Motion to Discharge
Floor Speech
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Mr. COTTON. Madam President, in a couple of hours, Senator Schumer is bringing to the floor one of the most dangerous pro-crime, anti-cop U.S. nominees in American history. The Senate floor leader wants to ram through President Biden's extreme nominee to be the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, the current Suffolk County district attorney, Rachel Rollins. In doing so, the Democrats are showing they don't care about crime as a crime wave crashes across the country, they do not support law enforcement, and they have a wanton disregard for the safety and security of Americans.
Now, it is true that we rarely have record votes of U.S. attorneys in the Senate. In fact, I think it has been 28 years.
It is also true that Rachael Rollins is so radical that she is without precedent as a nominee to be the U.S. attorney.
Rachael Rollins is the very epitome of a Soros prosecutor, although it is generous to call her a prosecutor at all.
For those of you who do not know the term, ``Soros prosecutor'' refers to the wave of so-called progressive political activists backed by wealthy liberal mega donors like George Soros, who have run for local district attorney and State attorney positions throughout the country with the express purpose--the express purpose of igniting revolution and destroying our criminal justice systems from within.
They have left a trail of death, pain, suffering, and misery in their wake. Chicago has already had more than 1,000 murders this year--1,000 murders, with a month to go. Philadelphia has already had more than 500--already an all-time record. Crime is so bad in San Francisco, they closed downtown on Black Friday to avoid gangs of armed robbers smashing into retail stores and stealing everything in sight. They closed it on Black Friday because Chesa Boudin, the radical Soros prosecutor in San Francisco, has helped a crime wave destroy public safety in San Francisco so much that the liberals in that city have already announced a recall petition against him.
And perhaps most notoriously, just last weekend, in Waukesha, a career criminal with a rap sheet as long as your arm committed mass murder--one of the deadliest massacres in recent years--while he was out on $1,000 bail; $1,000 for a career criminal who consistently committed violent crimes for 20 years. And the Soros prosecutor in Milwaukee who let him out acknowledged that it may have been inappropriately low.
But that is not the unintended consequence; that is the intended consequence: to destroy our criminal justice system from the inside, to let violent, repeat felons out immediately and not keep them on bail, and then to not charge them with the appropriate crimes, and then to reduce their sentences when they are convicted.
What do they all have in common?
They are all pro-criminal, Soros prosecutors, just like Rachael Rollins--the first one to be nominated for U.S. attorney.
Now, she is not simply a Soros prosecutor, she is one of the most preeminent legal arsonists in the country. She is a founding member of an organization of Soros prosecutors called the Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission, which claims that the American justice system--and this is a quote; this is a direct quote--has ``been a cruel and oppressive force of injustice for . . . all marginalized communities.''
And she also claims--this is, again, a direct quote--``this isn't a bug in the system, but a feature. It's operating exactly the way it was designed and built to function.''
That is her view of our criminal justice system, that it is a cruel and oppressive force of injustice for marginalized communities; that is not a bug; that is a feature.
That is textbook critical race theory.
Rachael Rollins believes that the American criminal justice system is racist and rotten to its core, and the Democrats want to put her in charge of prosecuting criminals in the largest State in New England. Rollins hopes to destroy the criminal justice system from within. That is not hyperbole. She has not been shy about her views, until she was nominated for this office, of course.
When asked why she became a prosecutor last year, she answered-- again, this is a direct quote. I am not making it up. You may find it hard to believe. This is her own words why she wanted to be a prosecutor: ``I chose to jump into this job to dismantle the system from the inside.''
Soon after being sworn in as district attorney of Suffolk County, MA, she declared that she was going to battle--going to battle--against the U.S. attorney on offenses like opioids, marijuana, and immigration.
Just think about that. A newly elected prosecutor in the largest city of the State decided that her mission was not to stop criminals, not to protect innocent civilians, but to stop the U.S. attorney in that State from prosecuting criminals, and now she wants that job for herself.
I don't think so.
Mrs. Rollins also published a list of 15 crimes that she would refuse to prosecute except in special cases, sending the clear message to criminals that it was open season to commit these crimes.
Among the crimes on Rollins' presumptive do-not-prosecute list are not just things like jaywalking, but things like drug trafficking with intent to distribute, including fentanyl, malicious destruction of property, criminal threats, breaking and entering, trespassing, resisting arrest, and more.
This isn't an exercise of prosecutorial discretion in a case with exceptional circumstances. This is prosecutorial nullification. The Legislature of Massachusetts passed criminal laws that prosecutors are elected to enforce, and she refuses to enforce them.
What do you think she will do to our Federal criminal laws?
What do you think she will do to you if you are a homeowner in Suffolk County and someone trespasses on your yard and walks up to your window to see if you are home or not?
And if you are not, they will break and enter because you won't be prosecuted. And if you are home, well, they will just walk off the lawn and wait until you leave. And you dial 9-1-1, and the police won't even answer because they know Rachael Rollins won't prosecute you.
And this is the woman that Joe Biden nominated to be a U.S. attorney in this county. I don't think so.
Rollins has tarred police officers as murderers, causing the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association to condemn her for ``undoubtedly incit[ing] violence against the proud men and women of the Boston Police Department.''
Her response, naturally, was to accuse the Boston police of ``white fragility.'' That is not a summary; that is an exact quote. She accused the Boston police of ``white fragility.''
There is a word for what Mrs. Rollins traffics in, and that word is ``racism;'' presuming that every officer in the Boston Police Department is guilty of ``white fragility,'' presumably the Black and the Hispanic and the Asian ones too.
The truth is that Rollins has nothing but contempt for the rule of law. If she is confirmed, the citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire and all of New England will suffer the dangerous consequences. We have already seen these consequences in her own county.
In 2020, the first full year in which her policies have been in force, Boston's violent crime rate surged, and the number of murders skyrocketed by 38 percent.
When Rollins took office, Suffolk County had the fifth highest opioid overdose death numbers in Massachusetts, with 39 percent fewer deaths than the leading county. By the end of 2020, not surprisingly, Suffolk County's opioid overdose deaths had increased by 32 percent, and Suffolk County had become the second deadliest county for opioid overdoses.
If Rollins' abysmal record is brought to Massachusetts as a whole, it also poses a significant threat to the health and safety of the people of New England, especially New Hampshire--a threat that extends beyond the 100,000 Granite Staters who work in Massachusetts.
Rollins' insane drug policies would worsen the drug epidemic, which is already ravaging New Hampshire. The opioid crisis, which is fueled by narcotics smuggled from Massachusetts, is responsible for over 80 percent of drug overdose deaths in New Hampshire. Cartels and traffickers use Boston and its ports as a staging ground to smuggle vast quantities of heroin and other drugs into New Hampshire.
Rollins' failure to vigorously enforce Federal drug laws in Massachusetts will severely harm families and communities not just in her own State, but in New Hampshire and across New England.
Rollins' appalling statements, actions, and records caused Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to unanimously-- unanimously--oppose her nomination. That is a nearly unprecedented action for a U.S. attorney nomination, and it is not one that we took lightly.
By contrast, for example, Republicans have allowed President Biden's other 15 U.S. attorney nominees across the country to go through committee with a simple voice vote. It goes to show that Mrs. Rollins is uniquely unfit for the role of U.S. attorney and deserves no deference from the Senate and no confirmation.
If the Democrats vote to confirm Rachael Rollins, they will be responsible for every action she takes. It is not a secret. It is right here in her record. And when crime spikes in Massachusetts and crime spikes in New Hampshire, Democratic Senators who are on the ballot next year are going to answer for it.
And I promise I will be there to make you answer for it if you vote for her today.
And if you are a Soros prosecutor around the country watching this nomination today and you think maybe you are next if Ms. Rollins is confirmed, maybe you can be the U.S. attorney, maybe you can be the attorney general in your State, I promise you, this will not be the start of a trend. I will stop at nothing to make sure none of you ever achieve higher office and none of you get reelected, because you are a danger to the families and the communities of this country.
President Biden should immediately withdraw Mrs. Rollins' nomination and should consider submitting someone who would actually be a prosecutor rather than a pro-crime, defund-the-police activist to serve as a U.S. attorney in Massachusetts.
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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, for the record, I would object on behalf of anyone who is not here, and so the question is moot.
If the Democrats really wanted all these nominees to go forward, maybe you should talk to the President about the fact that he caved in on Nord Stream 2 sanctions.
I know the Senator from New Hampshire has been strong on that, but she could have stopped any single bill or nominee going forward by insisting that the President impose Nord Stream 2 sanctions.
Now we are in a situation where all of Western Europe is hooked on German gas and Vladimir Putin is about to invade Ukraine, and the best we can get is stern words.
So, yes, I would object on behalf of any Senator who is not present, and I don't even know what I am objecting to.
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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, 8 months--for 8 months any Senate Democrat could have stepped forward and demanded the President impose Nord Stream 2 sanctions. For 4 years--for 4 years--we stood together and cast votes--with 85 votes, 90 votes, or 95 votes--in defense of Nord Stream 2 sanctions when the Democrats were discovering their inner Jack Ryan when it came to Russia.
But now that Donald Trump is gone from office and Joe Biden is in office and he is appeasing Vladimir Putin at every turn by extending the New START Treaty and by not imposing sanctions on Nord Stream 2, suddenly the Democrats have reverted back to their old, conciliatory ways toward Russia.
The simplest way to deter invasion of Ukraine, the simplest way to deter Russian aggression is to draw clear red lines of enforcement-- something that Joe Biden will not do; something that, apparently, the Democratic Senators will not force him to do.
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Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, I did not make any personal insult. I simply observed that, for 4 years under the Trump administration, we repeatedly took action on a bipartisan basis to try to stop Nord Stream 2.
One of the reasons we didn't have a vote on amendments last week on the Defense bill is because the Democrats were carrying water for the Biden administration, refusing to have a vote on Nord Stream 2. And that is consistent with the Biden administration's record on Russia, which can get all chesty in its rhetoric but always appeases Vladimir Putin.
One of the first actions he took was to give a no-strings-attached extension to the New START Treaty, something that Donald Trump never did--the very first priority of Vladimir Putin.
The second priority was Nord Stream 2. We have been trying to have votes in this Senate all year long, and we haven't had them because the Democrats won't insist on a vote because Joe Biden doesn't want it.
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