[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 159 (Friday, September 29, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S4804]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      REMEMBERING DIANNE FEINSTEIN

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I served beside Senator Feinstein on 
the Judiciary Committee my entire time here, and I worked closely with 
her on the Intelligence Committee during the time we overlapped there.
  I am honored to join my colleagues in participating in this 
remembrance to her. It has been said, I think, over and over again, of 
her elegance, as Senator Collins said; of how put together she was, as 
Senator Murkowski said; of how gracious she was, as pretty much 
everyone has said. Her preparedness was another standout virtue in this 
body.
  I have heard her say ``I am going home to read tonight.'' Serving 
with her on those committees, I saw over and over again the amount of 
work that she put herself and her staff through to make sure that she 
was well-prepared. I never saw a Member of this body better prepared 
than Senator Feinstein.
  But the characteristic that I most associate with her is bravery--
whether it was the bravery of throwing herself into California politics 
as a young woman at a time when not many women were doing that or the 
way she bravely handled the murders at city hall and her response to 
that or whether she was willing to come here, when women were few, and 
break glass ceiling after glass ceiling after glass ceiling.
  But the place where I saw her bravery most was when we worked 
together on the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report. I was 
kind of Robin to her Batman in that effort. And I still remember her, 
right about where Senator Murray now is, delivering her legendary 
speech that blew the cover off the CRA torture report. To get there, 
she had to get through massive counterattacks from the CIA on her and 
on our Intelligence Committee staff. She had to oppose the Bush 
administration that was pushing back against her from the very highest 
levels.
  And when the administration changed, she had to show the same bravery 
and the same resistance against pretty much equal pressure from the 
Obama administration to shut up and go away. Well, shut up and go away 
were not things that Senator Feinstein was willing to hear, and the 
moment that she spent on the Senate floor delivering that report was 
one of the moments that I am proudest of in the time that I have been 
here at the Senate.
  Let me close by talking about her last weeks here because I think you 
have to see those last weeks here in the context of her preparation, 
her determined effort to be as perfect as she could be, and her bravery 
because it was not easy for her to come and do the work that she did in 
those last weeks.
  But she knew that we needed her. She knew that despite how difficult 
it was, despite the difficulty she would have in meeting her own 
standards of perfection, it would have been easy just to go, but she 
knew that we needed her. We would have lost our majority in the 
Judiciary Committee without her, and I view her last months and weeks 
in this body as the last episode of her long career of bravery.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

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