[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1304-S1309]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Nomination of William Barr
Mr. President, I rise this afternoon to address the nomination of Mr.
William Barr to be the next Attorney General of the United States.
We take all these nominations very seriously. Each member of the
President's Cabinet holds immense influence within our government, with
the power to affect the lives of millions. At this moment in time, the
Attorney General might be the very most critical of all of the Cabinet
officials in our government.
Not only will the Attorney General assume the traditional
responsibilities of the office, but the next Attorney General would
also oversee one of the most sensitive investigations in our Nation's
history--the special counsel's investigation into Russian influence in
the 2016 elections. Just to say those words, ``Russian influence in the
2016 elections,'' makes your hair stand on end a little bit.
Under normal circumstances, the position of Attorney General demands
an individual of unimpeachable integrity, impartiality, and
independence. Under these circumstances, that bar is more important and
probably higher than ever. Why? Because as we have all seen, President
Trump has demonstrated utter contempt for the rule of law. He has
expressed a view of the Department of Justice that is completely
counter to the history of this grand Department as an independent
Agency of the law. Rather, he views the Justice Department as an Agency
that should protect him personally and one he can compel to protect his
friends and prosecute his enemies. That sounds like a third-world
country, not the United States of America.
In the process of attempting to discredit the special counsel's
investigation, the President has run roughshod over the norms of the
executive branch's relationship with the Justice Department. President
Trump has demeaned the public servants of the Justice Department. He
has questioned its
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motives, up to and including the upgrading and belittling of the former
Attorney General on Twitter--an Attorney General that he himself
appointed.
As the special counsel continues to investigate the connections
between the most senior members of the Trump administration and the
Kremlin, it is an extraordinarily important and extraordinarily
dangerous moment for the Justice Department. That is the maelstrom into
which the next Attorney General will step.
Certainly, Mr. Barr is intelligent. Certainly, Mr. Barr has
experience. In fact, he already did the job. Let me say that I have
always respected his public service and believed him to be a good man,
but what so many of us find lacking in Mr. Barr's nomination this time
around is his fundamental lack of awareness about the moment we are in.
Only a few months ago, it was uncovered that he authored an
unsolicited memo to the Justice Department criticizing--criticizing--
the special counsel's investigation. He wasn't involved with the
Justice Department in any capacity at the time. He was a private
attorney. He could not have had access to any of the facts in the case.
Yet he decided to write this memo, which, in addition to making
unevidenced claims about the investigation, outlined an extremely
broad--in my judgment--overreaching vision of Executive power. Writing
that memo showed poor judgment and, worse, it showed bias at a time
when the country could not afford either in its Attorney General.
I felt the memo alone was disqualifying at a time when we have a
President who scorns the rule of law, but I believed Mr. Barr deserved
the chance to change my mind so I met with him privately a few weeks
ago. Our conversation focused on three questions.
First, I asked him very directly if he would recuse himself if the
ethics officials at the Justice Department said he should. He would not
commit to doing this. Instead, he said he would make his own decision.
Second, I asked him if he would release the special counsel's full
report on Russian influence in the 2016 election, with, of course,
appropriate redactions that the intelligence services would require.
His response was to say: ``I'm for transparency.'' That is not good
enough.
He is a good lawyer. Everyone knows when you can make an ironclad
commitment or when you have words that seem good but don't make such a
commitment. To say you are for transparency doesn't say very much. I
asked for an unequivocal and public commitment to release the report.
He would not give that assurance.
Finally, I asked Mr. Barr to commit that he would not interfere in
any way with the special counsel's investigation, whether by denying
subpoenas, limiting the scope of the investigation, or restricting
funding. He referred to the special counsel regulations and said he
wanted to see Mueller finish his investigation. Again, that is not good
enough--not with any President and certainly not with this one.
With this President, we need an Attorney General who can assure the
Senate and the American public that he will stand up to a President who
is dead set on protecting his political interests above all norms and
rules of conduct. The President wants a Roy Cohn to be his Attorney
General, but this moment calls for another Elliot Richardson.
The next Attorney General must be a public servant in the truest
sense, with the integrity, the force of will, and the independence to
navigate the Justice Department--and maybe our democracy--through
treacherous waters.
Mr. Barr's attitude of ``leave it to me'' is not good enough--not for
any nominee and certainly not for a nominee President Trump has chosen.
The authorship of the memo, followed by the inability to commit to
release the report or let the investigation continue unimpeded--those
are three strikes. Mr. Barr should be out. He does not recognize or
appreciate the moment we are in. Again, his ``leave it to me'' attitude
does not measure where we are with a President like this.
Now, I hope I am wrong. I hope Mr. Barr, who we know is likely to be
confirmed--our Republican colleagues show none of the independence that
is required--will rise to the occasion, but I remain unconvinced that
Barr is prepared to meet this moment. So I will be voting, with strong
conviction, no on this amendment. I hope Mr. Barr disproves my view,
but his words make me very much worried that this will not happen.
I yield the floor.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum
call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Cotton). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. BOOKER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak on the nomination of
William Barr to be the next Attorney General of the United States of
America.
Last Thursday, I voted against his nomination in the Senate Judiciary
Committee, as did nine of my fellow Committee Members. I voted against
his nomination because of some very serious concerns I have with his
record on everything from criminal justice to environmental justice, to
defending the economic rights of Americans, the rights of immigrants,
LGBTQ rights, and women's rights.
I want to go through those concerns here on the floor today, but I
also want to be clear that Mr. Barr has been nominated at a time of
extraordinary challenge when it comes to defending rights in this
country. This is a crisis.
We are in a moment in history when, after years of attacks on civil
rights by this President and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, some of
our most fundamental democratic principles--the rule of law, separation
of powers, equal protection under the law--are hanging in the balance.
We now face a full-blown crisis when it comes to rolling back the
rights of Americans.
From community to community across the country, we see what it looks
like when the Department of Justice fails to pursue justice for all
Americans.
It looks like hate crimes in this country are on the rise for the
third year in a row but a Department of Justice that rolls back
protections for LGBTQ Americans instead of strengthening them.
It looks like more than one-third of all the LGBTQ youth in the
country missing school because they feel unsafe but a DOJ that refuses
to fight for them and protect them against State laws that target
transgender students.
It looks like unchecked voter suppression of Black Americans in
Georgia, Native Americans in North Dakota, and the voter ID and voter
purge laws across the country that tried to target and suppress
minority voters but a Justice Department that has stood by and failed
to take on one single voting rights case during the last 2 years.
It looks like communities that are being poisoned by corporate
polluters pushing their costs of doing business onto neighborhoods
least able to defend themselves, making their land and air and water
toxic but a DOJ that has made it easier for polluters to get settlement
agreements while cutting its own enforcement capacity to hold those
corporate polluters accountable.
It looks like corporate malfeasance continuing to target the most
vulnerable while DOJ enforcement of corporate penalties drops by 90
percent during the first 2 years of the Trump administration.
It looks like doubling down on the failed war on drugs, which is
known to be not a war on drugs but a war on the American people--
disproportionately low-income Americans, disproportionately mentally
ill Americans, disproportionately addicted Americans, and
disproportionately Black and Brown people--which is exactly what Jeff
Sessions did when he directed all Federal prosecutors to ``charge and
pursue the most serious, readily provable offense'' and seek the
highest penalties in nonviolent drug crimes.
It looks like unarmed Black men being killed by officers in their own
homes and backyards, Americans of color being disproportionately
stopped and arrested without adequate systems of accountability, but
having a DOJ that limits the use of consent decrees that can prevent
systemic abuses of power by law enforcement and can actually help to
make law enforcement better, more accountable, more effective,
rebuilding and repairing the trust
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between law enforcement and communities necessary to create safe and
strong communities.
Of course, it looks like children fleeing violence, being ripped from
the arms of their parents, of their mothers at the southern border, 6-
year-olds being thrown into cages, and an untold number of children who
still have not been reunited with their families because of the DOJ's
so-called zero-tolerance policy.
Right now we see a Justice Department whose leadership over the past
2 years has failed countless communities, from low-income Americans who
are being victimized by large corporations with bad actors to
individual Americans who are trying to have their basic, fundamental
rights protected.
The Justice Department has failed the American people, and, most of
all, it has failed to seek that ideal we all hold dear, which is equal
justice under the law. That is why, at this moment in history, during
this crisis of conscience, during this crisis of moral leadership, we
need an Attorney General who grasps the urgency of the moment, who is
aware of the impact of the Department of Justice on communities across
this country, and who is willing and prepared to protect our most
fundamental rights in every community for every American. That is the
ideal of justice; that is the ideal of patriotism.
What is patriotism but love of country? You cannot love your country
unless you love your fellow country men and women. What does love look
like in public? Justice, justice, justice.
I appreciate that Mr. Barr took the time to sit down and meet with
me. It was after the hearings; yet at my request, he finally agreed to
come and meet with me. There was no staff in the room. It was an
honorable gesture--a gesture of courtesy. We had a chance to have
dialogue about his record, his experiences, his perspectives as well as
mine. I appreciate that. It is a constructive first step.
I appreciate his willingness to listen to me and talk about his
record of mass incarceration. I even appreciate his willingness to
accept the book I gave him--I hope he reads it--titled ``The New Jim
Crow'' by Michelle Alexander.
I continue to have concerns about Mr. Barr's ability and willingness
to be the kind of Attorney General this country needs at this pivotal
moment in American history. I am concerned because throughout his
career, time and again, and during his confirmation process, Mr. Barr
has demonstrated not only that he holds troubling views but also that
he has an alarming lack of knowledge about the crises that make our
justice system so broken right now, at a time when the United States
continues to lead the globe, to lead the planet Earth and all of
humanity in the sheer number of people we incarcerate.
One out of every four people incarcerated on the planet Earth is
right here in the United States, the land of the free. One out of every
three incarcerated women on the planet Earth is right here in America,
the land of the free. I say, again, that they are not the wealthy; they
are not the privileged. As my friend Bryan Stevenson says: We have a
nation that treats you better if you're rich and guilty than if you're
poor and innocent.
Since 1980, our prison population in this country alone has grown on
the Federal level by 800 percent. You can tell a lot about a nation by
whom they incarcerate. In Russia they incarcerate political prisoners.
In Turkey they incarcerate members of the media. In this country we
incarcerate the poor. We incarcerate Americans with mental illnesses,
Americans with disabilities, Americans who are survivors of sexual
assault, Americans who are struggling with addiction, people who have
faced harm and need help, who often in the system get hurt and
experience retribution and not restorative justice. We have a nation
where we are locking people up for doing things that two of the last
three Presidents admitted to doing.
Mr. Barr has a record of actively pushing the policies that have led
to mass incarceration, that have driven up our Nation's prison
populations at a time when we need an Attorney General who is willing
to follow the lead of this body, which passed criminal justice reform.
When Mr. Barr served as Attorney General during the first Bush
administration, he literally wrote the book on mass incarceration. He
commissioned a report titled ``The Case for More Incarceration'' and
wrote the forward endorsing it. He is an architect of the criminal
justice system that is so disproportionate--out of proportionality--
that is ruthless, doing things that other countries, until this body
acted, called torture, like juvenile solitary confinement.
At his hearing, Mr. Barr said he recognized that some things have
changed over the last quarter century, but he failed to explain how his
views on criminal justice have actually evolved. He was describing more
of what he was seeing this body and others do, but he didn't talk about
his own evolution. He didn't say: Hey, that was my perspective then,
and it has changed now.
On the issue of implicit racial bias, I asked him if he acknowledged
its well-documented existence in our criminal justice system. Implicit
racial bias has been pointed out by both sides of the aisle in this
body, by big city police chiefs and a former FBI Director. Time and
again, it has been documented by university studies. It is actually in
our Justice Department's policies to train people in implicit racial
bias. This isn't something that is new. This is something we
understand.
When asked about it, Mr. Barr said:
I have not studied the issue of implicit racial bias in our
criminal justice system. . . . Therefore, I have not become
sufficiently familiar with the issue to say whether such bias
exists.
I find this incredibly alarming. There are widely documented
instances of racial disparities throughout our criminal justice system
from police stops to sentencing, to charges. Racial bias exists even in
our school pipeline; with Black kids and White kids having committed
the same infractions in school, African-American kids are more likely
to be suspended for them.
There is no difference, for example, between Blacks and Whites in the
United States of America for using drugs--no differences for Blacks,
Whites, Latinos. We have a drug problem in America, and it is equally
seen, regardless of race. Whites are more likely than Blacks, in many
studies, to deal drugs. Yet, despite this, we live in a country where
Blacks are about three times more likely to be arrested for using drugs
and almost four times more likely to be arrested for selling drugs.
What does it do when you apply a justice system to certain
communities and not to others? It has a multiplier effect of impact. It
affects voting rights because States still eliminate the right to vote
for nonviolent drug charges. It is called felony disenfranchisement. It
affects economic opportunity because if you have one criminal
conviction for doing the same things that past Presidents have admitted
to doing and Members of this body have admitted to doing, then you
can't get a job, you can't get business licenses. Doors are shut to
you; opportunity is closed. When you have a justice system that
disproportionately impacts certain Americans, those communities then
face serious, serious consequences.
As a Villanova study shows, overall, we would have about 20 percent
less poverty in America if our incarceration rates were the same as
those of our industrial peers. Poverty is more inflicted on those
communities of color when they are more likely to be arrested, charged,
and convicted because of the existence of implicit racial bias.
But the nominee for the top law enforcement position in our country
says he is not sure ``whether such bias exists.''
This should be deeply troubling to all Americans because we believe
in an ideal of equal justice under the law. This should be troubling to
all Americans because we believe, as King said, ``Injustice anywhere is
a threat to justice everywhere.''
This should be deeply troubling to all Americans because there is a
deep lack of faith that people have in our criminal justice system.
They are losing faith that they will receive equal treatment.
When the justice system does not operate in good faith, it is
hampered in doing its most sacred duty.
Right now there is a lack of belief that people will be treated
fairly, a lack of belief that the system works
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the way it is supposed to. Mr. Barr's response and his record show me
that he will do nothing to address these legitimate concerns in
communities all across this country. At a time when he could be a
leader, a champion, a light of justice and hope for those who have lost
hope, for those who have lost faith, for those who feel left out and
left behind, he almost doubles down with a dangerous lack of knowledge
about what we all know exists.
If confirmed, Mr. Barr would also be charged with implementing what
this body collectively has done to start to reform, for the first time
in American history, mass incarceration and increased sentencing.
For the first time since 1994's crime bill, we in this body, with
wisdom and in a bipartisan way, have started to go back to more
proportionate sentencing. Through the FIRST STEP Act, this body put
more justice back into our justice system. It is the first step, but it
is the first step in the right direction in decades in our country's
history.
I am proud of what we did together. The bipartisan criminal justice
reform that this body just passed into law, by an overwhelming vote, is
incredible, but it is critical that the FIRST STEP Act be fully and
fairly implemented by the Justice Department. Mr. Barr has not
demonstrated his commitment to the law or to fixing any part of the
broken criminal justice system I have outlined.
Then, of course, we have industries, from the private prison industry
to phone companies charging exorbitant fees in prisons and jails,
making a profit off of these injustices, making a profit off policies
that penalize and criminalize low-income communities and communities of
color and that target refugees of color.
What is happening in our country's criminal justice system today is a
human rights crisis. Think about a justice system right now that has
people sitting in prison for months before they even get a trial
because they can't afford bail or a lawyer. We have a human rights
crisis in this country.
We need an Attorney General who recognizes the problem and has a
willingness to do something about it, not one who says they are not
sure we even have a crisis. This is an extraordinarily challenging time
in our history. This Nation was formed under ideals of justice and
fairness and equality. It was formed at a time when we mutually pledged
to each other--as it says in our Declaration of Independence--``our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.'' This is a country where we
are all in this together. This is a country where our values and ideals
have to be real for all and not just a select few.
After 2 years, we have seen the Justice Department's relentless
attacks on basic fundamental rights by our President and Attorney
General. We now need an Attorney General who will work to uphold the
values that are most in danger. We need an Attorney General who will
fight for equal justice for all, not just the privileged few. We need
an Attorney General who knows the difference between ensuring justice
is done and does not automatically seek the harshest penalty in every
case, with a blind eye to circumstances, or facts, or extenuating
circumstances.
We need an Attorney General who will stand up for all of our
children, LGBTQ rights, for voting rights, environmental justice, and a
fairer justice system. We need an Attorney General who will refocus on
the mission of the Department of Justice in seeking justice for every
young person who is afraid to go to school because of prejudice and
policies that discriminate. We need one who is seeking justice for
every elderly man who lived through Jim Crow only to be blocked from
exercising his voting rights because of racially targeted voter ID
laws.
We need an Attorney General who is seeking justice for Americans who
have become entrapped in our broken criminal justice system, whether it
is a kid from a community like the one I live in who is being targeted
by our ineffective drug laws or kids who have been picked up on the
southern border and thrown into a privately run detention center.
We need an Attorney General who is seeking justice for communities
whose soil, air, and water are being polluted by massive corporations
and that feel no one will fight for them. We need an Attorney General
who will live up to the purpose of the Justice Department. This is the
call of our country. This is the leadership we need. This is the
Attorney General we must insist on, one who will seek justice for
everyone in every community from the gulf coast to the Great Lakes,
from sea to shining sea.
Mr. Barr has not demonstrated that he understands the fierce urgency
of this moment in our history and the imperative for the Attorney
General to be deeply disturbed by injustice and to urgently seek
justice. For this main reason, I will be voting against his nomination,
but if confirmed, I will perform my constitutional duty and provide
oversight and accountability. I will continue to work to ensure that
our Justice Department lives up to its demands.
I hope this Attorney General, should he be confirmed, learns, sees
the vulnerable, understands the challenges of the meek, and understands
communities in crisis; that he gets to know people; that he reaches out
and sits down with folks to learn and to develop a more courageous
empathy, but I will not wait on that.
I will fight every day to make sure our Justice Department seeks
justice. If Mr. Barr tries to double down on the failures of a broken
criminal justice system, tries to roll back basic rights, or fails to
protect voting rights and civil rights, I will fight against his
efforts at every step. I will fight for justice that doesn't just take
the side of the powerful few but seeks justice for all Americans. That
is our obligation--all of us. Whether you sit in this body or you sit
in communities across this country, we have gotten to where we are
because we all sought justice. Even if it didn't affect our families
directly, we knew the call of our country must be about all of us
understanding that injustice for one is an injustice for all.
I yield the floor.
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. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, in just a matter of hours, we are
expected to vote on the nomination of William Barr to be Attorney
General of the United States. This office is one of paramount
importance to the people of this country, and as a former U.S.
attorney, the chief Federal prosecutor in Connecticut, I have deep
respect--indeed, reverence--for this office and the legal authority it
commands and the moral powers it embodies.
So the stakes of this nomination, especially at this point in our
history, could not be higher.
I believe William Barr should not be confirmed, and it has more to do
with the role of the Attorney General of the United States than with
his specific positions or policies on issues where we may disagree.
I do disagree with William Barr on positions he has taken on civil
rights, women's healthcare, reproductive rights, and the powers of the
Presidency.
At this moment in time, at this hour of our history, an imperial
Presidency, such as envisioned by many of the doctrines that William
Barr has espoused, in my view, would be an absolute catastrophe. Giving
the President the power, in effect, to override statutes or refuse to
enforce them or disregard Supreme Court precedent, especially with this
President, would be a recipe for disaster.
An imperial Presidency at any point in our history is unwise. At this
moment in our history, it would be catastrophic. That view of a unitary
Executive and all that comes with it is one of the reasons I would have
reservations about this nominee, but for me, the transcendent issue--as
it was with Jeff Sessions, our former colleague--is whether this
nominee will be the people's lawyer or the President's lawyer. Will he
put first the interests of the American people or of President Donald
Trump? Will he have foremost in mind the public interests or the
personal interests of the President who appointed him?
Unfortunately, I am left with deep concerns, doubts, and questions
that
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are disqualifying. The best example is his position on the release and
disclosure of the special counsel's report. There were doubts--and
there continue to be--among some of my colleagues about whether he
will, in fact, allow the special counsel to do his job. He said that he
would resist firing the special counsel and that he would allow Robert
Mueller to finish his investigation, but he was pretty careful to avoid
specifically committing that he would permit subpoenas to be issued,
indictments to be brought, resources to be provided, and other
essential factors that go into the effectiveness of the special
counsel.
Even giving him the benefit of the doubt on those issues, there
remains his refusal to commit that he will provide the evidence and
findings of the special counsel directly to Congress and directly to
the American people. For me, that refusal to commit is one of the
factors that are disqualifying.
The American people want transparency for the special counsel, as
they do in their government generally. Just yesterday, the Washington
Post released a poll indicating that 81 percent of Americans believe
the Mueller report should be released. That number includes 79 percent
of Republicans. The simple, stark fact is, the public has a right to
know. The American people paid for the special counsel's report. They
deserve to know everything that is in it, and they deserve not only the
conclusion but also the findings of fact and his prosecutorial
decisions and the underlying evidence that he considered in making
those decisions. The clear specter arises that he will choose to bring
no indictment against the President or other officials and that there
will be no disclosure of the report, which would be tantamount to a
coverup. What we may be watching is the Saturday Night Massacre in slow
motion.
The reason this issue is of such paramount importance to this
nomination relates to the obligation that the Attorney General has to
promote transparency. In his responses to me, he said he would follow
all the rules and regulations without delving into all the words and
technical issues relating to those rules and regulations. The simple
fact is, they provide near complete discretion to the Attorney General.
The American public has a right to see the Mueller report, not the
Barr report. We have a right to see not what William Barr in his
discretion permits us to know but, in fact, what the findings and
evidence are--the Mueller report, not the Barr report. My fear is that
despite his very vague references to wanting transparency, his refusal
to commit to making that report public reveals his state of mind: that
he will abridge, edit, conceal, redact parts of the report that may be
embarrassing to the President. In effect, he will act as the
President's lawyer, not as the people's lawyer.
During a hearing, I asked William Barr point blank, if he were
presented with evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the President
committed a crime, would he approve an indictment. He declined to
answer the question directly or clearly. He pointed to two Office of
Legal Counsel opinions saying that a sitting President cannot be
indicted. I asked what he thought, not what the OLC thought. Would he
permit an indictment against a President if presented with
incontrovertible evidence of criminal wrongdoing? And he said he saw no
reason to change the policy embodied in those OLC memos. The assumption
is wildly held that Robert Mueller will follow those OLC memos, and
William Barr confirmed those assumptions.
There is also Department of Justice policy that prosecutors do not
speak publicly about people they are investigating but are not prepared
to indict. I followed those policies as U.S. attorney. I know them
well. In the normal case, they are fully applicable, but these two
policies taken in combination lead to a truly frightening outcome: If
the President cannot be indicted but has committed crimes, the American
people may never know. That is, in effect, tantamount to a coverup. The
American people may never know about that proof beyond a reasonable
doubt. They may never see those findings in evidence. They may never
have the benefit of the full report. Even though it may leak in dribs
and drabs, in parts, they will never have the full and complete
picture.
That is why I believe so strongly in the legislation that Senator
Grassley and I have offered to require transparency. It is called the
Special Counsel Transparency Act. It would require that there be a
report. If the special counsel is transferred or fired or if he resigns
or at any point completes his investigation, there would be a report,
and it would be required that that report be provided to the American
people. It would be mandatory, not discretionary.
I believe this issue is a transcendent one in this era--the public's
right to know the truth about the 2016 election and the President's
responsibility for any obstruction of justice or any collusion with the
Russians. Again, it is about the public's right to know and about the
Attorney General's responsibility for enabling the public's right to
know. His answers were evasive and deeply troubling, and instead of
providing straightforward and forthcoming answers, he was, in effect,
evading and avoiding the question.
In addition to the special counsel's investigation, there are at
least two U.S. Attorney's Offices--the Southern District of New York
and the Eastern District of Virginia--that have concurrent
investigations into Trump campaign activities during this same period
of time and beyond. In the Southern District of New York, the President
has been essentially named as an unindicted coconspirator. He is
individual No. 1, an unindicted coconspirator. That is a distinction he
shares with only one other President--Richard Nixon.
The unencumbered continuation of these investigations is of vital
public interest. That is why I asked Mr. Barr whether he would impose
any restrictions on these prosecutors. Again his answer was evasive and
deeply troubling. Instead of issuing a simple no, he stated that the
Attorney General has the responsibility and discretion to supervise
U.S. attorneys, and he declined to say that he would defer to them. He
declined in the hearing, and he did again in our private meeting. That
answer gives me no confidence that, if confirmed, William Barr will
avoid interfering in the investigations now underway in those two
additional jurisdictions, where, in fact, they may pose an even more
dire danger that his culpability will be revealed and perhaps
prosecuted. It should not give the public any greater degree of
confidence either.
On other issues--the emoluments clause, for example. When I asked
him, he said: I haven't even looked up the word ``emolument.'' That is
a direct quote. There are a number of very high-profile cases against
the President involving the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution
because the President has been violating it. The chief anti-corruption
provision in Federal law is the emoluments clause. Litigation is
underway. Decisions have been rendered in the district courts in favor
of the standing of 200 of us Members of Congress who have challenged
the President's lawbreaking. I am proud that that case--Blumenthal v.
Trump; Blumenthal and Nadler v. Trump--is proceeding. William Barr has
a responsibility to know about that case and to say whether he would
recuse himself from it since he was appointed by the defendant in that
case, and if not, what justification there can be for continuing to
make decisions about it.
Again, William Barr is a distinguished attorney. He has a strong
background and qualifications. He served in this position before. He
has very impressive credentials. He and I differ on issues of policy,
but the main question relates to disclosure and transparency, to
fidelity and priority, to the American people's interests--putting them
unquestionably above the President's. Because I have such deep
reservations and concerns about his determination to do so, I will
oppose him as Attorney General, and I urge my colleagues to do the
same.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Blackburn). The Senator from West
Virginia.
Mr. MANCHIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to enter into a
colloquy with the Senators from Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and
Pennsylvania.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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