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Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, before I begin my formal remarks, I just want to stand here and give a formal apology to John Merlino. I have for years maligned him. I have disrespected, disregarded him. You know how I operate sometimes. And I just want to say he is a man of honor. I have taken him off my list, and now he is on the good list.

So just for anyone who wants to know, the U.S. senior Senator from New Jersey has praised John Merlino--perhaps for his first time because he is not a man that really generates a lot of praise usually.

So I just want you to know, before I go into my formal remarks for the day, that John Merlino--you the man.

Now, I would like for the record to separate a little bit so I can start some of my formal remarks after I have tried to redeem the soul of a friend and colleague.

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I really believe there is a reason why some of my Republican colleagues themselves have delayed the Blanche nomination, because this is actually no ordinary nomination. We haven't had a moment like this under Donald Trump where Republicans themselves have stopped the vote. Because this is not simply a vote about one man; it is a vote about whether the Department of Justice will remain independent of the President of the United States.

The Attorney General of the United States of America has one client-- not a political party, not a President, not a wealthy donor, not a political movement. The Attorney General's client is the Constitution of the United States and the American people. That is the sacred obligation of that office. When they are sworn in, they do not swear an oath to the President, to Donald Trump; they swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Unfortunately, Todd Blanche has spent months in office demonstrating his allegiance not to our Constitution but to the President. Time and time again, he has shown that he is only capable of serving the interests of one client--Donald Trump. That is why this nomination should not simply be delayed; it should be rejected. The evidence is overwhelming.

Congress came together in a bipartisan way to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act because survivors deserved answers, they deserved justice, and the American people deserved transparency. Todd Blanche was responsible for carrying out that law. Instead, he delayed and delayed. He was stalling. And there was a release after the date and deadline prescribed by Congress that was so careless that sensitive information belonging to Epstein's survivors was exposed by the very Department that was supposed to protect them--their phone numbers, addresses, images, personal details.

Think about that. The survivors entrusted the Department of Justice with some of the most painful chapters of their lives. They deserved care. They deserved competence. They deserved honesty. They deserved an adherence to the law. Instead, they received delays, excuses, and a terrible, tragic breach of their privacy.

Then came the request of meeting with the survivors. For weeks, Mr. Blanche insisted he could not meet with them unless their attorneys were present. This was not true. A first-year law student knows that this is not true. His own Department's policies and Federal law make that clear.

When he finally did meet with them--the survivors--because a Republican Senator demanded that he do it, the survivors described the meeting as disappointing. They said they felt gaslit. They said they were skipped over. They said Mr. Blanche was condescending to the survivors of sexual assault.

Even then, when the survivors pleaded for continued investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein coconspirators, Mr. Blanche once again hid behind claims that the law prevented him from answering.

So we simply have to ask the question: Who is Todd Blanche serving here? Is he serving the survivors? No. Is he serving the interests of the Department of Justice? No. Is he serving the American people? No. But we know that he rushed to the Situation Room for high-level members of the Trump administration to strategize on how to protect the President.

It is another clear example that the person he is there to protect is Donald Trump.

(Mr. BUDD assumed the Chair.)

Last week, my Democratic colleagues held a Spotlight Forum to examine Mr. Blanche's record. We heard from a courageous Epstein survivor. We heard from ethics experts. We heard from one of Mr. Blanche's own former colleagues from the Southern District of New York. We heard from a former Justice official appointed under a Republican President--who served a Republican Senator, Senator Hatch, here in this body--who was then fired simply because he had done his job on investigations involving Robert Mueller and Jack Smith.

Different witnesses, different backgrounds, still one conclusion from every one of them: that Todd Blanche is unfit to lead the Department of Justice. And if there were any doubt, the events of recent days erased those doubts.

Mr. Blanche, in his tenure, helped negotiate a corrupt, extraordinary settlement between Donald Trump's Department of Justice and Donald Trump. We have heard from the Federal bench already that there was no controversy. Donald Trump can't be on both sides of a negotiation. That corrupt structure was exploiting the judiciary to create an environment in which there would be a settlement, and out of that settlement, we saw an unjust and untoward creation that outraged Americans all across the political spectrum. They created a slush fund.

Think about what this means: The lawyer who represented Donald Trump now oversees the Department of Justice and negotiates an agreement between Donald Trump and Donald Trump that is not merely an appearance of conflict, that is the definition of a conflict. It is precisely why the Department of Justice must be independent.

If you look at this slush fund agreement, within it, there are immunity provisions that, according to that agreement, are, to the former senior Federal prosecutor--he said that this agreement and the immunity provisions are ``mind-boggling in scope.'' Donald Trump got a tax liability immunity that is extraordinary--mind-boggling in scope. The immunity provisions alone cover broad categories with no meaningful legal definition.

When asked about those undefined terms during his confirmation hearing, Mr. Blanche effectively acknowledged that they could encompass almost anything--anything. According to Blanche, he negotiated a deal that gave Donald Trump immunity that could cover almost any kind of tax fraud that Donald Trump or his family committed.

For Donald Trump, with his former lawyer at the head of the Justice Department, it seems like, for the President, justice has no rules, justice has no standards, justice has no limits.

When one man receives special rules unavailable to every other American, this is not justice; it is privilege. It is unjust privilege.

During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Blanche repeatedly promised that he would act independently. But independence is not something you promise; it is something you demonstrate. He has been in this position for months and has had the chance to show us not promises but actions, and at every important decision he has made, the same story comes out. Who was he serving? The Constitution or Donald Trump? The answer is unmistakable.

This vote we have in the Senate on this nominee--every Senator is going to have to eventually cast a vote, but history is going to record something much larger. It will record whether in this moment, the U.S. Senate defended the independence of American justice, the independence of the Justice Department, or did we surrender it.

Long after today's headlines are forgotten, long after today's politics have faded, one question will remain: When the independence of the Department of Justice was tested, where did we stand?

I know where I stand. I stand for a Department of Justice whose only client is the American people; a Department that follows the evidence, not politics; a Department that defends the Constitution, not a President.

No one--not even the President of the United States--is above the law. That principle has guided this great Republic for nearly 250 years. It is our responsibility to preserve it today. It is the oath that we took, the commitment that we made that we will serve the people and the ideals.

To vote for Blanche is to surrender those ideals upon the altar of someone who wants to be a false god, where his interests are superior over everyone else's. That is wrong.

History is watching. We should reject this nominee. Immigration

Mr. President, somewhere in America today, a father kissed his children goodbye before leaving to work, a mother boarded an airplane to attend her father's funeral, a husband drove to his construction job, a woman walked into an airport believing that they were following the law of our land. None of them expected to disappear into our immigration detention system. Yet this is happening all over our country.

Over the last several months, immigration enforcement has accelerated dramatically. In June alone, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people--the highest monthly total in years. People are being arrested outside of their homes, at airports, at workplaces, near schools, near our churches, across communities throughout our Nation. And many of them-- most of them--are nonviolent, with no criminal record. Many of them have lived here for years--many, for decades. Many of them are raising American children. Some have American grandchildren, American spouses, and are an integral part of the community. Many of these folks are working jobs, paying taxes, following the legal process toward citizenship.

A woman traveling home to Texas for her father's funeral was detained at an airport while she was pursuing her asylum claim. Two other women, despite being married to American citizens and already in the legal process of obtaining permanent residency, were detained.

These are not people that are hiding from the law; these are people trying to follow it. Yet, instead of helping them complete that process, our government took them, locked them away from their families, from the Americans that love them, the communities that cherish them, the businesses and jobs that sustained those families.

Right now, today in America, roughly 70 percent of the people in immigration detention--often for-profit private companies--have never been convicted of a criminal offense--70 percent. This is not what Donald Trump promised--that he would go after the ``worst of the worst.'' This is a dragnet.

These, unfortunately, are indiscriminate arrests, not the result of focused law enforcement. They are the consequence of arbitrary arrest quotas and no guiding principles of decency and support of a legal immigration system. It is taking people who are seeking to abide by our laws and throwing them in prisons for the profits of private companies, which also are big supporters and contributors to this President.

When numbers become more important than justice, innocent people become collateral damage. And this doesn't just harm immigrants in our country or violate our values of decency; it harms all Americans.

Too often, this debate is framed as though immigrants are taking from our country, that they are takers. Well, the facts tell a different story. According to the conservative Cato Institute, for more than two decades, immigrants have contributed more in taxes--way more in taxes-- than they have received in any kind of government benefit, many of which they are ineligible for. Together, immigrants have generated a fiscal surplus measured in the trillions of dollars. Undocumented immigrants alone paid nearly $100 billion in Federal, State, and local taxes in a single year. They work. They build. They start businesses. They strengthen our economy. They contribute to Social Security and Medicare. They help build prosperity for all of America.

Yet this administration wants to punish many of the very people that are helping to strengthen it, violating the commitment to go after the dangerous people, to focus our taxpayer resources on getting criminals off of our street. But no, they are using our taxpayer money to go after people that have been in our country for years and decades, who are contributing to it and are working hard to abide by our immigration laws.

Nowhere is this contradiction more painful than what we are seeing right now with Haitian immigrants in our country. Earlier this year, the United Nations described Haiti as ``one of the most complex crises in . . . recent history.'' Armed gangs control large sections of the country. Kidnappings are widespread. Sexual violence is used as a weapon. Thousands upon thousands have been killed. Natural disasters continue to deepen an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

Trump's own State Department gives Haiti its highest travel warning, level 4; in other words, do not travel to Haiti. Think about that. We tell American citizens ``It is far too dangerous for you to go to Haiti,'' and then we tell Haitian families ``We are sending you there.'' How can both possibly be true? How could a nation of decency take people with temporary protected status and send them to the very country our Nation warns us not to go to because of the violence and destitution? Have we no decency in our policies? If a country is far too dangerous for an American to step into, how can it be safe enough for families that are now being forced to go back there?

Temporary protected status exists for precisely this kind of moment. Congress created it. A Republican President signed it into law. It recognizes a simple yet profound moral truth: When extraordinary danger exists, Americans should not force human beings into it.

The values of our country, the values of our collective faiths, the values of the best of humanity are being violated here. We are a moral nation, but forcing people here on temporary protected status back into countries where there is such violence and destitution violates our morals, our values. It cheapens us all. It is wrong. Yet this administration has canceled temporary protected status for more than 330,000 Haitians.

Many have lived here for years and years. Many of them already have had American children in our country. Many of them have married Americans themselves. They have worked here. They have paid billions in taxes here. They built businesses here, served communities in some of the most humble jobs in our hospitals as assistants, helping the ill and the elderly.

There are thousands that I have come to know are in New Jersey, many whom I know personally. They are woven into the fabric of our communities, but now from a callous President they face deportation into one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

I ask my colleagues: Can we look these families in the eye and honestly say this reflects the best of who we are, this reflects the values of our faiths?

Most of us here in this body are Christians. Would Jesus send someone from our Nation into danger, rip them away from their communities? Is that what our faiths dictate? Is that what our ideals dictate?

Even some Republicans have been raising alarms. Members of the House voted to extend protections. The Republican Governor of Ohio called those deportations ``a mistake'' because this is not simply an immigration debate; it is a moral test.

America has always been strongest when our laws reflected both security and humanity. These are not conflicting ideals. In fact, they are interwoven.

When we violate our humanity, we violate our security. We can secure our borders, and we should. We can enforce our laws, and we must. But we can also distinguish between those who threaten America and those who have spent years here in our country strengthening it.

This is not weakness. The Haitians in our community--keeping them here amidst the crisis in Haiti--it is not weakness; it is wisdom. It is justice. It is morally right.

It is long past time that we, in Congress, modernize an immigration system that virtually everyone agrees is broken. I can't tell you the conversations I have had with Republican colleagues of mine.

The late Lindsey Graham is a great example about how our immigration laws are so broken, it makes it hard for anyone who wants to follow the rules to be able to, in any timely way, become a citizen of our country.

The Cato Institute calls it more likely to win the lottery than it is to come into our country. This is one of the reasons why our population is declining.

We need laws that reflect our values, laws that are orderly, laws that keep us safe and secure, laws that protect the border, laws that affirm our values.

We can have all of that. Do not listen to the false choice of a President, who wants to send people back to a human version of hell, rip people from our communities all in the name of safety and security. That is a lie.

We must create laws that offer a realistic pathway for people who have lived, worked, contributed, paid taxes, invested their lives in this country for decades, especially those with American families and American children.

The question before us is so much larger than immigration; it is about whom we are becoming as a society when we turn our back on our neighbors being thrown in private detention facilities that are profiting off of their pain, who we are as a nation when we want to rip people away from their families and their children and send them to modern-day's hell, who we are as a nation when we take those people that are good enough to work in our hospitals to take care of our elderly, but then we want to turn our back on them and let them be dragged out of our country even though they have been here for years, followed our laws, and are working toward a pathway to citizenship.

Who are we if we continue down this road that creates false fears, that spreads lies about immigrants, that turns its very back on the fundamental precept to love your neighbor?

Well, I still believe in America. I still believe we are strong enough to create safety and security and to embrace those who love our Nation and serve her faithfully even though they are not citizens. I still believe in an America that is big enough and bold enough to protect its borders and love the stranger.

I still believe in a nation whose immigration laws can affirm our dignity and decency and not be an assault on it. I still believe in a nation that honors its faith traditions and knows that we have to love our neighbor and welcome the stranger, especially when they are fleeing persecution and hate and violence.

I believe in the highest ideals of our Nation. That is why we have laws like temporary protected status in the first place. It reflected the best of us. But I fear this administration is showing the worst of who we are. I honor Republican think tanks, the Republican Governors who all have the courage to stand up and say: This is wrong.

We need that kind of chorus of conviction here in the U.S. Senate. I ask my colleagues to not let this President so violate our collective values. This is not a right or left issue; it is a right or wrong issue.

I pray for our Nation. I pray that we live our ideals and don't just talk about them. I pray that we teach our children whom we are not by what we say but by what we do.

I pray that in this crisis, we do not allow a President to undermine decency and grace and send innocent people back to environments where they will face nightmares and violence.

We can be the America we say we are, but this Chamber must stand up.

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