Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the nomination of Valerie Caproni to serve as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

When the Senate Judiciary Committee considered Ms. Caproni's nomination on June 13 and reported her nomination out of committee, I asked to be recorded as a ``pass'' on the vote. I did so because I wanted to meet in person with Ms. Caproni to discuss matters that she worked on when she served as general counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 2003 to 2011.

During Ms. Caproni's tenure, the FBI adopted controversial new investigative policies and implemented sweeping new surveillance authorities granted by the USA PATRIOT Act.

For example, revised Attorney General's guidelines for FBI investigations and the FBI's Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide allow the FBI to conduct ``assessments'' using intrusive surveillance techniques on innocent Americans with no indication of wrongdoing or other factual predicate. And while the Justice Department's ``Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies'' prohibits the use of profiling by Federal law enforcement in ``traditional law enforcement activities,'' this ban does not apply to profiling based on religion and national origin, and it does not apply to national security and border security investigations.

The Justice Department's Inspector General concluded that the FBI was guilty of ``widespread and serious misuse'' of the National Security Letter authority when Ms. Caproni was general counsel. Also during Ms. Caproni's tenure, the FBI interpreted section 215 of the PATRIOT Act to permit the collection of noncontent ``metadata'' on every phone call of every American, including the numbers of both callers and the time and duration of the call.

As general counsel, Ms. Caproni would have been the final word in the FBI on the legality of these and all other Bureau activities.

As a result of my concerns about Ms. Caproni's involvement in these activities, I asked for her commitment, if confirmed, to recuse herself from matters on which she had been involved or provided legal advice while working for the FBI or on which her impartiality might reasonably be questioned.

I met in my office with Ms. Caproni on June 25, and on July 8, Ms. Caproni sent me a letter memorializing her commitment to recuse herself from such matters. I appreciated receiving this letter, and I ask unanimous consent that the letter be printed in the Record.

In light of our meeting and Ms. Caproni's commitments to me, I will not oppose her nomination to the district court.

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