Executive Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, in the next 24 hours, the Senate will do what it should do, which is to actually go through the process of advice and consent with a nominee--this time, for an Attorney General-- William Barr.
William Barr is eminently qualified. It has been interesting to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk all day long today about how qualified William Barr is but then always pause with a ``but'' and take off on the Mueller investigation.
Let me explain what this means by ``eminently qualified.'' He has had an exceptionally impressive legal career. He serves in one of the top U.S. firms. He began his legal career decades ago as, actually, an analyst and as legislative counsel for the CIA. He worked on domestic policy for Ronald Reagan. He served as the Deputy Attorney General from 1990 to 1991, and then he served as the Attorney General of the United States for George Herbert Walker Bush from 1991 to 1993.
When he was appointed as the Attorney General in 1991, his nomination passed out of the Judiciary Committee with a unanimous vote of 14 to 0. The Judiciary chairman at the time--a gentleman named Joe Biden--called him a fine Attorney General. He was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate in 1991--a less partisan time. It was when Democrats and Republicans both looked at his qualifications, not at a political agenda.
We have a unique moment in which to look at someone who was a good Attorney General for the United States, one who served faithfully but then had a season away from that, only to turn around and do it again. How many of us wouldn't want to redo something we did years ago and say: I did it, and it went well, but if I were to have a little more time and could do it over again, I would do things better. We have that chance with William Barr. It is a unique moment for us as a nation to be able to bring somebody like that back again.
What happened under his watch?
During that time period, he believed and still believes that the personal security of the citizens of the United States is the primary, first duty of the government's and of the U.S. Attorney General's. Despite what is being smeared about him on this floor over and over again--with people saying he is being hired to be the President's personal attorney--for those who have actually met with him and talked with him, he speaks openly about law enforcement in the United States. He talks about working with local law enforcement and with U.S. attorneys to actually prosecute crime and go after the issues that distract from American values and that keep the American people from living the American dream.
During his tenure as Attorney General, he spearheaded the initiative called the Weed and Seed Program, which removed violent drug offenders from the streets. Under Attorney General Barr, in the 1990s, violent crime in the United States went down because they were aggressively prosecuting for crime.
He is also the Attorney General who supervised the enforcement and implementation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was an incredibly difficult legal process to have gone through and to have implemented nationwide in order to have protected the rights of individuals who had been overlooked in our country for two centuries-- those with disabilities. It was a major feature of what he did during that time period.
He brings this unique, important perspective from his dealings with law enforcement, his background, his experience. All of those things look like they would make a slam dunk with which to come to this floor and have wide, bipartisan support except for this--that he is being used as a message in the Mueller investigation. It is not that he said: I am going to stop the Mueller investigation. It is not that he said anything else about that. He did write a 19-page letter as an attorney in the law practice that is helping President Trump get through this process.
He wrote: Hey, as former Attorney General, here are all of the things of which you should be advised. When you are working with the President, here are the key features.
It seems like a kind thing to do for any President. He wrote the letter with all of that information in it, and he gave those details. Fine.
He has also said over and over again that he is not going to undercut the Mueller investigation. Yet some of my Democratic colleagues have said: No, it has to be more than that. He has to recuse himself like Jeff Sessions did. He has to recuse himself. If he doesn't recuse himself, he can't be there.
May I remind you that the reason Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself was that he was on the campaign team for the President, and when he got into the position of Attorney General, the ethics team from the Department of Justice advised him: Hey, since you were on the campaign team, you can't be the investigator for the campaign team. At that time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions agreed and said that it would violate ethics for a person on the team to help investigate the team, so he recused himself. That was not William Barr. There is all of this talk that he has to recuse himself like Jeff Sessions did, but it is a completely different situation. Why should he recuse himself?
Apparently, people don't want the Mueller investigation to have any supervision, which, again, I find fascinating politically because I distinctly remember, during the Clinton administration, that many of my Democratic colleagues who are still in this Chamber now were furious with Ken Starr. They can't believe Donald Trump would say he is frustrated with the Mueller team, but they had no problem with the Clinton White House's literally saying: We are going to go to war against Ken Starr. The term ``witch hunt'' is not new. The Clinton administration used that same term against Ken Starr. This is a fascinating side-by-side to me, to be able to look at this.
Here is what I would advise: Let the Mueller investigation finish its job. It has a job. Let it do its job. Quite frankly, the Attorney General shouldn't be in the day-to-day operations of the Mueller investigation. That is why we have a special counsel. Yet, at some point, the special counsel has to turn information over to someone. William Barr is not going to be the one writing all of the information from the special counsel. He should neither have this incredibly high standard nor be held to some standard of doing something that he is not going to do--try to interfere in this process. He has made that very clear.
He has also made it very clear verbally, in committee settings, and in written statements that he is going to release whatever comes out, as under the law, from the Mueller investigation. I think some people believe that the Mueller investigation is going to release a big, giant written report like the Senate Intel Committee will do. Yet the Mueller investigation's task is not to release some big, giant report; its task is for them, as prosecutors, to go through and recommend indictments. If they choose to write a report, that is up to them. Now, this Congress could try to mandate that, but that is not their requirement. They are a special counsel. This is a group of attorneys that is making recommendations. That is all it is.
Don't judge an Attorney General nominee based on some accusation from some thought of what might happen and what he might do. Judge him on what he actually says and what he has done. Hold him to that standard.
I have also had some folks back in my State say they have heard that William Barr supports the possibility of some States having red flag laws on the Second Amendment. Now, I spoke to William Barr. He came to my office. We spent about 45 minutes together. We went through a whole litany of questions and answers about his background and the issues he has dealt with, his passions, his dealings with local law enforcement, his cooperation with State prisons, consent decrees, religious liberty. We talked of drug trials and processing. We talked about the whole issue of gang violence--on and on and on--including the Second Amendment.
He again reiterated he is supportive of the Second Amendment in every area. If someone loses his Second Amendment rights, it will only be based on due process, which is with a court's being involved. That has always been the standard for us as a country.
I have seen some of the things that have been written about him, one being that he is not supportive of the Second Amendment. That is absolutely false, and I can say those things based on my personal conversation with him after having asked him those questions. See not the things that have been written about him but the things that he has actually written and said about the Second Amendment. He is a protector of our rights under the Constitution. It is one of the things to which he has sworn under oath to protect as the previous Attorney General and would have to swear to again under oath.
This is a simple thing for us. We are looking at a qualified nominee who has an excellent background, the experience, and a passion to protect our country; who has shown a passion for law enforcement, protecting our Nation, and reducing violent crime in our country. I look forward to his stepping in and taking the lead in the Department of Justice.
May I make a side note on this? Again, this nomination reminds me of why it is so important that this Senate fix its nomination process. We have a broken nomination process--period.
If you take the last six Presidents combined, when they were putting their staffs together in their first 2 years of office, it was 25 times that someone in the Senate asked for additional time to debate that person. It could be any one of 100. For the last six Presidents, it was a total of 25 times that one person asked for additional time to debate. In this body, it was 25 times that somebody said for the last six Presidents combined that we need a little more time to debate this person. They asked for additional what is called postcloture debate time. That is a full intervening day--24 hours--plus an additional 30 hours after that just to debate. That is fine. For highly controversial nominees, it is entirely appropriate.
Yet, in the first 2 years of President Trump's Presidency, that request has been made 128 times--25 times for the last 6 Presidents combined versus 128 times for this President. It is not because they have been all that controversial as nominees, although I am fully aware that President Trump has nominated some folks who have created heated debate on this floor, but it was certainly not 128 times. In fact, many of the times after we had had that postcloture intervening day, plus another 30 hours, those people passed either unanimously or with 90- plus votes. They were not controversial. It was an attempt to shut down this Senate and shut down this President to keep him from hiring his staff. That has never happened before. There has never been a time that the Senate has tried to prevent an elected President from hiring his own team--until now.
In May of 2017, I made a proposal to fix our postcloture vote debate time, seeing what would happen. I continued that conversation over and over again with many of my Democratic colleagues.
The last session, we brought in front of the Rules Committee a proposal that was made by Harry Reid and then was passed under Harry Reid's time and his leadership in the Senate--that is, to limit postcloture debate time to streamline that process.
I brought that exact same proposal back out and said: Republicans voted with Democrats to make sure this process would work in 2013 and 2014. Now will Democrats vote with Republicans on the exact same language? And we will do this together to fix this process.
The Democrats gave me the Heisman at that point and said: No. It was good of you to vote with us, but we are not going to vote with you.
That was all last session.
I brought up another proposal that went through the Rules Committee today. It is a simple proposal. Historically in this body, there hasn't been a lot of postcloture debate time on nominees, especially not on nominees like district court judges or Deputy Assistant Secretaries of some entity.
I met today with the person who will be the IRS counsel, the counsel of the IRS, which I dare guess no one in this room could name right now, and certainly most people in America couldn't, but they have been blocked for a year, so the IRS does not have a Chief Counsel. Not a controversial nominee--will probably pass unanimously or near unanimously. Just to prevent the IRS from having a counsel, they have been slowed down.
My proposal is simple. We can still have postcloture debate. If anyone in this body wanted to slow down any nominee, they could still do that. They could request a full additional day, 24 hours, and then in the next day, instead of adding an additional 30 hours, it would be just an additional 2 hours. So instead of getting a full day plus 30 hours, they would get a full day plus 2 hours. That is still a lot of time.
Quite frankly, only 25 times in the last six Presidents have there been any requests for any additional time. So that would still allow a long period of time, but it would expedite the process so at least we could go through this.
If we don't fix this now, this will become the habit of the Senate from here on out. When the next Democratic President is elected, I can assure you that we will have the same issue with nominees that President Trump is having because it only takes one Senator to say: No. I want a whole intervening day plus 30 hours for every one of your nominees.
By the way, the President puts 1,200 people through the process of nomination--1,200. So count the times that will happen in the days ahead.
I know this is part of the ``resist Trump'' movement and to shut down the operation of his Presidency, but it actually is going to shut down the operation of every President from here on out if we don't fix this rule.
I am asking my Democratic colleagues to look long, to not look right in front of us, to look at the future of where this is really headed and what is really happening to this Senate. The precedent that is being set right now on debate will be the standard in the days ahead. Let's fix it now so we can get this resolved long term for the sake of our country and do this right.
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