Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, in a few minutes we are going to be voting on President Trump's nomination of Mr. Kurt Engelhardt to be a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and I can't think of a nominee who is more deserving and more qualified for this job.

Judge Engelhardt is the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He has been on the Federal district court bench for 17 years. If you add up all of the cases he has actually tried to verdict or to judgment, I think it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 to 100. That is on top of hundreds--undoubtedly, thousands--of motions that he has heard. He is eminently qualified. Yet, rather than recite his resume, I wish to share a personal experience that I had in Judge Engelhardt's court.

A number of years ago, the city of New Orleans sued a major Wall Street investment bank in a dispute over a $171 million bond issue. The bonds are called pension obligation bonds, and it is an extraordinarily complex transaction. I was called as a witness because, at that point in my life, I was the State treasurer of Louisiana and the chairman of the State bond commission, and we had jurisdiction over the bonds when they were issued.

I was not exactly sure whether I was a fact witness or an expert witness, and the lawyers fought over that for a while. My point is that I was on the stand for, maybe, 5 hours, 6 hours, and I got to observe a little bit about the case and about Judge Engelhardt.

The plaintiffs' counsel, who represented the city of New Orleans and the firefighters' pension system, were a handful of the finest lawyers in the State of Louisiana--indeed, I would say, in the country. A partner and number of associates from a major Wall Street law firm represented the Wall Street investment bank. In addition to their lawyers, there were dozens of clerks and associates and paralegals, who made it look like Bourbon Street on Saturday night because there were so many people. I remember thinking how many thousands and thousands and thousands of hours these lawyers and paralegals and clerks had spent in understanding this case. One could tell very quickly that both sides--both sets of lawyers--knew this case backward and forward and had almost memorized the depositions.

As a lawyer, it was fun for me to watch as they were going at it hammer and tongs. I mean, they could recite chapter and verse from the legal briefs, from the law books, from the depositions. Yet there was one person in that courtroom, among all of these accomplished professionals, who knew more about the case than anybody else. He was the presiding judge--Kurt Engelhardt. He had total command of the subject matter. That was not easy, as this was a very complex municipal securities offering. He had total command of the courtroom.

With both sets of lawyers being aggressive, accomplished litigators, they tested him quite often. That is what good lawyers do. They will push the envelope. He maintained firm control without ever raising his voice, and I got to watch him in operation for 5 or 6 hours. I had never been in his courtroom before, but after watching Judge Engelhardt in operation, I understood why just about every lawyer in Louisiana who files a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana hopes that he or she will get Judge Engelhardt for the judge, because he is that good. The only group of lawyers I know who hopes it doesn't get Judge Engelhardt for a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana is made up of those who are unprepared or who don't know their cases, because he is not going to tolerate the court's time being wasted.

For that reason, I am proud to stand here today, along with my colleague, the senior Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, and recommend categorically and unequivocally--unconditionally--to my colleagues the nomination of Judge Kurt Engelhardt to be a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He will serve us proudly and well.

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