Nomination of Steven J. Menashi

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have come here before to call out Senate Republicans and their unwavering support for President Trump's efforts to pack our courts with partisan and ideologically driven picks, but the nominee I am speaking against today is truly uniquely unfit to serve a lifetime appointment--a lifetime appointment--on a Federal court: Steven Menashi.

Mr. Menashi has a deeply disturbing history of disparaging comments against women, communities of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQI community.

He unabashedly helped to roll back protections for vulnerable communities. He defiantly refused to answer basic questions from U.S. Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, about the policies he worked on while advising the President. He has time and again put extremism and ideology ahead of the rule of law, and he has proven himself incapable of serving as a fair and impartial judge.

As if his record of extremism and partisanship wasn't bad enough, we now know that Steven Menashi not only helped but was the key architect in Secretary DeVos's efforts to illegally deny relief to student borrows who were cheated by predatory for-profit colleges. These policies that Mr. Menashi provided ``legal advice'' for were subsequently ruled to be in violation of Federal law.

Secretary DeVos's policy on borrower defense led to her being held in contempt of court. Whether Mr. Menashi did not understand Federal law or whether he advised the Secretary of Education to blatantly ignore it at the expense of students, the fact is that this latest revelation undoubtedly and unequivocally disqualifies him from serving a lifetime appointment on a Federal court--or, at least, it should.

Tomorrow, the Senate will take a critical vote. This is a vote on whether the Senate once again rubberstamps President Trump's unprecedented effort to remake the Federal judiciary on a partisan ideological basis. It is a vote that shows whether Republicans are willing to support a judicial nominee whose actions--his own actions-- have been found to violate the law as recently as just a few weeks ago.

I implore my Republican colleagues to consider not just Mr. Menashi's record of bigotry and the harm he helped cause to cheated and defrauded students, but also his blatant disregard of the rule of law.

When casting their vote, I ask my colleagues not to worry about what the President might say on Twitter, but to worry about the rule of law and to worry about the idea yet another partisan nominee getting a lifetime on the Federal bench who doesn't. It is that simple.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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