[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 102 (Wednesday, July 21, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8516-S8522]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       Bin Laden Flight Manifest

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, today I rise to discuss some 
disturbing information that was released to the public today. It 
concerns the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the United States on 
September 11, 2001.
  A little more than a week after September 11, precisely on September 
19, 2001, a luxury airliner 727 took off from Boston Logan Airport. It 
was wheeled up, at 11 o'clock at night, under the cover of darkness. 
That airplane left the United States for Gander, Canada, then on to 
Paris, Geneva, and the final stop was Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
  The question was, Who was on this charter flight carrying people who 
will never again set foot in the United States? That charter flight, 1 
week after September 11, carried 12 members of the bin Laden family out 
of our country. When they left, they took a million unanswered 
questions with them.
  Now, on this chart is the flight manifest of that fateful flight. I 
will read the names of those with the last name of bin Laden: ``Najia 
Binladen, Khalil Binladen, Sultan Binladen, Khalil Sultan Binladen, 
Shafig Binladen, Omar Awad Binladen, Badr Ahmed Binladen, Nawaf Bark 
Binladen, Mohammed Saleh Binladen, Salman Salem Binladen, Tamara Khalil 
Binladen, Sana's Mohammed Binladen, and Faisal Khalid Binladen.''
  I ask my colleagues, why in the world would we let 12 members of 
Osama bin Laden's family leave the country at that moment?
  One of the first rules of a criminal investigation when you have the 
suspect on the run is to interrogate the family members. Osama bin 
Laden had just murdered over 3,000 Americans, but the administration 
let his family flee. The question is, Why?
  There are reports that some of the bin Ladens were interviewed on the 
airplane by the FBI. Interviewed on the airplane? Everybody knows when 
the FBI is conducting a serious interview they do not do it within 
hearing of everyone else. These people were about to take off. Why 
would they disclose anything to U.S. law enforcement? They were getting 
out of here.
  I have talked to law enforcement officials who said, at the very 
least, the bin Laden family should have been detained on a material 
witness warrant and put under oath and asked the question, Do you know 
where Osama bin Laden is? Do you know where his safe houses are? Where 
does he get his money? Who are his associates?
  The Saudi PR machine has been spinning that Osama bin Laden is 
ostracized from his family; no one has any contact with him anymore. 
Most experts believe that is not the truth. It may be true for some 
family members but certainly not all.
  It is, at the very least, unclear what bin Laden's position on Osama 
bin Laden really is. Osama bin Laden's brother, Yeslam bin Laden, was 
interviewed on television recently. He was asked the question, Would 
you turn Osama bin Laden in, if you knew where he was? He essentially 
said no.

  Before it left this country, this charter flight stopped in several 
U.S. cities. It started by picking up one bin Laden, Najia bin Laden, 
in Los Angeles. It then flew to Orlando to pick up more members of the 
bin Laden family. Once in Orlando, the crew of this charter flight 
found out who they were carrying as passengers and threatened to walk 
out. They did not want to fly that flight but the charter company 
insisted they stay on the job. The airplane was flown from Orlando to 
Dulles, near Washington, to pick up more bin Ladens. Then the flight 
landed at Logan Airport in Boston to pick up additional family members 
to leave the country.
  At Logan Airport, the officials there were not eager to let this 
plane full of bin Ladens take off so easily. The airport officials 
demanded clearances from the Bush administration before they let this 
airplane leave. But then, to their astonishment, the clearances quickly 
came through. Let them leave, was the order from the Bush 
administration. And we ask, Why?
  Look at the names of the bin Laden family members who are allowed to 
leave the country. It is astounding, 12 of them, all of them with bin 
Laden last names. That is a pretty good indication that they ought to 
be questioned, ought to be interpreted, that they ought to tell what 
they know about Osama bin Laden, the murderer of our Americans.
  Millions of Americans were still distraught on September 19. 
Thousands of foreigners were detained across our Nation and across the 
world, but the family of the perpetrator was let go. It makes no sense.
  Some of these individuals' names raise specific concern. Take Omar 
bin Laden. He was under suspicion for involvement in a suspected 
terrorist organization. This was known on September 19, 2001, but the 
administration allowed him to flee. Once again, we must ask the 
question, why?

  The President of the United States should explain to the American 
people why his administration let this plane leave. The American people 
are going to be shocked by this manifest, and they deserve an 
explanation.
  These are 12 names that may have been inconvenienced in September 
2001, if we detained them and subjected them to questioning under oath. 
They might not have liked it. That is 12 people potentially 
inconvenienced compared to the almost 3,000 names of those murdered on 
9/11.
  The American people deserve an answer. This information is reliable. 
Manifests are always filed with flights, especially those going out of 
the country. The destination: Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi 
Arabia--all the way down the line. The passport numbers are blocked out 
on this chart, but their identity is quite clear.
  This is a question that must be answered.
  With that, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hagel). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I know my colleagues are waiting, so I 
will try to be brief. I have come to the floor to talk about a 
resolution Senator Cornyn and I are submitting on human trafficking. 
Before I get into that, I want to mention a couple of points in 
reference to my good friend from Arizona. One is a numerical question. 
He talked about courts of appeals

[[Page S8520]]

judges who have been approved under previous administrations and then 
mentioned the 107th Congress of this administration. It is sort of a 
bit of comparing not apples and oranges but apples and half apples.
  I believe if you look at the number for the whole of President Bush's 
term, it goes up considerably. It might not be quite as high as some of 
the others, but it is much higher than the 53 percent Senator Kyl 
mentioned. Senator Kyl is a good friend of mine. I mentioned this to 
him while he was here.
  But the second point I would make--I know my good colleague from 
Michigan, Carl Levin, will be bringing this up at some length--to me, 
the issue is not a tit-for-tat issue. They did a lot of wrongs 
previously when President Clinton was President and they did not let 
judges come through, and that created the vacancies in Michigan. But I 
have some sympathy for the Detroit News article Senator Kyl quoted that 
said there should not be tit for tat here.
  Two wrongs don't make a right. It is sort of anomalous for those 
creating the wrong to say two wrongs don't make a right. But there is a 
far more important point, and that is this: The reason we have no 
approval of judges in Michigan is the President has ignored the part of 
the Constitution that talks about advise and consent. For the vacancies 
in Michigan, if the President sat down with the Michigan Senators, Mr. 
Levin and Ms. Stabenow--both reasonable people, people who have engaged 
in many bipartisan relationships themselves--and said: ``How do we work 
this out?'' it would have been worked out in the first 6 months of the 
President's term.

  The idea that, A, previous Senates have created vacancies, and then 
the President says to the Senators of that State or to the Senators of 
this body: ``It's my way or no way. I'm picking the judges. You have no 
say,'' that is what has created the deadlock.
  The Constitution calls for advice as well as consent. In States where 
there has been advice, it has worked. In my State of New York we have 
no vacancies. Why? Because the administration has consulted with me. My 
colleague Senator Clinton and I have nominated some judges to vacancies 
in New York. They have nominated the lion's share, but none of them 
would meet with this body's disapproval.
  I am sure, if the President would simply sit down with Senator Levin 
and Senator Stabenow, and say: ``How do we work this out?'' it would be 
worked out, pardon the expression, in a New York minute. But they do 
not. They have an attitude: Here is what we want. You approve them. And 
if you don't approve every single one, then you are obstructionists.
  As has been mentioned over and over again, of the 200 judges this 
body has dealt with, 6 have been disapproved and 194 have been 
approved. That is a darn good track record. I am a Yankee fan. The 
Yankees' percentage is up there around .700, .650 in terms of wins and 
losses. We are all proud of that. The President is doing a lot better 
than the Yankees.
  The idea that ``It's my way or no way'' is not going to work. 
Furthermore, I would argue to my colleagues, it is not what the 
Founding Fathers wanted. If they wanted the President to appoint judges 
unilaterally, they would have said so in the Constitution. But they 
wanted the Senate to have a say.
  I remind my colleagues, one of the first judges nominated by 
President Washington, John Rutledge of South Carolina, was rejected by 
the Senate because, of all things, of his views on the Jay treaty. And 
in that Senate were a good number of Founding Fathers, people who had 
actually written the Constitution, so clearly the Founding Fathers did 
not intend the Senate to be a rubberstamp.
  Certainly they did not intend for the Senate to hold up a majority of 
judges, but when the President nominates people way out of the 
mainstream, when the President refuses to sit down and negotiate, these 
are the results. And I would guess--again, I defer to Senator Levin, 
who is on the floor--my view is, if the President or his counsel were 
to pick up the phone and say to Senator Levin: ``How do we work this 
out?'' it is still not too late, even as we enter the twilight of this 
Congress, to get it done.
  That is all I will say on that matter. I will leave the rest to my 
colleague from Michigan.
  (The remarks of Mr. Schumer pertaining to the submission of S. Res. 
413 are printed in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from New York for his 
comments relative to judicial appointments. He is exactly right in 
terms of the number of judges that this Senate has confirmed with the 
support of this side of the aisle. He is exactly right when it comes to 
the willingness of Senator Stabenow and myself to compromise the 
deadlock that exists with this administration over the Michigan judges. 
We have been willing to do that from the beginning of this 
administration. We continue to be willing to attempt some kind of a 
compromise relative to these vacancies.
  What we are unwilling to do is to allow a tactic, which was used 
relative to these two women who were nominated by President Clinton 
which denied them hearings for over 4 years and over 1\1/2\ years 
respectively, to succeed, as the good Senator from New York said, to 
either create these vacancies or to leave these vacancies opened for 
the next President to fill. That is not the way things should work. It 
is not the way the Constitution contemplated it. We are going to do our 
best to continue to press for a bipartisan solution in a number of ways 
but in the meantime to not simply say, OK, go ahead, fill vacancies 
which should not exist but only exist because of the denial of hearings 
for two well-qualified women who were appointed by President Clinton.
  I thank the Senator from New York for his comments, for his 
perception, for his willingness and determination--more than 
willingness--to look at the full meaning of the Constitution so that it 
is not just the President who makes appointments in a situation such as 
this and assumes that the vacancies, which were created by denial of 
hearings for nominees of the previous administration, will be 
rubberstamped by this body.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, will my colleague yield?
  Mr. LEVIN. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SCHUMER. First, I compliment my friend from Michigan for his 
steadfastness on this issue. Everyone knows the desire of the Senator 
and his colleague, Senator Stabenow from Michigan, to compromise. Over 
and over and over again, we on this side of the aisle have said: We 
don't expect the President to appoint judges that we agree with on most 
things. In fact, for 200 judges, the vast majority of us have voted for 
judges with whom we don't agree on many issues.
  The point is, to blame these vacancies, as my friend from Arizona 
tried to do, on the Senators, when the President refuses to just pick 
up the telephone and call them and say, ``How do we work this out,'' is 
very unfair.
  I ask my colleague, once again, is he willing--and is Senator 
Stabenow, to his knowledge, willing--to sit down with the White House 
and come up with a compromise to fill these vacancies and that these 
vacancies don't have to remain vacant except for almost the 
intransigence of the White House to say, ``If you don't do it our way, 
we are not doing it any way''? Am I wrong in that assumption?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator from New York is decidedly right. We have 
expressed that willingness. There have been a number of suggestions 
which have been made for compromise. One of the suggestions which we 
have made was that there be a bipartisan commission appointed in 
Michigan to make recommendations to the White House to fill these 
vacancies. The recommendations do not have to include these two women. 
Bipartisan commissions have been appointed in other States without this 
kind of a deadlock existing but simply to promote bipartisanship. That 
suggestion has been rejected by the White House.
  There was another suggestion that was made by Senator Leahy when he 
was chairman of the Judiciary Committee for that period of time the 
Democrats were in the majority. That suggestion was actually supported 
by the then-Republican Governor of Michigan. There was a recommendation 
by then-Chairman Leahy as to how to resolve this issue. That was also

[[Page S8521]]

rejected by the White House. We continue to be open to suggestions to 
fill these vacancies, but we are deeply of the belief that the tactic 
that was used to deny hearings to qualified women--one of whom is a 
Michigan court of appeals judge and the other one of whom is a 
celebrated appellate lawyer in front of the Sixth Circuit--should not 
succeed. Maybe it succeeds in some places where there are not Senators 
in those States who will object because the new President of their 
party picks somebody they like and may have recommended.
  But in a situation like this, when you have the advise-and-consent 
clause in the Constitution, and where there has been this kind of a 
tactic used, which the White House acknowledges was unfair--Judge 
Gonzalez has acknowledged that that tactic of denying hearings was 
unfair--simply to then fill the vacancies that were unfairly created is 
not something we can simply roll over and accept.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Will my colleague yield further?
  Mr. LEVIN. Yes.
  Mr. SCHUMER. I thank the Senator for his steadfastness. He is hardly 
a person with a reputation of being unwilling to compromise and work 
things out. To my knowledge, he loves to do that kind of thing.
  I will make one more point before yielding the floor. This involves 
my previous discussion with the Senator from Arizona, to corroborate 
and clarify the Record. There have been 35 court of appeals judges 
confirmed under President Bush. There were 65 in the 2 Clinton terms, 
twice as long. At least thus far, we are doing a better job confirming 
President Bush's court of appeals nominees than the previous Senates 
did in confirming President Clinton's. The numbers are fairly 
comparable, with President Bush doing a little bit better.
  With that, I yield back to my colleague and tell him I fully support 
him in his quest for some degree of fairness and comity.
  Mr. LEVIN. I thank my friend from New York.
  Mr. President, I discussed with the Senator from New York the 
situation and the background relative to these Michigan vacancies. Two 
women, Helene White, a court of appeals judge, and Kathleen McCree 
Lewis, well known in Michigan as a very effective advocate--
particularly appellate advocacy--were nominated by President Clinton to 
be on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
  Judge White was denied a hearing for over 4 years, which is the 
longest time anyone has ever awaited a hearing in the Senate. She was 
never given a hearing by the Judiciary Committee. Kathleen McCree Lewis 
waited over a year and a half without a hearing in the Judiciary 
Committee.
  For a time, there was a refusal to return blue slips on these two 
nominees by my then-colleague Spence Abraham. But even after Senator 
Abraham returned the blue slips in the spring of 2000, the women were 
not given hearings. They never got a vote in the Judiciary Committee or 
on the floor.
  That distortion of the judicial nominating process was unfair to the 
two nominees. It deprived the previous administration of consideration 
by the Senate of those two nominees. Senator Stabenow and I have 
objected to proceeding to the current nominees until a just resolution 
is achieved.
  Moving forward without resolving the impasse in a bipartisan manner 
could indeed deepen partisan differences and make future efforts to 
resolve this matter more difficult. I have said repeatedly that the 
number of Michigan vacancies on the Sixth Circuit provides an unusual 
opportunity for bipartisan compromise.
  Judge Helene White was nominated to a vacancy on the Sixth Circuit on 
January 7, 1997. I returned my blue slip on Judge White's nomination. 
The junior Senator from Michigan, Mr. Abraham, did not. More than 10 
months later, on October 22, 1997, Senator Leahy, as ranking member of 
the Judiciary Committee, delivered what would be the first of at least 
16 statements on the Senate floor, made over a 4-year period regarding 
Sixth Circuit nominations in Michigan. He called for the committee to 
act on Judge White's nomination. His appeal, like others that were to 
follow, was unsuccessful.
  For instance, in October of 1998, more than a year and a half after 
Judge White was nominated, Senator Leahy returned to the floor, where 
he warned the following:

       In each step of the process, judicial nominees are being 
     delayed and stalled.

  His plea was ignored. The 105th Congress ended without a hearing for 
Judge White.
  On January 26, 1999, the beginning of the next Congress, President 
Clinton again submitted Judge White's nomination. That day, I sent one 
of many notes to both Senator Abraham and to the chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee. In that letter, I said the 105th Congress had 
ended without a Judiciary Committee hearing for Judge White and 
suggested that fundamental fairness dictated there be an early hearing 
in the 106th Congress. Again, no hearing.
  On March 1, 1999, Judge Cornelia Kennedy took senior status, opening 
a second Michigan vacancy on the Sixth Circuit. The next day, Senator 
Leahy returned to the floor, repeated his previous statement that 
nominations were being stalled, and raised Judge White's nomination as 
an example.
  On September 16, 1999, President Clinton decided to nominate Kathleen 
McCree Lewis to that second vacancy. Soon thereafter, within 2 weeks, I 
spoke with Senator Abraham about both nominations, the Lewis and the 
White nominations. It had been more than 2\1/2\ years since Judge White 
was first nominated. Twice in the next month and a half, Senator Leahy 
urged the committee to act, calling the treatment of judicial nominees 
unconscionable.

  On November 18, 1999, I again wrote to Senator Abraham and Chairman 
Hatch, urging hearings in January 2000 for the two nominees. I then 
noted that Judge White had been waiting for nearly 3 years for a 
hearing, and I stated that confirmation of the two women was essential 
for fundamental fairness. My appeals were for naught, and 1999 ended 
without hearings in the Judiciary Committee.
  In February of 2000, Senator Leahy spoke again on the floor about 
vacancies on the Sixth Circuit. A few weeks later, in February of 2000, 
I made a personal plea to Senator Abraham and Chairman Hatch to hold 
hearings on the Michigan nominees. Again, I was unsuccessful and no 
hearing was scheduled.
  On March 20, the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit sent a letter to 
Chairman Hatch expressing concerns about an alleged statement from a 
member of the Judiciary Committee that ``due to partisan 
considerations,'' there would be no more hearings or votes on vacancies 
for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals during the Clinton 
administration. The judge's concern would turn out to be well-founded.
  On April 13, 2000, Senator Abraham returned his blue slips for both 
Judge White and Ms. Lewis without indicating his approval or 
disapproval. The day Senator Abraham returned his blue slips, I spoke 
to Chairman Hatch and sent him a letter reminding him that blue slips 
had now been returned, that objections had not been raised, expressed 
my concern about the unconscionable length of time the nominations had 
been pending, and I urged that they be placed on the agenda of the next 
Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing.
  Those efforts were unsuccessful. Two Michigan nominees were not 
placed on the agenda. I tried again early May 2000. I sent another note 
to Chairman Hatch, but those nominations were not placed on the 
committee's hearing agenda then or ever.
  Over the next several months, Senator Leahy went to the floor 10 more 
times to urge action on the Michigan nominees. More than once, I also 
raised the issue on the Senate floor.
  In the fall of 2000, in a final attempt to move the nominations of 
two Michigan nominees, I met with the majority leader, Senator Lott, 
and Senator Daschle to discuss the situation. I sent a letter to the 
majority leader urging him, stating, ``The nominees from Michigan are 
women of integrity and fairness. They have been stalled in this Senate 
for an unconscionable amount of time without any stated reason.''
  Neither the meeting with the majority leader nor the letter resulted 
in the Judiciary Committee holding hearings on these nominations, and 
the 106th

[[Page S8522]]

Congress ended without hearings for either woman.
  Judge White's nomination was pending for more than 4 years, the 
longest period of time of any circuit court nominee waiting for a 
hearing in the history of the Senate. And Ms. Lewis's nomination was 
pending for over a year and a half.
  There has been a great debate over the issue of blue slips. I am not 
sure this is the place for a lengthy debate on that issue, but I will 
say there has not been a consistent policy, apparently, relative to 
blue slips, although it would seem as though the inconsistency has 
worked one way.
  In 1997, when asked by a reporter about a Texas nominee opposed by 
the Republican Senators from Texas, Chairman Hatch said the policy is 
that if a Senator returns a negative blue slip, that person is going to 
be dead. In October 7, 1999, Chairman Hatch said, with respect to the 
nomination of Judge Ronnie White:

       I might add, had both home-State Senators been opposed to 
     Judge (Ronnie) White in committee, John White would never 
     have come to the floor under our rules. I have to say, that 
     would be true whether they are Democrat Senators or 
     Republican Senators. That has just been the way the Judiciary 
     Committee has operated. . . .

  Apparently, it is not operating that way anymore because both 
Michigan Senators have objected to this nominee based on the reasons 
which I have set forth: that we cannot accept a tactic which keeps 
vacancies open, refusing hearings to the nominees of one President to 
keep vacancies open so they can then be filled by another President. 
That tactic should be stopped. It is not going to be stopped if these 
nominations are just simply approved without a compromise being worked 
out which would preserve a bipartisan spirit and the constitutional 
spirit about the appointment of Federal judges.
  It is my understanding that not a single judicial nominee for 
district or circuit courts--not one--got a Judiciary Committee hearing 
during the Clinton administration if there was opposition from one home 
State Senator, let alone two. Now both home State Senators oppose 
proceeding with these judicial nominees absent a bipartisan approach.
  Enough about blue slips. Senator Abraham then did return blue slips 
in April of 2000. He had marked them neither ``support'' nor 
``oppose'', but they were returned without a statement of opposition. 
And what happened? What happened is, even though those blue slips were 
returned by Senator Abraham, there still were no hearings given to the 
Michigan nominees to the Sixth Circuit.

  There was also an Ohio nominee named Kent Markus who was nominated to 
the Sixth Circuit. In his case, both home State Senators indicated 
their approval of his nomination, but nonetheless, this Clinton nominee 
was not granted a Judiciary Committee hearing, and his troubling 
account of that experience shed some additional light on the Michigan 
situation.
  He testified before the Judiciary Committee last May, and said the 
following. This is the Ohio Clinton nominee to the Sixth Circuit:

       To their credit, Senator DeWine and his staff and Senator 
     Hatch's staff and others close to him were straight with me. 
     Over and over again they told me two things: One, there will 
     be no more confirmations to the Sixth Circuit during the 
     Clinton administration, and two, this has nothing to do with 
     you; don't take it personally--it doesn't matter who the 
     nominee is, what credentials they may have or what support 
     they may have.

  Then Marcus went on. This is his testimony in front of the Judiciary 
Committee:

       On one occasion, Senator DeWine told me ``This is bigger 
     than you and it's bigger than me.'' Senator Kohl, who kindly 
     agreed to champion my nomination within the Judiciary 
     Committee, encountered a similar brick wall. . . . The fact 
     was, a decision had been made to hold the vacancies and see 
     who won the Presidential election. With a Bush win, all those 
     seats could go to Bush rather than Clinton nominees.

  We are not alone in the view that what occurred with respect to these 
Sixth Circuit nominees was fundamentally unfair. Even Judge Gonzales, 
the current White House counsel, has acknowledged it was wrong for the 
Republican-led Senate to delay action on judicial nominees for partisan 
reasons, at one point even calling the treatment of some nominees 
``inexcusable,'' to use his word.
  The tactic used against the two Michigan nominees should not be 
allowed to succeed, but as determined as we are that it not succeed, we 
are equally determined that there be a bipartisan solution, both to 
resolve a current impasse, but also for the sake of this process. There 
is such an opportunity to have a bipartisan solution because there are 
four Michigan vacancies on the Sixth Circuit.
  In order to achieve a fair resolution, Senator Stabenow and I have 
made a number of proposals, and we have accepted a number of proposals. 
We proposed a bipartisan commission to recommend nominees to the 
President. Similar commissions have been used in other States. The 
commission would not be limited to any particular people. The two 
nominees of President Clinton may not be recommended by a bipartisan 
commission. Of greater importance, the existence of recommendations of 
a commission are not binding on the President.
  The White House, in response to this suggestion--again, even though 
it was used in other States--has said that the constitutional power to 
appoint judges rests with the President, and of course it does. So 
there is no way anyone would propose or should propose that a 
bipartisan commission be able to make recommendations which would be 
binding upon the President of the United States, nor is the 
recommendation binding upon the Senate of the United States. It is 
simply a recommendation. This has occurred in other States under these 
and similar circumstances, and there is no reason why it should not be 
used here.
  We also, again, were given a suggestion by the then-chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee, Senator Leahy, who has tried his very best to 
figure out a solution to this deadlock. Senator Leahy made a suggestion 
which was acceptable to both Senator Stabenow and me. It was acceptable 
even to the then-Republican Governor of the State of Michigan, Governor 
Engler, but it was rejected by the White House.

  We have an unusual opportunity to obtain a bipartisan solution. It is 
an opportunity which has been afforded to us by the large number of 
vacancies in Michigan on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Finding 
that bipartisan path would be of great benefit, not just as a solution 
to this problem but to set a positive tone for the resolution of other 
judicial disputes as well.
  In addition to the points which I have made, we made the additional 
point at the Judiciary Committee relative to the qualifications of 
Judge Saad. We indicated then and we went into some detail then that it 
is our belief that his judicial temperament falls below the standard 
expected of nominees to the second highest court in this country.
  The Judiciary Committee considered a number of issues relating to 
that subject, judicial temperament or shortfall thereof, of this 
nominee in a closed session of the Judiciary Committee. I will not go 
into detail further, except to say we have made that point. We feel 
very keenly about that issue.
  The vote in the Judiciary Committee was 10 to 9 to report out this 
nomination. It was a vote along party lines. The temperament issue, 
however, was raised, and properly so, in the Judiciary Committee, as 
well as this basic underlying issue which I have spent some time 
outlining this afternoon.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.