[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 121 (Thursday, August 12, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Page S6999]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS


                         tribute to jack keeney

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to mark the coming 
retirement of a legend in the Department of Justice--John C. ``Jack'' 
Keeney.
  As a former prosecutor, and through decades of oversight of the 
Department of Justice on the Judiciary Committee, I have developed an 
immense appreciation for the dedication and skill of the Department's 
career prosecutors and attorneys. When politics have threatened to 
infect the good work of the Department in the past, I have emphasized 
the importance of the Department's career professionals. I know 
Attorney General Holder shares my regard for the Department's 
hardworking career prosecutors. With more than 6 decades of Federal 
Government service and well over a half century of pioneering work in 
the Department's Criminal Division, Jack Keeney has come to embody the 
ideal of a career Justice Department attorney.
  Jack Keeney served in the Army Air Corps in World War II, during 
which his plane was shot down. He survived a Nazi POW camp. He went to 
college and law school under the GI Bill and joined the Justice 
Department in 1951. He has diligently served every administration since 
President Truman.
  At the Justice Department, Jack Keeney worked on internal security 
matters in the 1950s, prosecuted organized crime in the 1960s under 
Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and helped to expand the Department's 
white collar prosecutions as Chief of the Criminal Division's Fraud 
Section beginning in 1969.
  In 1973, he was appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the 
Criminal Division, a position he has now held for close to 4 decades. 
He has on numerous occasions served as Acting Assistant Attorney 
General and has long been the senior career official supervising some 
of the Justice Department's most important and most sensitive matters, 
including organized crime, public corruption, and electronic 
surveillance.
  Jack Keeney has received almost every conceivable honor for 
exceptional government legal work, including the Attorney General's 
Award for Exceptional Service, the District of Columbia Bar's Beatrice 
Rosenberg Award for Outstanding Government Service, and the 
Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service.
  The Department of Justice is defined by the career professionals who, 
day in and day out, exemplify dedication, integrity, and a commitment 
to justice. Jack Keeney has personified these qualities for the past 6 
decades. The Department and the country are better for his exceptional 
service. I thank him for his service and wish him well in his well-
deserved retirement. I hope that generations of lawyers at the Justice 
Department will be inspired by his example and seek to follow in his 
footsteps.

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