[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 13, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S6543]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                    Nomination of Steven J. Menashi

  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I have come here before to call out 
Senate Republicans and their unwavering support for President Trump's 
efforts to pack our courts with partisan and ideologically driven 
picks, but the nominee I am speaking against today is truly uniquely 
unfit to serve a lifetime appointment--a lifetime appointment--on a 
Federal court: Steven Menashi.
  Mr. Menashi has a deeply disturbing history of disparaging comments 
against women, communities of color, immigrants, and the LGBTQI 
community.
  He unabashedly helped to roll back protections for vulnerable 
communities. He defiantly refused to answer basic questions from U.S. 
Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, about the policies he worked 
on while advising the President. He has time and again put extremism 
and ideology ahead of the rule of law, and he has proven himself 
incapable of serving as a fair and impartial judge.
  As if his record of extremism and partisanship wasn't bad enough, we 
now know that Steven Menashi not only helped but was the key architect 
in Secretary DeVos's efforts to illegally deny relief to student 
borrows who were cheated by predatory for-profit colleges. These 
policies that Mr. Menashi provided ``legal advice'' for were 
subsequently ruled to be in violation of Federal law.
  Secretary DeVos's policy on borrower defense led to her being held in 
contempt of court. Whether Mr. Menashi did not understand Federal law 
or whether he advised the Secretary of Education to blatantly ignore it 
at the expense of students, the fact is that this latest revelation 
undoubtedly and unequivocally disqualifies him from serving a lifetime 
appointment on a Federal court--or, at least, it should.
  Tomorrow, the Senate will take a critical vote. This is a vote on 
whether the Senate once again rubberstamps President Trump's 
unprecedented effort to remake the Federal judiciary on a partisan 
ideological basis. It is a vote that shows whether Republicans are 
willing to support a judicial nominee whose actions--his own actions--
have been found to violate the law as recently as just a few weeks ago.
  I implore my Republican colleagues to consider not just Mr. Menashi's 
record of bigotry and the harm he helped cause to cheated and defrauded 
students, but also his blatant disregard of the rule of law.
  When casting their vote, I ask my colleagues not to worry about what 
the President might say on Twitter, but to worry about the rule of law 
and to worry about the idea yet another partisan nominee getting a 
lifetime on the Federal bench who doesn't. It is that simple.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.