Senate, the implication was laid out twofold. One is that, since Judge Garland served the country and did that, he deserves something else. I have never met Judge Garland. I will meet him next week and, quite frankly, look him in the face and say: Thank you for your service to Oklahoma.

To make clear again the same position before, there will be no nomination this year. He does deserve our gratitude. He doesn't deserve a lifetime appointment onto the bench because of his faithful service to our country and to our community as is being alluded to.

The politics of it really, really deeply struck me as an Oklahoman-- that for some reason, today, of all days, the tragedy that happened to 168 people and their death 21 years ago suddenly became paraded out here as a political prop. One of the Senators was even standing with a picture of a dead child behind him like she is a prop. This child is not a prop for politics. She has a name. She was identified as a toddler. She was 1 year and 1 day old. She was killed in the Murrah Building the day after her 1-year birthday. She is not some random toddler. Her name is Baylee, and she is not to be used as a prop for politics in the Supreme Court nomination process.

It is absolutely fair game to talk about the record of Judge Garland and what he has done. We are grateful as Oklahomans for his service to our State and to our Nation to put away those awful terrorists. But to use a child who was killed in the Murrah Building bombing as a prop so far exceeds the line that I had to come and speak about it and say that I am absolutely offended--and I should be.

So it was 21 years ago today. We remember. It is a statement that comes up to Oklahomans over and over: We remember. We remember the victims. We remember the survivors. We remember the first responders. We remember the thousands of people who came from across the country to help us. We remember, and we will continue to remember. But don't do politics with the life and death of the children and adults in Oklahoma City. Let's keep this where it should be. We could have the debate about process. Do not draw this in.

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