[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 10]
[Senate]
[Pages 13638-13639]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          NOMINATION OBJECTION

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I intend to object to any unanimous 
consent request at the present time relating to the appointment of 
Bradley Duane Arsenault, of FL; Bret Thomas Campbell, of TX; Karen 
Stone Exel, of CA; Gloria Jean Garland, of CA; Michael H. Hryshchyshyn, 
Jr., of VA; Ying X. Hsu, of CA; Stephen S. Kelley, of VA; Mary 
Catherine Leherr, of VA; Denise G. Manning, of VA; Paul Karlis

[[Page 13639]]

Markovs, of MI; Scott Currie McNiven, of AZ; Hanh Ngoc Nguyen, of CA; 
Denise Frances O'Toole, of ME; Marisol E. Perez, of NJ; Ronald F. 
Savage, of NM; Adam P. Schmidt, of CT; Anna Toness, of TX; Michael J. 
Torreano, of FL; Nicholas John Vivio, of DC; Jamshed Zuberi, of CA as 
Foreign Service Officer Class Two, Consular Officer and Secretary in 
the Diplomatic Service of the United States of America.
  I will object because, in addition to the multiple inquiries I have 
made that are still unanswered, I sent another letter to the State 
Department today and the Department has failed to confirm receipt, yet 
again. In addition, my staff placed multiple phone calls to Department 
personnel to inquire as to the status of the most recent letter. 
Department personnel have failed even to return phone calls.
  I warned the Department that if they failed to change their ways that 
I would be forced to escalate the scope of my intent to object to 
unanimous consent requests by including Foreign Service officer 
candidates. My objection is not intended to question the credentials of 
the individuals up for appointment. However, the Department must 
recognize that it has an obligation to respond to congressional 
inquiries in a timely and reasonable manner.

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