[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5496-5511]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EXECUTIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

         NOMINATION OF LORETTA E. LYNCH TO BE ATTORNEY GENERAL

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senate will proceed to executive session 
to consider the following nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read the nomination of Loretta 
E. Lynch, of New York, to be Attorney General.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will be 2 
hours of debate equally divided in the usual form.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, 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. REID. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call 
be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I didn't realize the time in the quorum call 
would be equally divided, so I ask unanimous consent that the time be 
equally charged to both sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REID. 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. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rounds). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, we will be voting soon on confirmation 
of Ms. Lynch to be the Attorney General of the United States of 
America. That office is a part of the President's Cabinet, but it also 
is the office of the chief law officer for America. The Attorney 
General is the top official in our government who is required to adhere 
to the law, even to the point of telling the President `no' if he gets 
it in his head, as Presidents sometimes do, to do something that 
violates the law--just as corporate lawyers sometimes do for the CEO of 
corporations. `Mr. President, you can't do this. This is wrong. Don't 
do this.'
  Some Attorneys General have been known to resign before they would 
carry out policies that violate the law. We are deeply concerned in 
this country about the President's Executive amnesty--the unlawfulness 
of it, the breadth of it, and the arrogance of it to the point that it 
is a direct assault on congressional power and legitimacy, a direct 
attack on laws passed by the People's representatives; we have a big 
problem. Ms. Lynch has said flat-out that she supports those policies 
and is committed to defending them in court against any complaint about 
them.
  I think Congress has a real role here. We do not have to confirm 
someone to the highest law enforcement position in America if that 
person is publicly committed to denigrating Congress, violating the 
laws of Congress, or violating even the wishes of Congress and the 
American people. We do not have to confirm anybody. It is a power 
Congress is given. The President is asserting powers he has never been 
given anywhere in the Constitution or by the American people, but if we 
don't confirm Ms. Lynch, we will be doing what we have a right to do, 
and what I think we should do.
  I am pleased that Mr. Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted some of the top

[[Page 5497]]

terrorist cases in America as a former U.S. attorney or as an assistant 
U.S. attorney, is very critical and is very strongly of the belief that 
Ms. Lynch should not be confirmed. He says this:

       A vote against Ms. Lynch's confirmation is not an 
     assessment that she has performed incompetently or 
     unethically in her prior government positions. It is a vote 
     against the President's blatantly unconstitutional policy and 
     against Ms. Lynch's support of that policy. Senators are 
     bound by oath to uphold the Constitution; Ms. Lynch's prior, 
     laudable record as a federal prosecutor cannot overcome her 
     commitment to violating the Constitution.

  We have a right to assert that. We are paid to make decisions about 
that. I think that Mr. McCarthy is correct. Congress was given certain 
powers as a coequal branch of government, not only to protect the 
Congress as an institution but to restrain other government branches 
from overreaching. One of those powers is the Senate's power to confirm 
or not confirm, and this check on Executive powers can be used as 
Congress sees fit. But it should not be abused, just as the President 
should not use his nominees to abuse the Constitution or to advance an 
unlawful agenda. The Attorney General is the top law enforcement 
officer in the country. This is not traditionally a political position. 
It is a law position. Anyone who occupies the office must serve the 
American people under the laws and the Constitution of the United 
States. They are not above the law.
  The Supreme Court has clearly held that the President is subjected to 
the laws. It has always been the case and always has been a part of the 
law of the land. The Senate must never confirm an individual to an 
office such as this who will support and advance a scheme that violates 
our Constitution and eviscerates established law and Congressional 
authority. No person who would do that should be confirmed. We do not 
need to be apologetic about it.
  Ms. Lynch has announced that she supports and, if confirmed, would 
advance the President's unlawful Executive amnesty scheme--a scheme 
that would provide work permits, trillions in Social Security and 
Medicare benefits, tax credits of up to $35,000 a year--according to 
the Congressional Research Service--and even the possibility of chain 
migration and citizenship to those who have entered our country 
illegally or overstayed their lawful period of admission. The President 
has done this even though Congress has repeatedly rejected legislation 
he supports that would allow this scheme to be implemented. He asked 
for it, Congress considered it, and Congress said `no.'
  President Obama's unlawful and unconstitutional Executive action 
nullifies current immigration law to a degree most people have not 
fully grasped. The Immigration and Nationality Act is the law of the 
land, and his actions replace it with the very measures Congress 
refused to adopt. Even King George III didn't have the power to 
legislate without Parliament.
  During her confirmation hearing in the Judiciary Committee, I asked 
Ms. Lynch plainly whether she supported the President's unilateral 
decision to make his own immigration laws.
  Here is the relevant portion of the transcript:

       Mr. Sessions: I have to have a clear answer to this 
     question--Ms. Lynch, do you believe the executive action 
     announced by President Obama on November 20 is legal and 
     Constitutional? Yes or no?
       Ms. Lynch: As I've read the opinion,--

  That is, the opinion of the Department of Justice, which would be 
under her supervision--

       I do believe it is, Senator.

  Of course, the lawful duty of the Attorney General is to enforce the 
law that exists, not one that she or the President wish existed. One of 
the most stunning elements of the President's scheme is the grant of 
work permits to up to 5 million illegal immigrants--taking jobs 
directly from citizens and legal immigrants in our country at a time of 
high unemployment and low wages.
  Peter Kirsanow, Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 
has written at length about how this undermines the rights of U.S. 
workers, especially African-American workers, and other minorities 
suffering from high unemployment. He says: Those citizens who are 
suffering from high unemployment and low wages have their rights 
undermined when the President ignores plain law that protects them from 
an excessive surge of illegal workers.
  So at her confirmation hearing, I asked Ms. Lynch about what she 
might do to protect the rights of U.S. workers. By the way, Attorney 
General Holder, our current Attorney General, astoundingly, in comments 
he made some months ago, declared that there is a civil right to 
citizenship in America for people who enter the country unlawfully. How 
can this possibly be, that the Attorney General can get so removed from 
his responsibility to enforce the law that he says that if someone 
comes into the country unlawfully, they have a civil right to 
citizenship?
  That was part of the reason I asked her this question:

       Mr. Sessions: Who has more right to a job in this country? 
     A lawful immigrant who's here or a citizen--or a person who 
     entered the country unlawfully?
       Ms. Lynch: I believe that the right and the obligation to 
     work is one that's shared by everyone in this country 
     regardless of how they came here. And certainly, if someone 
     is here, regardless of status, I would prefer that they would 
     be participating in the workplace than not participating in 
     the workplace.

  So this individual would be the chief law enforcement of our country, 
and I believe that is a fundamentally flawed statement and comment. It 
is unprecedented for someone who is seeking the highest law enforcement 
office in America to declare that someone in the country illegally has 
a right to a job when the law says if you are here illegally, you 
cannot work.
  This Nation is--as George Washington University law Professor 
Jonathan Turley, who has testified a number of times here, often called 
by a number of our Democratic colleagues, put it--at ``a constitutional 
tipping point.'' Professor Turley, who is a nationally recognized 
constitutional scholar and self-described supporter of President Obama, 
testified before the House of Representatives in February 2014, nine 
months before the President announced his unprecedented executive 
action, and said:

       The current passivity of Congress represents a crisis of 
     faith for members willing to see a president assume 
     legislative powers in exchange for insular policy gains. The 
     short-term, insular victories achieved by this President will 
     come at a prohibitive cost if the current imbalance is not 
     corrected. Constitutional authority is easy to lose in the 
     transient shift of politics. It is far more difficult to 
     regain. If a passion for the Constitution does not motivate 
     members, perhaps a sense of self-preservation will be enough 
     to unify members. President Obama will not be our last 
     president. However, these acquired powers will be passed to 
     his successors. When that occurs, members may loathe the day 
     that they remained silent as the power of government shifted 
     so radically to the Chief Executive. The powerful personality 
     that engendered this loyalty will be gone, but the powers 
     will remain. We are now at the constitutional tipping point 
     of our system. If balance is to be reestablished, it must 
     begin before this President leaves office and that will 
     likely require every possible means to reassert legislative 
     authority.

  One of those means is the advice and consent power to approve or 
disapprove nominees for high office. It was created for just such a 
time as this. It is a legitimate constitutional power of Congress. It 
is not only appropriate but necessary that the Senate refuse to confirm 
a President's nominee when that President has overreached and assumed 
the legislative powers of Congress. It is particularly necessary when 
the President's nominee is being appointed specifically for the 
improper purpose of advancing the President's unconstitutional 
overreach--all through powers of the office to which they have been 
nominated.
  Mr. President, we have a number of problems with regard to executive 
branch overreach and executive branch failure to be responsive to 
Congress. When Members of Congress ask legitimate questions, we often 
don't get answers from the people who are paid by the taxpayers and who 
are authorized by us. I believe that is another matter we need to 
consider before we confirm people. The Department of Justice has been 
recalcitrant too often in producing information it should produce.

[[Page 5498]]

  I wish to go a little bit further because some of this goes to the 
core of the issues before us. Is this just a policy dispute between 
Congress and the President? No, it goes much deeper than that. The 
actions of the President are stunning--beginning with his so-called 
Morton memos. He had an underling carry out orders to achieve what he 
wanted done, which is often how he has proceeded with these unlawful 
activities. I will point out some of them.
  Beginning with the Morton memos in 2011--under the guise of 
prosecutorial discretion based on limited resources--the Administration 
began to flaunt clearly written provisions of the Immigration and 
Nationality Act, such as section 235, which requires the Secretary of 
Homeland Security to place illegal aliens into removal proceedings to 
be deported once they are found. Section 235 requires DHS to do that, 
they do not have any discretion there.
  In direct contradiction of clearly written law, the Morton memos 
generally directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel 
to refuse to initiate removal proceedings against certain aliens, and 
to administratively close or terminate such proceedings if they had 
been initiated. Thus began the opening salvo in the Administration's 
assault on our immigration laws. This is huge. Officers respond to the 
President's leadership.
  The following year, June 2012, the Administration created, through 
Executive fiat, a program that Congress consistently refused to enact 
into law--the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA. This 
program not only shielded certain illegal aliens from the threat of 
removal, but it also provided them with work authorization, the ability 
to travel outside of the United States without fear of being refused 
reentry through grants of advanced parole. It gave them a Social 
Security number and a photo ID.
  By the way, colleagues, this resulted in the Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement officers being so concerned at this radical reversal of the 
laws of the United States that they filed a lawsuit against their 
supervisors asserting that they were being required to violate the law 
of the United States rather than being allowed to carry out their sworn 
duty, which was to enforce the laws of the United States.
  The judge was sympathetic to the matter, but for technical and legal 
reasons, concluded that the case would not go forward, but I believe it 
is still on appeal now.
  This is remarkable. There are law officers--many of them have been in 
law enforcement for 10, 20, 30 years--who sued their supervisors 
because they were being ordered to violate the law instead of enforce 
the law. We ought to listen to them. They have repeatedly told us that 
what is happening is outrageous and they pleaded with Congress to stop 
it.
  But then in November of last year, after Congress refused to pass the 
Administration's preferred legislation providing amnesty to illegal 
aliens, the Administration created, through Executive fiat, a number of 
other programs that further eroded enforcement of our immigration laws. 
Notably, the two most visible programs are the Deferred Action for 
Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, the so-called DAPA 
Program, and an expanded version of DACA, both of which were blessed by 
the Department of Justice, the Office of Legal Counsel, and the 
Attorney General--wrong, unlawful actions blessed by the chief law 
enforcement officer in the country.
  Less visible are policies that prevent the enforcement of immigration 
laws against certain criminal aliens, such as the November 20, 2014 
memorandum from Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of the Department of 
Homeland Security, entitled ``Policies for the Apprehension, Detention, 
and Removal of Undocumented Immigrants.'' That memo excludes from 
enforcement priority categories whole categories of criminal offenses 
defined in sections 2(a)(2) and 237(a)(2) of the INA.
  We have observed a decimation of law enforcement in this country 
involving immigration as a direct result of the President's 
determination to create an immigration system that he believes is 
right, but the People, through their elected Congress, have refused to 
make law. This is a direct threat to who we are.
  Professor Turley is so insightful about this issue. This is not some 
rightwing extremist. In testimony before the House committee, he said:

       I believe the President has exceeded his brief. The 
     President is required to faithfully execute the laws.

  He goes on to say:

       This goes to the very heart of what is the Madisonian 
     system. If a president can unilaterally change the meaning of 
     laws in substantial ways or refuse to enforce them, it takes 
     offline that very thing that stabilizes our system. I believe 
     the members will loathe the day that they allow that to 
     happen. There will be more presidents who will claim the same 
     authority.
       When I teach constitutional law, I often ask my students, 
     what is the limiting principle of your argument? When that 
     question is presented to this White House, too often it's 
     answered in the first person, that the President is the 
     limiting principle or at least the limiting person. We can't 
     rely on that type of assurance in our system.

  Madison knew no one can be given total power without limits.
  Professor Turley goes on to say:

       The problem of what the President is doing is that he is 
     not simply posing a danger to the constitutional system; he 
     is becoming the very danger the Constitution was designed to 
     avoid: that is, the concentration of power in any single 
     branch. This Newtonian orbit that the three branches exist in 
     is a delicate one, but it is designed to prevent this type of 
     concentration.

  When asked explicitly if he believed the President violated the 
Constitution, he said, as I quoted before, ``The center of gravity is 
shifting, and that makes it unstable. And within that system you have 
the rise of an uber presidency. There could be no greater danger for 
individual liberty, and I really think that the framers would be 
horrified by that shift because everything they've dedicated themselves 
to was creating this orbital balance, and we've lost it. . . .''
  He goes on to say to Congress as a challenge to us:

       I believe that [Congress] is facing a critical crossroads 
     in terms of continued relevance in this process. What this 
     body cannot become is a debating society where it can issue 
     rules and laws that are either complied with or not complied 
     with by the president. I think that's where we are . . . [A] 
     president cannot ignore an express statement on policy 
     grounds . . . [In] terms of the institutional issue . . . 
     look around you. Is this truly the body that existed when it 
     was formed?

  So he was sitting there in the House of Representatives and he was 
talking to Members of Congress and said:

       . . . look around you. Is this truly the body that existed 
     when it was formed? Does it have the same gravitational pull 
     and authority that was given to it by its framers? You're the 
     keepers of this authority. You took an oath to uphold it. And 
     the framers assumed that you would have the institutional 
     wherewithal and, frankly, ambition to defend the turf that is 
     the legislative branch.

  I think we need to--without apology--defend the law, and I think this 
is in the Congress' interest. Congress should not confirm someone to 
lead the U.S. Department of Justice who will advance this 
unconstitutional policy. Congress has a limited number of powers to 
defend the rule of law and itself as an institution and to stop the 
executive branch from overreaching. It is unthinkable that we would 
ignore one of those powers in the face of such a direct threat to our 
constitutional order--an escalating pattern of overreach by the 
President.
  Every day that we allow the President to erode the powers of the 
Congress, we are allowing the President to erode the sacred 
constitutional rights of the citizens we serve. We have a duty to this 
institution and to the American people not to confirm someone who is 
not committed to those principles but rather who will continue to 
violate them.
  I will oppose this nomination and urge my colleagues to do so. I 
think we should see a bipartisan vote rejecting this nomination, and in 
doing so, Congress will send a clear message that we expect the 
President to abide by the law passed by Congress, not to violate it.
  Mr. President, I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.

[[Page 5499]]


  Mr. LEAHY. For almost 2 months, I have been returning to the Senate 
floor to urge the majority leader to schedule the confirmation vote for 
our next Attorney General. Yesterday afternoon, we were finally able to 
get an agreement that was long overdue. But even now, this morning, we 
are not voting to confirm Loretta Lynch to be the next Attorney General 
of the United States; we are going to vote on whether to invoke cloture 
in regard to this top law enforcement position.
  For those not familiar with the rules of the Senate, cloture is a 
rule that allows the Senate to end a filibuster.
  The fact that Senate Republicans are requiring a cloture vote on her 
nomination acknowledges what we have known all along: Republicans have 
been engaged in an unprecedented filibuster of this nomination.
  When we do vote to confirm Loretta Lynch this afternoon, she will be 
the first African-American woman to serve as Attorney General. She is a 
historic nominee, but it is Senate Republicans who are making history--
and I would say for the wrong reasons. We have had 82 Attorneys General 
in our Nation's history. Until now, not one of those 82 has had to 
overcome a cloture vote. But this one, Loretta Lynch, as I said, the 
first African-American woman to serve as Attorney General, became the 
first and only to have to overcome a cloture vote.
  I would have opposed any filibuster on any President. I have been 
here with President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President 
Bush, President Clinton, another President Bush, and President Obama. 
Neither Republicans nor Democrats have seen this.
  President Obama first announced Ms. Lynch's nomination more than 5 
months ago. At the time, Senate Democrats acceded to the request of 
Senate Republicans not to move her nomination during the lame duck 
period. Republicans promised that she would be treated fairly.
  In fact, last fall, the now-majority leader promised that ``Ms. Lynch 
will receive fair consideration by the Senate. And her nomination 
should be considered in the new Congress through regular order.'' But 
she hasn't been treated fairly. There hasn't been regular order.
  The nomination of Ms. Lynch has been pending in the Senate awaiting 
confirmation for 56 days. I went back over the last seven Attorneys 
General. I added up the number of days they waited for confirmation on 
the floor. She has waited longer than all seven of them put together 
twice over, so twice as long as the seven preceding Republican and 
Democratic Attorneys General combined: Richard Thornburgh, 1 day; 
William Barr, 5 days; Janet Reno, 1 day; John Ashcroft, 2 days, Alberto 
Gonzales, 8 days; Michael Mukasey, 2 days; and Eric Holder, 5 days. I 
have said it repeatedly, but it bears repeating again: this historic 
delay is an embarrassment for the United States Senate.
  As the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Ms. Lynch 
brought terrorists and cyber criminals to justice. She obtained 
convictions against corrupt public officials from both political 
parties. She fought tirelessly against violent crime and financial 
fraud. Ms. Lynch has protected the rights of victims. She has a proven 
record prosecuting human traffickers and protecting children.
  I am glad that yesterday the Senate was finally able to overcome an 
impasse on trafficking legislation which, unfortunately, those on the 
other side of the aisle caused by injecting partisan politics into the 
debate. That Republican leaders tied a vote on the confirmation of Ms. 
Lynch to human trafficking legislation never made sense at all, 
especially given her strong record of prosecuting human traffickers.
  In a recent article, the Guardian rightly pointed out that the 
Republican leaderships' use of her nomination as a negotiating chip was 
``painfully wrongheaded--tantamount to holding the sheriff back until 
crime goes away.'' I could not agree more. I ask unanimous consent that 
the Guardian article be printed in the Record at the conclusion of my 
remarks.
  We all know that Loretta Lynch is eminently qualified to be our next 
Attorney General. She should not have been delayed for so many months 
by the Senate majority. And we should not be forced to vote to cut off 
debate on this nomination, especially when no other Attorney General 
nominee has ever needed such a vote. This is the complete opposite of 
the fair treatment that Senate Republicans promised last November. 
After this extended delay on the Lynch nomination, I can only hope 
Senate Republicans will show her more respect as Attorney General of 
the United States than she has received as a nominee. She deserves our 
respect and gratitude for being willing to continue to serve our 
Nation. She has earned this respect.
  Ms. Lynch's story is one of perseverance, grace, and grit and I 
believe this process will only make her stronger. She was born and 
raised in North Carolina. She is the daughter of a fourth-generation 
Baptist preacher and a school librarian. Her proud mother and father 
instilled in her the American values of fairness and equality, even 
though as a child those around them were not living up to these values.
  I must say that meeting Reverend Lynch at these hearings and then 
meeting him at the time of the markup--I was so impressed with the 
strength that man showed and his sense of faith in goodness. This is a 
pastor and a preacher we can all look up to. In fact, Ms. Lynch recalls 
riding on Reverend Lynch's shoulders to their church, where students 
organized peaceful protests against racial segregation. The freedom 
songs and the church music that went hand in hand with those protests 
undoubtedly made up the sound track of her childhood. As Attorney 
General, I am sure she will draw upon those childhood experiences and 
the struggles of her parents, her grandparents, and her great-
grandparents when addressing the current protests over too many young 
lives lost on our streets.
  As I said, the Judiciary Committee was honored to have her father, 
the Reverend Lorenzo Lynch, with us on both days of her hearing in 
January, as well as at the committee markup when her nomination was 
favorably reported with bipartisan support. He is here to watch these 
proceedings today. It is clear this undoubtedly proud father instilled 
in his daughter the great resilience she has shown over the past 6 
months.
  As a Senator, as have other Senators, I have gotten to meet wonderful 
people from all walks of life, up to and including Presidents, but I 
have said many times before and I will say again that meeting Reverend 
Lynch was really a very special moment in this Senator's life.
  Throughout Loretta Lynch's life, those who encountered her 
intelligence and her tenacity have not all been prepared to accept her 
and her impressive accomplishments. But at every point, the content of 
her character has shone through and led her to even greater heights.
  In elementary school, administrators did not believe that Loretta 
Lynch could score as high as she did on a standardized test. They 
demanded that she retake the test. How could this young African-
American girl score so high? She took the test again and her second 
score was even higher.
  In high school, she rose to the very top of her class but had to 
share the title of valedictorian with two other students, one of whom 
was White, because school administrators feared an African-American 
valedictorian was too controversial. But that didn't hold her back, 
either. She kept going forward. She went on to graduate with honors 
from Harvard College, and then she went on and earned her law degree 
from Harvard Law School.
  This has been the story of Loretta Lynch's life. While some are not 
ready to embrace her distinction, she marches forward with grace to 
prove she is even stronger and more qualified than her detractors can 
imagine. She has dedicated the majority of her remarkable career to 
public service, and we are fortunate as a nation that she wants to 
continue to serve.
  Ms. Lynch's record of accomplishments makes me confident she will be

[[Page 5500]]

able to lead the Justice Department through the complex challenges it 
faces today.
  One issue the outgoing Attorney General prioritized was the 
protection of Americans' right to vote. After the Supreme Court's 
disastrous ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, Republican governors and 
State legislatures exploited the decision and implemented sweeping 
voter suppression laws that disproportionately affect African Americans 
and other minorities. Ms. Lynch will have to continue the commitment to 
fighting voting rights for all Americans.
  At a time of severe budget cuts for too many vital programs that help 
victims and support public safety, something must be done about the 
massive financial burden that is the Bureau of Prisons. One-third of 
DOJ's budget goes to BOP. This imbalance has largely been driven by our 
reliance on drug mandatory minimum sentences, which do not make us 
safer but are costing us plenty. These sentences explain why the United 
States has the largest prison population in the world. We must work 
together on more thoughtful solutions to address our mass incarceration 
problem.
  Few issues affect communities and families as intimately as 
addiction. Vermont, like many parts of the country, has seen a recent 
surge in the abuse of heroin and other opioids. The Department must 
work with States to find solutions to support communities struggling 
with heroin and other opioids, and help them break the cycle of 
addiction.
  The Attorney General will also be called upon to build on the 
sometimes strained relationship between law enforcement and communities 
of color, which has been exacerbated by the recent tragic events in 
Ferguson, New York, and South Carolina. Restoring that trust will be as 
great a responsibility as she will have while in office.
  Nor are these issues of trust limited to local law enforcement. Just 
the other day, a Washington Post article detailed the fact that the 
Justice Department and the FBI acknowledged numerous instances of 
flawed testimony by FBI examiners over a two-decade period in 
connection with hair analysis evidence. This included dozens of cases 
involving defendants who were sentenced to death row. This troubling 
revelation means that the FBI must conduct a comprehensive analysis to 
prevent future breakdowns such as this.
  The Justice Department must also keep up with the rapid development 
of technology. We must stay ahead of the curve to prevent and fight 
threats to cybersecurity and data privacy. The growing threat of cyber 
crime is very real but so is the specter of unchecked government 
intrusion into our private lives--particularly dragnet surveillance 
programs directed at American citizens. The intelligence community 
faces a critical deadline this June when three sections of the Foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act are set to expire. We must protect our 
national security and our civil liberties. We must work together to 
reform our Nation's surveillance laws so we can achieve both goals and 
restore the public's trust.
  When President Obama announced his intention to nominate Ms. Lynch 
last November, I had the privilege of attending the White House 
ceremony. At that event, Ms. Lynch noted with admiration that ``the 
Department of Justice is the only cabinet department named for an 
ideal.'' Just think of that. The Department of Justice is named for an 
ideal--the ideal of justice. And having served as a State prosecutor, 
although not with the complexity she has encountered, I always felt 
that was an ideal to uphold, and she has. I believe that when Loretta 
Lynch is sworn in as our next Attorney General, she will work 
tirelessly to make that ideal a reality for all Americans.
  As I said, I am sorry that for the first time, after 82 Attorneys 
General, we have to have a cloture vote. I have great respect for my 
friends in the Republican leadership, but I must say they sent an awful 
signal to America in saying that for the first time in 82 Attorneys 
General, we require a cloture vote for this highly qualified woman.
  I yield the floor.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From the Guardian, Apr. 21, 2015]

Loretta Lynch `Led the Nation' on Human Trafficking Despite Republican 
                                Standoff

                           (By Tom McCarthy)

       Republican leaders say they'll hold up Lynch's confirmation 
     until trafficking bill passes--and yet Lynch has been one of 
     America's boldest pursuers of sex traffickers, Guardian 
     review reveals.
       After almost six months, the Republican blockade on the 
     confirmation of Loretta Lynch as the next US attorney 
     general--once a grand fight over immigration, then banking 
     prosecutions, then abortion--appears headed for a final 
     legislative showdown over protecting victims of sex 
     trafficking.
       But the biggest Congressional headache of the year--a 
     single cabinet nomination effectively hijacking the 
     legislative calendar--has culminated in ``a very sad irony'': 
     Lynch has been one of the country's premier guardians of 
     victims of sex trafficking, and a tireless scourge of sex 
     traffickers, a review of her record and conversations with 
     current and former colleagues reveal.
       Lynch--according to prosecutors, officials and victims' 
     advocates familiar with her tenure as US attorney for the 
     eastern district of New York--has a prodigious history of 
     throwing sex traffickers in prison, breaking up prostitution 
     rings, rescuing underage victims forced to work as 
     prostitutes and reuniting mothers held captive by the rings 
     with their long-lost children.
       Heading into what could be the final day of protracted 
     negotiations over her job as the nation's highest law 
     enforcement officer, Lynch's supporters spoke at length with 
     the Guardian about what they say is one of the most powerful 
     legacies of her tenure.
       Republicans have not challenged Lynch's record as a 
     prosecutor of sex trafficking--or any other part of her 
     record. But Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has clung 
     to an announcement that he would hold up her nomination until 
     the Senate completed work on the Justice for Victims of 
     Trafficking Act, which would create a compensation fund for 
     victims. Republican and Democratic senators are squabbling 
     over abortion language in the bill.
       ``I had hoped to turn to her next week, but if we can't 
     finish the trafficking bill, she will be put off again,'' 
     McConnell said. More than a month later, that hold is still 
     in place, although Republicans aides on Friday signaled 
     potential new movement on the nomination, after President 
     Obama called the delay ``embarrassing''.
       To those with close knowledge of Lynch's record on human 
     trafficking, the hold-up has not been embarrassing, so much 
     as painfully wrong-headed--tantamount to holding the sheriff 
     back until crime goes away.
       Carol Robles-Roman, who in 12 years as deputy mayor of New 
     York City worked closely with Lynch's office to stop young 
     girls from falling victim to sex traffickers, said Lynch had 
     made ``protecting the most vulnerable members of our society 
     a hallmark of her tenure''.
       ``The irony that it's a trafficking bill that's holding 
     everything up is just . . . it's a very sad irony,'' said 
     Robles-Roman, who now runs the nonprofit Legal Momentum. 
     ``The fact of the matter is, with this record, she has been 
     one of the top leaders in the country around the fight 
     against human trafficking.
       ``This is such a difficult area for prosecutors to wrap 
     their hands around. And her office, the eastern district, has 
     really distinguished itself in the cases that they have 
     brought, and the fearlessness that they have shown in 
     prosecuting these cases.''


                 `Heinous' cases with real resolutions

       Lori Cohen, director of the anti-trafficking initiative at 
     New York-based Sanctuary for Families, has worked closely 
     with Lynch's office, including to reunite victims of sex 
     trafficking with their children, who in multiple cases have 
     been held in Mexico by members of the trafficking 
     organization.
       ``The eastern district prosecutors have been exceptional in 
     terms of their willingness to listen to the clients,'' Cohen 
     said. ``And I think that, frankly, that came from the top, 
     that came from the attorney general nominee. I think she has 
     always had a very high degree of professionalism, but also a 
     very strong sense of compassion for victims. And a strong 
     sense of justice, that people who are exploiting these 
     vulnerable immigrant women and children in the commercial sex 
     industry need to be held accountable.''
       In the typical sex trafficking case prosecuted under Lynch, 
     a community services organization might tip off law 
     enforcement to the presence of a prostitution ring based in 
     Brooklyn or Queens, New York. Investigators would discover 
     many girls and young women living under the control of men 
     who forced them to work in brothels or who drove them around 
     the city, sometimes to as many as 20 assignments a day.
       Anne Milgram, a former prosecutor on human trafficking 
     cases in the eastern district, who went on to serve as 
     attorney general of New Jersey and is now a senior fellow at 
     the New York University school of law,

[[Page 5501]]

     said one after another of the trafficking cases were 
     prosecuted because Lynch made them a ``personal priority''.
       ``Under her leadership, the eastern district has really led 
     the nation in this area,'' Milgram said. ``I really couldn't 
     say enough good things about both the office and Loretta 
     Lynch's record on human trafficking. If you look nationally 
     to find a US attorney who was as thoughtful and progressive 
     in prosecuting human trafficking cases, I don't think you 
     could find one.''
       Lynch's office has specialized in breaking up rings that 
     share a remarkable similarity. Members of family-based crime 
     syndicates in Mexico, in a repeated pattern, would seek out 
     young girls in poor, rural areas and make them promises of 
     love and a better life in the United States. Sometimes a 
     marriage would follow. And then the girls would be introduced 
     to a new life, in which they were coerced to work as 
     prostitutes. Obedience was enforced with rape, beatings, 
     imprisonment, and, in some cases, by threatening the lives of 
     children born of the corrupt ``love'' affairs.
       ``Any trafficking victim is going to be suffering in a 
     tremendous physical and emotional harm, and pretty extensive 
     sexual abuse,'' Cohen said. ``But these particular Mexican 
     trafficking cases are so difficult for our victims because 
     usually the trafficker is an intimate partner. So it could be 
     a man who held himself out to be a boyfriend, or a fiance, 
     and in at least one case it's been a husband. Who courted a 
     client, who won her trust, and her love, and in a number of 
     cases had children with her.''
       ``You just pull the facts of one of these cases, and 
     they're heinous,'' Robles-Roman said. ``They almost don't 
     sound real.''


                 The most active record in the country

       Lynch's office has specialized in breaking up these rings. 
     The eastern district of New York has delivered more than 55 
     indictments in human trafficking cases and rescued more than 
     110 victims, including at least 20 minors, in the past 10 
     years.
       Under Lynch, the eastern district is currently prosecuting 
     at least five cases relating to the prostitution of US minors 
     or sex trafficking--more active prosecutions than any other 
     US attorney's office in the country, according to 
     knowledgeable observers.
       In 2012, Lynch's office reunited a child and mother who had 
     been separated for more than 10 years when the woman was 
     taken from Mexico to New York and forced to work as a 
     prostitute. It was one of 18 such mother-and-child reunions 
     completed by the eastern district.
       Cohen worked with a client who was reunited with her child 
     after a conviction by Lynch's office.
       ``It was really very moving,'' Cohen said. ``My client had 
     been separated from her child for a number of years and was 
     really frantic about her child's safety. Frankly it's 
     terrifying for a victim to come forward and report the abuse, 
     when she is afraid that if word of her cooperation gets back 
     to her traffickers, there's very little protection available 
     for her child back in Mexico.
       ``These clients, when they have children, they are mothers 
     first. And they'll do anything to protect their children. In 
     fact some of them continue to be trafficked because they were 
     afraid that if they stopped or refused, that their children 
     would be harmed.''
       In December 2012, Lynch announced the extradition and 
     arraignment of four suspects from Mexico in two separate sex 
     trafficking cases. In 2013, Lynch sent a New York bar owner 
     and two co-defendants to prison for dozens of years each for 
     running a sex-trafficking ring between Central America, 
     Mexico and two bars on Long Island. In 2014, three brothers 
     convicted of sex trafficking were sentenced to double-digit 
     prison terms for enticing victims as young as 14 to be 
     transported illegally into the United States and forced to 
     work as prostitutes in New York City and elsewhere.
       ``It's horrible to think that children in the United States 
     are being exploited sexually,'' said Robles-Roman. ``They 
     are. [But Lynch's] office has shown that they have the 
     courage, the know-how, and the expertise to prosecute these 
     people--some of them involving international criminal 
     enterprises.
       ``From my perspective, somebody who has that vision, and 
     that eye, to protect our most vulnerable, can protect us all. 
     It is a fearlessness that we need in our attorney general.''
       As of Monday, after what minority leader Harry Reid called 
     ``164 very long days'', there was still no Senate deal over 
     the abortion language in the trafficking legislation, 
     although signs emerged that a deal may be close.
       If Republicans stick to their promise, it will then be 
     Lynch's turn. And if she is confirmed, to hear Lynch's former 
     colleagues tell it, the Senate will have made a difference on 
     behalf of society's most vulnerable.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The Senator from Texas.
  Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, today I rise to talk about what has come to 
define the Obama administration, which is a consistent pattern of 
lawlessness that disrespects the Constitution, that disrespects the 
Congress, and that disrespects the people of the United States.
  In any administration, under any President, the person charged with 
being the chief law enforcement officer is the Attorney General. I have 
been blessed to work in the U.S. Department of Justice, and there is a 
long, bipartisan tradition of Attorneys General remaining faithful to 
the law and to the Constitution and setting aside partisan 
considerations and politics. Unfortunately, that tradition has not been 
honored during the Obama Presidency.
  Attorney General Eric Holder has been the most partisan Attorney 
General the United States has ever seen. The Attorney General has 
systematically refused to do anything to seriously investigate or 
prosecute the IRS for targeting citizens for expressing their First 
Amendment rights. Indeed, he has assigned the investigation to a major 
Democratic donor and partisan Democrat who has given over $6,000 to 
President Obama and the Democrats. Eric Holder has abused the office 
and has turned it, in many respects, into a partisan arm of the 
Democratic Party. He is the only Attorney General in the history of the 
United States to be held in contempt of Congress.
  So there are many, including me, who would very much like to see Eric 
Holder replaced. There are many, including me, who would very much like 
to see an Attorney General who will return to the bipartisan traditions 
of the Department of Justice of fidelity to law, and that includes most 
importantly the willingness to stand up to the President who appointed 
you even if he or she is from the same political party as are you.
  During the confirmation hearings, I very much wanted to support 
Loretta Lynch's nomination. Bringing in a new Attorney General should 
be turning a positive page in this country. But, unfortunately, the 
answers Ms. Lynch gave in the confirmation hearing, in my opinion, 
rendered her unsuitable for confirmation as Attorney General of the 
United States. That was a shame.
  Ms. Lynch's record as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of 
New York had earned her a reputation as a relatively no-nonsense 
prosecutor, so it was my hope that we would see a similar approach and 
similar answers from Ms. Lynch at the confirmation hearing. Instead, 
she chose to embrace the lawlessness of the Holder Justice Department.
  When she was asked whether she would defend President Obama's illegal 
Executive amnesty, which President Obama has acknowledged no fewer than 
22 times that he had no constitutional authority to undertake and which 
a Federal court has now enjoined as unlawful, she responded 
affirmatively, saying she thought the administration's contrived legal 
justification was ``reasonable.''
  The nominee went on to say that she sees nothing wrong with the 
President's decision to unilaterally grant lawful status and work 
authorizations that are explicitly barred by Federal law to nearly 5 
million people who are here in this country illegally.
  When asked further who has ``more a right to a job, a United States 
citizen or a person who came to this country illegally?'' she 
responded, ``I believe that the right and obligation to work is one 
that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came 
here.'' Well, a very large majority of American citizens would beg to 
differ. Rule of law matters.
  When she was asked about the limits of prosecutorial discretion--the 
dubious theory President Obama has put forth to justify his illegal 
executive amnesty--she could give no limits to that theory.
  When asked if a subsequent President could use prosecutorial 
discretion to order the Treasury Secretary not to enforce the tax laws 
and to collect no more income taxes in excess of 25 percent, she 
refused to answer.
  When asked if a subsequent President could use that same theory to 
exempt the State of Texas--all 27 million people--from every single 
Federal labor law and environmental law, she refused to answer.
  When asked if she agreed with the Holder Justice Department that the

[[Page 5502]]

government could place a GPS sensor on the car of every single American 
without probable cause, she refused to answer. That extreme view was 
rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously.
  When asked if she agreed with the Holder Justice Department that the 
First Amendment gives no religious liberty protection whatsoever to a 
church's or synagogue's choice of their own pastor or their own rabbi, 
she again refused to answer. Likewise, that extreme view was rejected 
unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, Justice Elena Kagan--
appointed by President Obama--said at the oral argument that the Holder 
Justice Department's position that the First Amendment says nothing 
about the religious liberty of a church or a synagogue--Justice Kagan 
said, ``I find your position amazing.'' Well, I am sorry to say that 
Ms. Lynch was unwilling to answer whether she holds that same amazing 
position, that the First Amendment does not protect the religious 
liberty of people of faith in this country.
  When asked in her hearing if she believes the Federal Government 
could employ a drone to kill a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil if that 
individual posed no imminent threat, she refused to answer.
  When asked if she would be willing to appoint a special prosecutor to 
investigate the IRS's targeting of citizens and citizen groups for 
their political views--something which President Obama said he was 
``angry about and the American people had a right to be angry about''--
and when asked if she would appoint a prosecutor who was at a minimum 
not a major Obama donor, she refused to answer.
  This nominee has given every indication that she will continue the 
Holder Justice Department's lawlessness. That was her testimony to the 
Senate Judiciary Committee.
  I wanted to support this nomination. I wanted to see a new Attorney 
General who would be faithful to law. But her answers made that 
impossible.
  I would note that there is a difference. Eric Holder began 
disregarding the Constitution and laws after he was confirmed as 
Attorney General. Ms. Lynch has told the Senate that is what she is 
going to do. That means each and every one of us bears responsibility. 
In my view, no Senator can vote for this confirmation consistent with 
her or her oath given the answers that were given.
  I would note that a particular onus falls on the new Republican 
majority. For several months, I have called on the Republican majority 
to block the confirmation of President Obama's executive and judicial 
nominees other than vital national security positions unless and until 
the President rescinds his lawless amnesty. I am sorry to say the 
majority leadership has been unwilling to do so.
  The Republican majority, if it so chose, could defeat this 
nomination, but the Republican majority has chosen to go forward and 
allow Loretta Lynch to be confirmed.
  I would note that there are more than a few voters back home who are 
asking: What exactly is the difference between a Democratic and 
Republican majority when the exact same individual gets confirmed as 
Attorney General promising the exact same lawlessness? What is the 
difference? That is a question each of us will have to answer to our 
constituents when we go home.
  In my view, the obligation of every Senator to defend the 
Constitution is front and center why we are here. We have a nominee who 
has told the Senate she is unwilling to impose any limits whatsoever on 
the authority of the President of the United States for the next 20 
months. We are sadly going to see more and more lawlessness, more 
regulatory abuse, more abuse of power, more Executive lawlessness.
  Now more than ever, we need an Attorney General with the integrity 
and faithfulness of law to stand up to the President. Attorneys General 
in both parties, Republican and Democratic, have done so. When credible 
allegations of wrongdoing by Richard Nixon were raised, his Attorney 
General, Elliot Richardson, appointed a special prosecutor, Archibald 
Cox, to investigate regardless of partisan politics. Likewise, when 
credible allegations by Bill Clinton arose, his Attorney General, Janet 
Reno--a Democrat--appointed Robert Fisk as the independent counsel to 
investigate those allegations. Eric Holder has been unwilling to 
demonstrate that same faithfulness to law, and unfortunately Ms. Lynch 
has told us that she, too, is unwilling to do so. For that reason, I 
urge all of my colleagues to vote no on cloture and to insist on an 
Attorney General who will uphold her oath to the Constitution and to 
the people of the United States of America.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I come before the Senate today to vote 
and to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of confirming Loretta Lynch 
as Attorney General.
  I disagree with my colleague from Texas. I serve on the Judiciary 
Committee, as does the Senator from Texas. I listened to her questions. 
I asked her questions. I listened to her answers. In my view, she 
passed her senatorial interview. She has picked up support from several 
Republicans. She answered questions for 8 hours during her confirmation 
hearing and submitted detailed responses to 900 written questions.
  What I would like to focus on today are the claims I just heard from 
the Senator from Texas that she is somehow lawless.
  Let's look through the facts. She has earned the support of Members 
of both parties. Do the Republicans who support her for this position 
think she is lawless? I don't think so. She has earned the support of 
top law enforcement groups and 25 former U.S. attorneys from both 
Republican and Democratic administrations.
  Now let's start with the obvious. She is supremely qualified for 
Attorney General. She has a world-class legal mind, an unwavering 
commitment to justice, an unimpeachable character, and an extraordinary 
record of achievement.
  During her time as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New 
York, she tackled some of our Nation's hardest cases, from public 
corruption, to civil rights violations, to massive crime rings. She 
currently leads the U.S. attorney's office that has been charged with 
prosecuting more terrorism cases since 9/11 than any other office in 
the country, including trying the Al Qaeda operative who plotted to 
attack New York City's subway system. Would you hand this over to a 
lawless person? No. You would hand this over--this important job of 
going after terrorists--to someone who respects the law, who enforces 
the law, not, as my colleague from Texas said, to someone who is 
lawless.
  This is a concern in my State. Just this week, our U.S. attorney, 
Andy Luger, indicted six people--six people--in the Twin Cities area 
who were plotting to go back to assist ISIS, to assist a terrorist 
group. So I care a lot about having an Attorney General in place who 
actually knows how to handle these terrorism cases, who is going to 
lead the Justice Department and understands the importance of going 
after these cases. Loretta Lynch is exactly the type of tough and 
tested leader we need at the Justice Department to lead the effort.
  She has been endorsed by leaders ranging from the New York police 
commissioner--I don't know if my colleague from Texas considers him 
lawless--to the president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers 
Association, to the president of the National Association of Chiefs of 
Police. Alberto Gonzales says it is time to vote on Ms. Lynch. Rudy 
Giuliani says it is time to confirm her. These are not people my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle normally say are lawless.
  This is the story of Loretta Lynch and why I think she has been able 
to wait out this long process. Loretta Lynch has a lot of patience. 
When she was a little girl, she took a test and did incredibly well on 
that test. She did so well that they didn't believe she took that test. 
They asked her to take that test again, and she scored even higher. 
When she was valedictorian of the class, the principal came up to her 
and said: You know, this is a little awkward. You are African American, 
and

[[Page 5503]]

we might want another White student to share the honor. That is what 
happened to her. She said: All right. That is a woman who has been 
through something and can wait this out. She will wait no longer after 
today.
  The other thing I heard from our friends on the other side of the 
aisle--from Senator Cruz--was that somehow she is lawless because she 
supported something that every President since Dwight Eisenhower has 
supported, has asked their Attorney General to do. The Attorney General 
has looked at the legal issues surrounding the issuance of an Executive 
order regarding immigration. Every Attorney General since Eisenhower's 
administration has advised their President on these issues. The first 
George Bush, the second George Bush, Ronald Reagan--with every single 
one of these Presidents, there was some kind of Executive order issued 
involving immigrants.
  I know because we have Liberians in Minnesota who, because of unrest 
in their country, have been there for decades under an Executive order, 
something that sometimes Congress gets involved and sometimes the 
President reissues. But that is one example of a group of people who 
have been able to stay in our country legally, work in our hospitals, 
work in our industries, and raise their families in this country 
because of Executive orders.
  So to say that it is sometimes lawless--how lawless for her to 
support this simple idea that a President can issue an Executive order. 
Of course, we can debate the merits of that. We can talk about the fact 
that of course we would rather have comprehensive immigration reform. 
That is why I voted it. Of course that would be better, so the 
President could just tear up his Executive action. He said he would be 
glad to do that.
  But the point of this is that every Attorney General in the 
Republican administrations since Dwight Eisenhower has supported their 
President when they issued an Executive order. So this idea that by 
somehow saying that is legal makes this nominee lawless is just plain 
wrong.
  We look forward to another robust debate on immigration policy. 
Comprehensive immigration reform should be debated and passed by 
Congress. But Ms. Lynch should be judged on her record and her record 
alone. When we look at her record, we should be proud to have her as 
our next Attorney General of the United States of America.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I would like to make a few remarks 
about Loretta Lynch. While she should have been confirmed as Attorney 
General months ago, I want to make the following points: Her 
qualifications are sterling. Her education, her experience as a U.S. 
attorney under two Presidents, as well as her accomplishments are 
unassailable.
  I have never seen a nominee in my 22 years handle a confirmation 
hearing with such poise and answer questions with such command. During 
her hearing, I said Loretta Lynch was a combination of steel and 
velvet, and that, to me, sums her up perfectly.
  I met with her prior to her hearing and was deeply impressed. I 
reviewed her stellar record and found her to be a firm yet fair 
prosecutor--as a matter of fact, probably the prosecutor in one of the 
toughest districts--the Eastern District of New York--that exists in 
America.
  Having led this very large and important U.S. Attorney's Office under 
two Presidents, she is a proven leader and she also knows how to bring 
people together to get the job done. I think that is important.
  Let me just talk about national security. The Eastern District of New 
York, where Ms. Lynch served as U.S. attorney, has led the Nation in 
terrorism convictions among all U.S. Attorney Offices since 2001. She 
has overseen these cases. The six individuals connected to Najibullah 
Zazi, who was part of an Al Qaeda plot and planned to set off bombs on 
the New York subway system; Rezwanul Nafis, who attempted to use a 
weapon of mass destruction against the New York Federal Reserve Bank; 
four individuals, including Russell Defreitas, who plotted to attack 
JFK Airport; an individual who tried to go to Yemen to join Al Qaeda in 
the Arabian Peninsula; and two individuals who allegedly were members 
of Al Qaeda and attacked U.S. military forces overseas.
  In February, her office announced that three individuals had been 
charged with attempting and conspiring to provide material support to 
ISIL. Two were planning to fly to Syria to join ISIL. The third was 
arrested while boarding a flight to Turkey at JFK. Her office has also 
charged 11 individuals, alleging that they illegally worked to secure 
more than $50 million in high-tech equipment for Russian military and 
intelligence agencies.
  At her confirmation hearing, Lynch emphasized the importance of the 
government having the ``full panoply of investigative tools and 
techniques to deal with the ever-evolving threat of terrorism.'' In 
sum, I am confident she is going to be a very strong voice leading the 
Justice Department on issues of national security. I can only say I 
think, as those of us on the Intelligence Committee see--and the 
Presiding Officer is one of them--this becomes more important every 
day.
  Her experience is just as deep on domestic issues. As U.S. attorney 
for a major urban district, she clearly understands the importance of 
protecting us from gangs and organized crime, issues that are front and 
center in my home State of California.
  Her work in this area shows she understands local and international 
criminal organizations.
  In the last year, under her leadership, three individuals connected 
to a major organized crime family pleaded guilty to a racketeering 
conspiracy.
  A gang leader was found responsible, after a five-week trial, ``for 
six murders, two attempted murder[s], armed robberies, murder-for-hire, 
narcotics, distribution, and gambling on dog fighting.''
  Another gang leader was convicted and sentenced to 37 years in prison 
for ordering the murder of two individuals, one of whom was believed to 
be associated with a rival gang.
  Three individuals in a New York cell of an international cybercrime 
organization were also convicted on charges stemming from cyberattacks 
that resulted in $45 million in losses.
  She has also made combatting human trafficking a priority. Over the 
last decade, her office's anti-trafficking program has indicted more 
than 55 defendants in sex trafficking cases and rescued more than 110 
victims of sex trafficking, including more than 20 minors.
  Simply put, Loretta Lynch has been on the frontlines in investigating 
and prosecuting a range of perpetrators, and I believe she will 
continue that work as Attorney General.
  I would be remiss if I did not express my extreme disappointment in 
the delay over Ms. Lynch's confirmation. We have before us a nominee 
with impeccable credentials to serve as the Nation's chief law 
enforcement officer. During her confirmation, Senator Leahy asked a 
panel of witnesses who were pro and supposedly con to raise their hands 
if they opposed her. Not a single witness raised their hand. To me, 
that spoke volumes.
  Even Republicans who will vote against her because they disagree with 
the President praise her credentials and personal qualifications. But 
despite all of that, the Senate subjected her to, I think, an 
inexcusable delay. It is particularly sensitive because this would be 
the first African-American woman as Attorney General in the history of 
the United States.
  If you look at race relations today and the impartial and important 
role that the Department of Justice plays, it seems to me that her 
appointment may well be the most important possible appointment at this 
particular point in time. Her nomination has been pending for 56 days 
on the floor. That is more than twice as long as the seven most recent 
Attorneys General combined.
  So, hopefully, it is done now. I recognize the other side will say 
they could not move the nomination because of

[[Page 5504]]

the trafficking bill or for some other reason. But the fact remains 
that, historically, we customarily move back and forth between 
executive and legislative business. We could have done that here as 
well. We have confirmed district judges, we have confirmed individuals 
who serve in various other executive capacities, including subcabinet 
positions. So we could have easily considered the nominee for one of 
the most important posts in this government.
  Let me conclude with this. I regret that a vote on her nomination 
cannot be unanimous. I hope it will be close to that. I do not think 
that will be possible. She is that good. She deserves a unanimous vote. 
She is as fine as I have seen in my time in the Senate.
  Senator Durbin remarked in committee that her confirmation will be a 
truly momentous occasion for the Senate and for our Nation. He said 
this should be a ``solemn, important, and historic moment for 
America.'' I truly believe he was right. I truly believe this is an 
uncommon nominee at an uncommon time who can display a tremendous will, 
drive, motivation, and sense of justice as our U.S. Attorney General. I 
am very honored to cast my vote in favor of her nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri.
  Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, briefly, this should be a happy day 
for America. This should be a day that is circled on the calendar as 
another day, as the Presiding Officer of this Senate knows, that this 
is about the American dream. This woman is the embodiment of the 
American dream in action. We should be celebrating her confirmation to 
the most important law enforcement position in the United States of 
America.
  So why am I not happy? I am sad. I am depressed, because what we are 
going to witness in a few minutes is base politics at its ugliest. It 
does not get any uglier than this because what we are saying today--
what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are saying today is 
that it does not matter if you are qualified. It does not matter if you 
are one of the most qualified nominees for Attorney General in the 
history of our country. That makes no difference. We have a new test: 
You must disagree with the President who nominates you. Let me say that 
again because we love common sense in Missouri. This defies common 
sense. You must vote against a nominee for the Cabinet of the duly 
elected President of the United States because she agrees with the duly 
elected President of the United States. Think of the consequences of 
that vote. Think what that means to the future of advise and consent in 
this Senate.
  If we all adopt this base politics ``place in the cheap seats,'' I 
can't get elected President unless I am against Loretta Lynch, if we 
all adopt that in the future, how is any President elected in this 
country going to assemble a Cabinet? Because it will be incumbent on 
all of us to be against Cabinet members who have the nerve to agree 
with the President who has selected them for their team.
  It is beyond depressing. It is disgusting. She is so qualified. She 
has worked so hard all of her life. She is a prosecutor's prosecutor. 
She has prosecuted more terrorists than almost anybody on the face of 
the planet. The notion that this has occurred because she agrees with 
the man who selected her--I think everyone needs to understand what 
that means to the future if all of us embrace that kind of base 
politics in this decision. It is not a happy day. It is a very sad day.
  I am proud of who Loretta Lynch is. I am proud she will be Attorney 
General of this country. I am sad it will be such a close vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Loretta Lynch is an historic nominee. What 
I worry about is this body is making history for the wrong reasons. 
Senate Republicans have filibustered her. She becomes the first out of 
82 Attorneys General in our Nation's history to face a filibuster.
  On one hand she is an historic nominee for the right reason; the 
first African-American woman for Attorney General, a woman who is 
highly, highly qualified. Everybody agrees with that. But what a shame 
that we have the second part of history, to have her be the first out 
of 82 Attorneys General to be filibustered--to be held to this very 
disturbing double standard. This woman has had to face double standards 
all her life--why one more? I will proudly vote for her.
  I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back.


                             Cloture Motion

  Pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending 
cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     do hereby move to bring to a close debate on the nomination 
     of Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General.
         Mitch McConnell, Richard Burr, John Cornyn, Lamar 
           Alexander, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake, Susan M. Collins, 
           Orrin G. Hatch, Thom Tillis, Lisa Murkowski, Harry 
           Reid, Richard J. Durbin, Patrick J. Leahy, Patty 
           Murray, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Charles 
           E. Schumer.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the mandatory quorum 
call has been waived.
  The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate that debate on the 
nomination of Loretta E. Lynch, of New York, to be Attorney General 
shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 66, nays 34, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 164 Ex.]

                                YEAS--66

     Alexander
     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Burr
     Cantwell
     Capito
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Flake
     Franken
     Gardner
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Thune
     Tillis
     Udall
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--34

     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Cruz
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Grassley
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Lankford
     Lee
     McCain
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Risch
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Fischer). On this vote, the yeas are 66, 
the nays are 34.
  The motion is agreed to.
  Cloture having been invoked, under the previous order, there will be 
up to 2 hours of postcloture debate equally divided between the two 
leaders prior to a vote on the Lynch nomination.
  Mr. LEAHY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                 Unanimous Consent Agreement--H.R. 1191

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, last week the Senate entered a 
unanimous consent agreement to get on the bipartisan Iran congressional 
review act at a time to be determined by the two leaders. Now that the 
Senate has passed the antitrafficking bill and the Lynch confirmation 
vote has been scheduled for later today, it is my intention to turn to 
the Iran legislation.
  Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that at 3 p.m. today the Senate 
agree to the motion to proceed to H.R. 1191, as under the previous 
order, with debate only during today's session of the

[[Page 5505]]

Senate following the offering of a substitute amendment by Senator 
Corker or his designee, as under the previous order.
  I further ask that following leader remarks on Tuesday, April 28, 
2015, Senator Corker be recognized to offer an amendment to the pending 
substitute.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Democratic leader.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, it is my understanding that on Monday 
there will be opportunity for debate.
  Is that right, Mr. Leader?
  We will do that at closing tonight. That would be good.
  Madam President, I appreciate very much the understanding of the 
Republican leader, the majority leader, about how to proceed on this. 
This is a really important piece of legislation. I don't know of a 
piece of legislation in recent years that is more important than this. 
So I look forward to the Senate turning to this legislation.
  I again applaud and commend Senators Corker and Cardin for the 
delicate and very good work they have done on this. This measure, I 
repeat, is important. It deals with matters of international affairs 
and Congress's role in carrying out the constitutional responsibilities 
we have. This bill will take some time. I hope we can finish it as 
rapidly as possible. That is what I want.
  I also want to comment that I think it is important we have the 
opportunity--and I am sure the Republican leader--to have our caucus on 
Tuesday, so that we by that time will have an idea how we are going to 
proceed forward on this.
  I have heard some Senators want to offer amendments really to hurt 
this bill. I hope that, in fact, is not the case. I hope people are 
trying to be constructive. Regardless of that, the leader has assured 
us that there will be an open amendment process. So no matter how a 
person feels about this bill, they will have an opportunity to offer 
amendments. In my opinion, we need to support the Corker-Cardin 
agreement. Those Senators worked so we can get the bill passed as soon 
as possible.
  So I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, 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. GRASSLEY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, today the Senate takes up the 
nomination of the 83rd Attorney General.
  We all know the former Democratic leadership could have processed 
this nomination during last year's lame duck. But in the limited time 
we had, they chose to concentrate on confirming a number of judges and 
getting a losing vote on NSA reform. Ms. Lynch, at that time, wasn't 
high on the priority of the Democratic majority, but now I am pleased 
that the Senate was finally able to come to an agreement on the sex 
trafficking legislation, so we can turn to the Lynch nomination.
  I voted against Ms. Lynch's nomination in committee and will oppose 
her nomination again when it is time to vote this afternoon. I will 
spend a few minutes now explaining my reasons to my colleagues.
  This nomination comes at a pivotal time for the Department of Justice 
and our country. The next Attorney General will face some very 
difficult challenges--from combatting cybercrime, to protecting our 
children from exploitation, to helping fight the war on terror. But 
beyond that, the new Attorney General has a mess to clean up. The 
Justice Department has been plagued the last few years by 
decisionmaking driven by politics--pure politics. Some of these I have 
mentioned before, but I would like to give just a few examples.
  The Department's own inspector general listed this as one of the top 
management challenges for the Department of Justice: ``Restoring 
Confidence in the Integrity, Fairness, and Accountability of the 
Department.'' That is quite a major management challenge the Department 
faces.
  This inspector general cited several examples, including the 
Department's falsely denying basic facts in the Fast and Furious 
controversy. The inspector general concluded this ``resulted in an 
erosion of trust in the Department.''
  In that fiasco, our government knowingly allowed firearms to fall 
into the hands of international gun traffickers, and, I am sorry to 
say, it led to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
  Then how did the Department respond to all this obviously wrong 
action on their part? They denied, they spun, and they hid the facts 
from Congress. And if you hide the facts from the American Congress, 
you are hiding the facts from the American people.
  They bullied and intimidated whistleblowers, members of the press, 
and, you might say, anyone who had the audacity to investigate and help 
us uncover the truth.
  But Fast and Furious isn't the Department's only major failing under 
the Holder tenure. It has also failed to hold another government agency 
accountable, the Internal Revenue Service.
  We watched with dismay as that powerful agency was weaponized and 
turned against individual citizens who spoke out in defense of faith, 
freedom, and our Constitution. What was the Department's reaction to 
the targeting of citizens based on their political beliefs? They 
appointed a campaign donor to lead an investigation that hasn't gone 
anywhere, and then, after that, the Department called it a day.
  Meanwhile, the Department's top litigator, the Nation's Solicitor 
General, is arguing in case after case for breathtaking expansions of 
Federal power.
  I said this before, but it bears repeating: Had the Department 
prevailed in just some of the arguments it pressed before the Supreme 
Court in the last several years--and I will give five examples:
  One, there would be essentially no limit on what the Federal 
Government could order States to do as a condition for receiving 
Federal money.
  Two, the Environmental Protection Agency could fine homeowners 
$75,000 a day for not complying with an order and then turn around and 
deny that homeowner any right to challenge the order or those fines in 
court when the order is issued.
  Three, the Federal Government could review decisions by religious 
organizations regarding who can serve as a minister of a particular 
religion.
  Four, the Federal Government could ban books that expressly advocate 
for the election or the defeat of political candidates.
  And five, lastly, the way this Solicitor General argued, as I said, 
would bring the most massive expansion of Federal power in the history 
of the country. The Fourth Amendment wouldn't have anything to say 
about the police attaching a GPS device to a citizen's car without a 
warrant and constantly tracking their every movement for months or 
years.
  Now, I have given five reasons of expansion of the Federal 
Government. These positions aren't in any way mainstream positions. At 
the end of the day, the common thread that binds all of these 
challenges together is a Department of Justice which has become deeply 
politicized. But that is what happens when the Attorney General of the 
United States views himself--and these are his own words--as the 
President's ``wingman.''
  Because of all the politicized decisions we have witnessed over the 
last few years, I have said from the very beginning of this process 
that what we need more than anything else out of our new Attorney 
General is independence. Ever since she was nominated, it was my 
sincere hope that Ms. Lynch would demonstrate that sort of 
independence. It was my hope that she would make clear that, while she 
serves at the pleasure of the President, she is accountable to the 
American people, because the job of Attorney General is defined by a 
duty to defend the Constitution and uphold the rule of

[[Page 5506]]

law. The job is not simply to defend the President and his policies.
  I voted for Attorney General Holder despite some reservations and 
misgivings, but I have come to regret that vote because of the 
political way he has led the Department. I realize that the quickest 
way to end his tenure as Attorney General is to confirm Ms. Lynch, but, 
as I have said, the question for me from the start has been whether Ms. 
Lynch will make a clean break from the Holder policies and take the 
Department in a new direction.
  Some of my Democratic colleagues have said that no one has raised any 
objection to Ms. Lynch's nomination. This, of course, is inaccurate. No 
one disputes that she has an impressive legal background. It was her 
testimony before the committee that caused concerns for many Senators, 
including me. After thoroughly reviewing that testimony, I concluded 
that she won't lead the Department in a different direction. That is 
very unfortunate. After 6 years of Attorney General Holder's 
leadership, the Department desperately needs a change of direction.
  I would like to remind my Democratic colleagues that it was not too 
long ago that a majority of Democrats voted against Judge Mukasey for 
Attorney General--not based on his records but instead based upon his 
testimony before the committee. In fact, then-Senator Obama had this to 
say about Judge Mukasey: ``While his legal credentials are strong, his 
views on two critical and related matters are, in my view, 
disqualifying.''
  I asked Ms. Lynch about her views on Fast and Furious, on the IRS 
scandal, and other ways the Department has been politicized. She did 
not demonstrate that she would do things differently. Instead, she gave 
nonanswers. She was eloquent and polished but nonresponsive.
  The bottom line is that Ms. Lynch does not seem willing to commit to 
a new, independent way of running the Department. That surprised me 
very much. Based on everything we were told, I expected Ms. Lynch to 
demonstrate a bit more independence from the President. I am confident 
that if she had done so, she would have garnered more support.
  As I said when the committee voted on her nomination, to illustrate 
this point, we need to look no further than the confirmation of 
Secretary Carter to the Department of Defense earlier this year. When 
he testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary 
Carter demonstrated the type of independent streak that many of us were 
hoping we would see in Ms. Lynch.
  Most of the media reporting on the two nominations seemed to agree. 
Headlines regarding the Carter nomination in the New York Times and the 
Washington Post commended his shift from the President's policies with 
headlines such as ``Defense nominee Carter casts himself as an 
independent voice,'' which was in the Washington Post, and in the New 
York Times, ``In Ashton Carter, Nominee for Defense Secretary, a Change 
in Direction.'' But on the Lynch nomination, those same newspapers 
highlighted that she defended the President's policies on immigration 
and surveillance with headlines such as ``Lynch Defends Obama's 
Immigration Action,'' which was in the New York Times, and from the 
Huffington Post, ``Loretta Lynch Defends Obama's Immigration Actions.''
  Secretary Carter was confirmed with 93 votes. Only five Senators 
voted against Secretary Carter's nomination. That lopsided vote was a 
reflection of his testimony before the Senate, which demonstrated a 
willingness to be an independent voice within the administration. 
Unfortunately, Ms. Lynch did not demonstrate the same type of 
independence.
  I sincerely hope Ms. Lynch proves me wrong and is willing to stand up 
to the President and say no when the duty of office demands it. But 
based upon my review of her record, I cannot support the nomination.
  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. SCHUMER. 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. SCHUMER. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the nomination 
of Loretta Lynch, a proud New Yorker and soon-to-be Attorney General of 
the United States of America. She was born in North Carolina, and her 
father was a fourth-generation Baptist minister, a man who grew up in 
the segregated South, and her mother picked cotton when she was a girl 
so her daughter would never have to. Their daughter grew up to be one 
of the keenest legal minds our country has to offer, someone who has 
excelled at every stage of her education and her career while 
cultivating a reputation--well deserved--as someone who is level-
headed, fair, judicious, and eminently likable.
  If there is an American dream story, Loretta Lynch is it. Still, 
despite her intellectual and career achievements, Ms. Lynch has always 
been a nose-to-the-grindstone type, rarely seeking acclaim, only a job 
well done.
  Throughout her career, she has had a yearning to serve the public, 
which began when she took a 75-percent pay cut to join the Eastern 
District as a prosecutor. There, she found her calling, handling some 
of the toughest litigation cases in the country on cyber crime, public 
corruption, financial fraud, police abuse, gang activity, organized 
crime, and especially terrorism.
  When you look at the breadth and the depth of the cases she has 
handled, it is clear that Loretta Lynch is law enforcement's 
Renaissance woman. Because of her judicious, balanced, and careful 
approach to prosecuting on complex and emotional community-police 
relations matters, Ms. Lynch has always emerged with praise from both 
community leaders and the police. America needs this kind of leadership 
in our top law enforcement position.
  In this age of global terrorism, the Attorney General's role in 
national security has never been more important.
  I know her well. I was the person who recommended her to the 
President to be U.S. attorney twice. I know how good she is. In some of 
the most difficult cases--cases where the community was on one side and 
the police were on the other--she emerged with fair decisions that made 
both sides praise her. In this difficult world we are in, where we have 
so much tension, she is going to be great. That is why I was so proud 
when the President nominated her for Attorney General. She is just 
great. But one sad note--there is one cloud on this sunny day, and that 
is the long time it took to confirm her. We heard about a whole lot of 
issues completely unrelated to her experience or her qualifications. No 
one can assail Loretta Lynch--who she is, what she has done, how good 
an Attorney General she would be.
  One quick story about Ms. Lynch. As I mentioned, I originally 
recommended Loretta Lynch for the position of U.S. attorney in 1999 
because I thought she was excellent. Sure enough, she was.
  When President Bush took office, Ms. Lynch went to the private sector 
to earn some money. When I had the opportunity to recommend a candidate 
for U.S. attorney again when President Obama became President in 2009, 
I was certain I wanted Ms. Lynch to serve again. She had only served 
for about 1\1/2\ years. She had done such a good job, I said, we need 
her back. But she had a good life. She was making a lot of money and 
had gotten married in the interim.
  Knowing what a great person she is, I decided I would call her late 
on a Friday afternoon. I was confident that with the weekend to think 
it over, she would be drawn to answer the call to public service. When 
I called her Friday afternoon, she said to me, I was dreading this 
call, because she was happy in her life. But sure enough on Monday 
morning she called me back and said, I cannot turn this down because my 
desire to serve is so strong.
  She is a great person in every way. On top of decades of experience 
at the highest levels of law enforcement and a sterling track record, 
Loretta Lynch brings a passion and deep commitment

[[Page 5507]]

to public service befitting of the high office she is about to attain.
  She will make an outstanding Attorney General. I believe every Member 
of this body will be proud of her, and I look forward to voting for her 
with great enthusiasm.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. McCAIN. Madam President, today I underscore my opposition to the 
nomination of Loretta Lynch to be the next Attorney General of the 
United States. While her experience is extensive, both her judgment and 
independence were called into question by her expressed views on 
President Obama's clearly unconstitutional actions on immigration, and 
this is something that cannot be overlooked when considering a nominee 
to be our Nation's chief law enforcement officer.
  Let's review Ms. Lynch's testimony before the Judiciary Committee on 
whether she believes the President's actions are constitutional. During 
that hearing, Ms. Lynch stated that she ``thought the legal opinion was 
reasonable'' and that the President's actions were a ``reasonable way 
to marshal limited resources to deal with the problem.'' When asked for 
a yes or no answer on whether she thinks Obama's executive actions on 
immigration were legal and constitutional, she stated, ``[A]s I've read 
the opinion, I do believe it is.''
  What do these statements tell us? On the specific question of whether 
she thought the executive action was constitutional, Ms. Lynch was, at 
best, ambiguous. She attempted to obfuscate by saying that she found 
the underlying legal opinion ``reasonable.'' In my view, all 
obfuscation aside, she sufficiently conveyed to the committee that she, 
in fact, thought the executive actions were legal and constitutional.
  Many have asked me: But, Senator McCain, wouldn't you expect a 
Presidential nominee to support a position being taken by the President 
who is nominating her? In most cases, the answer is yes. And, it is 
well known that, historically, I have been deferential to the 
President's prerogative to select his senior advisors--even those who 
require Senate confirmation. But, on matters regarding the U.S. 
Constitution--particularly those that implicate the separation of 
powers between the executive and legislative branches, the Attorney 
General is different.
  It is the job of the U.S. Attorney General to represent the people of 
the United States and to ``do justice.'' It is not to serve as a policy 
instrument or cheerleader for the President. We have had years of that 
with Attorney General Holder. It has to stop with this nomination. 
Inasmuch as, by her own testimony, Ms. Lynch sees merit in a position 
that impinges on the constitutional prerogatives of the branch of 
government that I serve, I must vote in opposition to her nomination.
  By the President's own repeated appraisal, the executive actions on 
immigration are unconstitutional. At least 22 times in the past few 
years, President Obama claimed he did not have the authority to 
unilaterally change the law in the way he did. For years, he pointed to 
Congress as the only way this change could take place, but reversed 
that position last November with his executive actions declaring the 
law as currently drafted to be inapplicable to millions of people. The 
following is a just a sampling of these oft-repeated statements:
  ``Comprehensive reform, that's how we're going to solve this problem. 
. . . Anybody who tells you it's going to be easy or that I can wave a 
magic wand and make it happen hasn't been paying attention to how this 
town works.''
  ``I can't simply ignore laws that are out there. I've got to work to 
make sure that they are changed.''
  ``I am president, I am not king. I can't do these things just by 
myself.''
  ``But there's a limit to the discretion that I can show because I am 
obliged to execute the law. That's what the Executive Branch means. I 
can't just make the laws up by myself. So the most important thing that 
we can do is focus on changing the underlying laws.''
  ``With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations 
through executive order, that's just not the case . . .''
  ``Believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. I 
promise you. Not just on immigration reform. But that's not how our 
system works. That's not how our democracy functions. That's not how 
our Constitution is written.''
  Whether you call it prosecutorial discretion or prioritizing 
enforcement, the argument does not survive scrutiny. With the stroke of 
a pen, the President's Executive action on immigration unilaterally 
changed the law as he saw fit, in violation of our Constitution and the 
way our system of government wisely provides for laws to be changed.
  To the extent Ms. Lynch is willing to characterize this as reasonable 
and even constitutional, I cannot support her nomination. For all these 
reasons, I cast my vote in opposition to her confirmation to be U.S. 
Attorney General and urge my colleagues to do the same.
  Mr. SCHUMER. 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. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sasse). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                       Trans-Pacific Partnership

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, I rise in strong opposition to the fast-
track bill the Finance Committee approved last night, and that I think 
will be on the floor next week or the following week, on the Trans-
Pacific Partnership.
  I think the most important aspect of this debate is that what we are 
discussing with the TPP is not a new concept. It is not as though 
somebody came and said, I have a great idea; let's try this trade 
agreement, and it is going to be really good for the American worker 
and the American middle class and the American people. The truth is 
that we have seen this movie time and time and time again. Let me tell 
my colleagues that the ending of this movie is not very good. It is a 
pretty bad ending. I think most Americans understand that our past 
trade agreements have failed our American workers and have led to the 
loss of millions of decent-paying jobs.
  What I simply don't understand--if we were going forward in the first 
place, with a new idea, maybe we should give it a shot. But when we 
went forward with NAFTA, when we went forward with CAFTA, when we went 
forward with Normal Permanent Trade Relations and there were all of 
these folks telling us how great these agreements were going to be and 
it turned out that virtually everything they said was inaccurate--not 
true--why in God's Name would we go forward with another trade 
agreement which is, in fact, larger than previous trade agreements?
  Let me give an example of what I mean. On September 19, 1993, 
President Bill Clinton said the following:

       I believe that NAFTA will create 200,000 American jobs in 
     the first two years of its effect. . . . I believe that NAFTA 
     will create a million jobs in the first five years of its 
     effect.

  So President Clinton was pushing the NAFTA agreement very hard, and 
that is what he said.
  In 1993, the same year, the Heritage Foundation, which is one of the 
most conservative think tanks in the country--so here we have a liberal 
President, Bill Clinton, and we have a conservative think tank, the 
Heritage Foundation--this is what they said: ``Virtually all economists 
agree that NAFTA will produce a net increase of U.S. jobs over the next 
decade.''
  In 1993, the distinguished Senator from Kentucky, who is now our 
majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said: ``American firms will not move 
to Mexico just for lower wages.'' Mitch McConnell: ``American firms 
will not move to Mexico just for lower wages.''
  Well, was President Clinton right? Was the Heritage Foundation right? 
Was Senator McConnell right? No. I

[[Page 5508]]

think the evidence is pretty clear they were all wrong.
  According to a well-respected economist at the Economic Policy 
Institute--and their facts usually hold up pretty well--NAFTA has led 
to the loss of more than 680,000 American jobs. What President Clinton 
said was wrong, what the Heritage Foundation said was wrong. We lost 
substantial numbers of jobs.
  In 1993, the year before NAFTA was implemented, the United States had 
a trade surplus with Mexico of more than $1.6 billion. Last year, the 
trade deficit with Mexico was $53 billion. We had a trade surplus of 
$1.6 billion; last year we had a deficit of $53 billion. Now, how is 
that a success? I don't know.
  In other words, NAFTA has been a disaster for American workers.
  What about the Chinese trade agreement? I remember hearing all of the 
discussions about how great it would be if we had a trade agreement 
with a huge country such as China; thinking about all of the American 
products they would be buying, manufactured here in the United States. 
Here is what President Bill Clinton said about PNTR with China back in 
1999. It is important to remember what people said because they are 
saying the same thing about this trade agreement. But this is back in 
1999, Bill Clinton, President, PNTR with China:

       In opening the economy of China, the agreement will create 
     unprecedented opportunities for American farmers, workers and 
     companies to compete successfully in China's market. . . . 
     This is a hundred-to-nothing deal for America when it comes 
     to the economic consequences.

  Once again, that is a liberal President.
  Now, we have the conservative think tanks that love unfettered free 
trade. In 1999, discussing PNTR with China, the conservative economists 
at the Cato Institute--these are really conservative guys and this is 
what they said:

       The silliest argument against PNTR is that Chinese imports 
     would overwhelm U.S. industry. In fact, American workers are 
     far more productive than their Chinese counterparts. . . . 
     PNTR would create far more export opportunities for America 
     than the Chinese.

  Well, what can we say about that? The Cato Institute wrote in 1999: 
``The silliest argument against PNTR is that Chinese imports would 
overwhelm U.S. industry.''
  Sure. Right.
  If we go out to any department store in America and we buy products, 
where are those products made? Guess what. They are made in China. It 
appears that, in fact, Chinese imports did overwhelm U.S. industry. The 
Cato Institute was dead wrong.
  Again, nobody is really surprised at this. There is no more debate 
about this. Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, that trade 
agreement, was a disaster.
  The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that trade agreement with 
China has led to the loss of 2.7 million American jobs. The trade 
deficit with China has increased from $83 billion in 2001 to $342 
billion in 2014.
  Now, in terms of China, I don't know that the American people have 
any doubt about it. Every time we go shopping, the products 
overwhelmingly are made in China. People look in their own towns and in 
their own States--my State--and see losses of more and more 
manufacturing jobs. Since 2001, we have lost 60,000 manufacturing 
facilities in America. Not all of it is attributable to trade; there 
are other reasons, but a lot of it is attributable to trade. Millions 
of decent-paying jobs are gone; people thrown out on the street as 
companies move to China, Vietnam, and other low-wage countries. There 
is not a debate about it. That is exactly what has happened. 
Corporation after corporation has said, Why do I want to pay an 
American worker $15, $20 an hour? Why do I want to deal with the union? 
Why do I have to obey environmental regulations? I can move to China, I 
can move to Vietnam, I can move to Malaysia or Mexico and I can pay 
people pennies an hour and bring the product back into the United 
States. That is what they said, and that is what they have done.
  Major corporation after major corporation has reduced employment in 
America at the same time as they have increased employment in other 
countries.
  Not only is it the loss of jobs, it is the race to the bottom. It is 
employers saying to workers, Look, I am cutting your health care, I am 
not giving you a raise, and if you don't like it, I am moving to China 
because there are people all over the world who are prepared to work 
for wages a lot lower than you are receiving. You can take it or leave 
it. That is one of the reasons why today the typical American worker is 
working longer hours for lower wages than he or she used to and why 
wages have gone down in America. That is what the global economy has 
done. That is what these horrendous unfettered free-trade agreements 
have pushed on American workers. That is the Chinese trade agreement: 
an estimated 2.7 million American jobs lost.
  Then we have the Korea Free Trade Agreement, which has led to a loss 
of some 60,000 jobs. Our trade deficit with that country has gone up 
from $16.6 billion in 2012 to $25 billion in 2014.
  So we have a history of failed trade agreement after failed trade 
agreement after failed trade agreement and people say, Hey, we failed, 
we failed, we failed; let's do the same thing again and this time we 
are really, really, really going to succeed. I don't think anybody 
really believes that.
  I do understand that Wall Street loves this trade agreement and they 
are staying up nights worrying about ordinary Americans; and I 
understand that the major corporations in this country love this 
agreement and the truck companies love this agreement, which gives us 
enough reason to hold this agreement in doubt.
  Now, the Obama administration says, Well, trust us. Forget about the 
other trade agreements. This TPP is something different. It is a better 
agreement. This time will be different. This time it will support about 
650,000 American jobs. Well, supporters of unfettered free trade were 
wrong about NAFTA, they were wrong about CAFTA, they were wrong about 
PNTR with China, and they were wrong about the Korea Free Trade 
Agreement and--surprise of all surprises--they are wrong again.
  If the fast-track is approved, it would pave the way for the passage 
of the TPP--the Trans-Pacific Partnership--trade agreement. As my 
colleagues know, this trade agreement is poised to be the largest free-
trade agreement in history, encompassing 12 nations that account for 
roughly 40 percent of the global economy. This is a very big deal.
  Let me speak about two of those countries that are involved in the 
TPP; those are Vietnam and Malaysia. We are fighting here--and I 
understand there are differences of opinion--we are fighting here in 
the U.S. Congress to raise the minimum wage. I happen to believe a 
$7.25 minimum wage, which is what it is federally, is a starvation 
wage. I would like to see it go up over a period of years to $15 an 
hour. The Presiding Officer may disagree, and there are others who 
disagree.
  Let me tell my colleagues what the minimum wage is in Vietnam. The 
minimum wage in Vietnam is 56 cents an hour--56 cents an hour. So we 
have American workers being forced to compete against people who make 
56 cents an hour. And we have a situation, just as one example of many, 
where the Nike company--a company which produces over 365 million pairs 
of athletic shoes each year--goes all over the world. Do you know how 
many of those athletic shoes are manufactured in the United States of 
America? Fifty million? Twenty million? Ten million? One million? Zero. 
On the other hand, they employ 330,000 workers in Vietnam--mostly young 
women--and while they refuse to tell us, give us the detailed 
information, our supposition is that most of those women make very low 
wages.
  Let's be clear about what is going on. According to a November 11, 
2014, article in the Vietnamese newspaper Thanh Nien News: ``Analysts 
acknowledge that Vietnam's abundance of cheap labor has played an 
increasingly pivotal role in wooing foreign firms looking to set up 
overseas manufacturing operations in a country with a population of 90 
million.''

[[Page 5509]]

  In other words, that is what this is all about. Wages are very low in 
Vietnam. Companies from the United States and all over the world will 
go to that country. Allowing the TPP to pass will make it easier for 
multinational companies to shut down in America and move to Vietnam. 
That is wrong.
  When we talk about free trade, it is important to understand what is 
involved. Whom are we competing against? Are we competing against 
Canadian workers whose standard of living is as high or higher than 
ours? Are we competing against workers in Germany whose standard of 
living may be higher than ours? No. We are competing against people who 
are struggling to stay alive, earning the lowest possible wages that 
keep a human being alive.
  Last year, the Human Rights Watch published a report on Vietnam. Here 
are some of the quotes from that report:

       The human rights situation in Vietnam deteriorated 
     significantly in 2013, worsening a trend evident for several 
     years. The year was marked by a severe and intensifying 
     crackdown on critics, including long prison terms for many 
     peaceful activists whose ``crime'' was calling for political 
     change.

  In other words, in Vietnam, if you speak up, you want political 
change, there is a likelihood you will end up in jail.

       Vietnam bans all political parties, labor unions and human 
     rights organizations independent of the government. . . . The 
     authorities require official approval for public gatherings 
     and refuse to grant permission for meetings, marches, or 
     protests they deem politically or otherwise unacceptable.

  It is not my point to beat up on Vietnam. They are a struggling 
country--a poor country that went through a terrible war with the 
United States that caused them incredible harm. But when we look at a 
trade agreement, when we say to American workers: This is your 
competition, people who are making 56 cents an hour in some cases, 
people who can't form an independent trade union, people who 
politically can't stand up and speak up for their rights, is that 
really appropriate and fair to the American worker? I don't think it 
is. I don't think it is.
  Let me say a word not just on Vietnam but another country in that 
consortium of partners in the TPP; that is, the country of Malaysia.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a New York Times article, dated September 17, 2014.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 17, 2014]

      Report Cites Forced Labor in Malaysia's Electronics Industry

                         (By Steven Greenhouse)

       Nearly one in three migrant workers in Malaysia's thriving 
     electronics industry toils under forced labor conditions, 
     essentially trapped in the job, a factory monitoring group 
     found in a report issued on Wednesday.
       The monitoring group, Verite--which conducted a two-year 
     investigation commissioned by the United States Department of 
     Labor--found that 32 percent of the industry's nearly 200,000 
     migrant workers were employed in forced situations because 
     their passports had been taken away or because they were 
     straining to pay back illegally high recruitment fees.
       The report said those practices were prevalent among the 
     migrants from Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam and 
     other countries who work in Malaysia's nearly 200 electronics 
     factories. Those factories, which produce consumer 
     electronics, motherboards, computer peripherals and other 
     electronic goods, account for a third of Malaysia's exports 
     and produce for many well-known companies, including Apple, 
     Flextronics, Samsung and Sony.
       The Verite report said that 92 percent of the migrant 
     workers in Malaysia's electronics industry had paid 
     recruitment fees and that 92 percent of that group had paid 
     fees that exceeded legal or industry standards, defined as 
     more than one month's wages.
       The report said about half of the migrant workers who 
     borrowed for their recruitment fees spent more than a year 
     paying off those fees. According to the report, 94 percent of 
     the migrants did not have their passports when Verite's 
     investigators interviewed them, and 71 percent said it would 
     be impossible or difficult to get their passports back when 
     needed.
       ``This most modern of industrial sectors is characterized 
     by a form of exploitation that long ago should have been 
     relegated to the past,'' said Daniel Viederman, chief 
     executive of Verite. ``The problem is not one of a few 
     isolated cases. It is indeed widespread.''
       Labor Department officials commissioned the study because 
     the federal government frowns on the importation of goods 
     made by forced labor. They sought an investigation after 
     seeing evidence that the problem was serious in Malaysia.
       Twelve investigators working for Verite interviewed a total 
     of 501 workers from nearly 200 Malaysian factories. According 
     to the study, ``92 percent reported feeling compelled to work 
     overtime hours to pay off their debt, and 85 percent felt it 
     was impossible to leave their job before paying off their 
     debt.'' Seventy-seven percent had to borrow money to pay 
     their recruitment fees.
       ``Workers are paying too much to get their jobs,'' Mr. 
     Viederman said. ``That leaves them vulnerable to being 
     trapped in their jobs.''
       He told of a migrant worker from Nepal who spoke good 
     English and was the only one of five children with a college 
     degree. His family paid a recruitment agent $1,500 for his 
     job, which was more than twice the annual income in Nepal, 
     and they borrowed much of that at a 36 percent annual 
     interest rate.
       When the Nepali arrived in Malaysia, his passport was taken 
     from him at the airport, and he has not seen it since, he 
     told the Verite interviewer. ``He has now completed 14 months 
     of a three-year contract, and he has not been able to save 
     any money'' because he is still paying back the recruitment 
     fees, Mr. Viederman said. The Nepali works 12 hours a day, 
     often seven days a week, and said it would take two years to 
     finish repaying the loan.
       ``He doesn't want to be in Malaysia anymore,'' Mr. 
     Viederman said. ``He wants to quit and return home, but then 
     he would have to pay a hefty fine and purchase his own plane 
     ticket and still have the loan payment hanging over his head. 
     He wasn't sure if he could get his passport back.''
       The report found that 30 percent of foreign workers said 
     they slept in a room with more than eight people, and 43 
     percent said there was no place where they could safely store 
     their belongings. Twenty-two percent of the workers said they 
     had been deceived about their wages, hours or overtime 
     requirements during the recruitment process.
       Mr. Viederman said many workers faced a ``one-two punch''--
     being charged high recruitment fees and then being paid less 
     than they had been promised. He said many workers were told 
     that their wages would be withheld or they would be reported 
     to authorities if they complained or protested.
       The Malaysian Embassy in Washington did not respond to 
     inquiries--Tuesday was a national holiday.
       Officials from Samsung and Sony did not respond to 
     questions about Malaysia.
       Asked about the reports of forced labor, Chris Gaither, a 
     spokesman for Apple, said: ``This is an issue we have paid a 
     lot of attention to and done a lot of work on. We were the 
     first electronics company to mandate reimbursement to workers 
     who were charged excessive recruitment fees.''
       Mr. Gaither said Apple's supply chain, which employs 1.5 
     million workers worldwide, employs 18,000 in Malaysia, 
     including 4,000 migrant contract workers. He said that since 
     2008, Apple had helped migrant workers in Malaysia and 
     elsewhere to reclaim $19.8 million in excessive recruitment 
     fees, which he defined as more than one month's wages. Apple 
     uses about 30 factories in Malaysia, and Apple had audits 
     done at 18 of them in the last year to investigate forced 
     labor and other problems.
       Mr. Viederman said companies should strengthen their codes 
     of conduct to bar payment of recruitment fees for workers at 
     any factories they use and to prohibit supplier factories 
     from taking migrant workers' passports. He said companies 
     should make sure their factory monitors engaged in aggressive 
     investigations to unearth such practices. In addition, he 
     called for a grievance procedure for workers that would hold 
     the companies, suppliers and labor brokers accountable.
       The Verite report found 62 percent of migrant workers said 
     they were unable to move around freely without their 
     passports. Fifty-seven percent said they could not leave 
     their job before their contract was finished because they 
     would be charged an illegally high fine, lose their passport 
     or be denounced to the authorities.
       Forty-six percent reported having encounters with police, 
     immigration officials or a volunteer citizens security corps. 
     Most of the 46 percent said they had to pay a bribe, were 
     detained or were threatened with detention or physical harm. 
     Twenty-seven percent of the foreign workers said they could 
     not come and go freely from their housing.

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, what the New York Times article talks 
about is that today there are nearly 200 electronics factories in 
Malaysia where high-tech products from Apple, Dell, Intel, Motorola, 
and Texas Instruments are manufactured and brought back into the United 
States. It turns out Malaysia is a major center for the manufacturing 
of electronics, and some of the largest electronics manufacturers in 
the world are centered or have

[[Page 5510]]

plants in Malaysia. If the TPP is approved, that number will go up 
substantially. Now, what is wrong with that?
  Well, let's talk about what is going on in Malaysia, where American 
companies in this country and American workers will have to compete as 
part of the TPP. Well, it turns out that many of the workers at the 
electronics plants in Malaysia are immigrants to that country and are 
forced to work there under subhuman working conditions.
  According to Verite, which conducted a 2-year investigation into 
labor abuses in Malaysia, which was commissioned by the U.S. Department 
of Labor--this report was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor.
  This report tells us that 32 percent of the electronics industries' 
nearly 200,000 migrant workers in Malaysia were employed in forced 
situations because their passports had been taken away or because they 
were straining to pay back illegally high recruitment fees.
  According to the New York Times article commenting on the study, 92 
percent of the migrant workers in Malaysia's electronics industries had 
paid recruitment fees, and 92 percent of that group had paid fees that 
exceeded legal or industry standards defined as more than one month's 
wages.
  Ninety-four percent of the migrants did not have their passports when 
Verite's investigators interviewed them. Let me repeat that. The 
passports were taken away from 94 percent of the people whom these 
investigators interviewed. Now, if you are a migrant in a foreign 
country and your passport is taken away, you have no rights at all. You 
can't leave. You may not be able to travel. You have no rights at all. 
In other words, many of these workers who wanted to leave Malaysia were 
unable to do so. They were forced to stay and continue to work under 
these subhuman conditions.
  Mr. President, 30 percent of foreign workers--this is again in the 
report from Verite, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Labor--30 
percent of foreign workers said they slept in a room with more than 
eight people, and 43 percent said there was no place where they could 
safely store their belongings.
  Well, when we talk about competition and a competitive global 
economy, I do not believe the American worker should be forced to 
compete against workers who are literally held in slave-like 
conditions, unable to leave the country, having their passports taken 
away, working for pennies an hour.
  Let me conclude simply by saying this: This trade agreement is being 
pushed on the Congress by the largest corporations in the United States 
of America. They love unfettered free trade because it enables them to 
shut down in America and move to low-wage countries where they can 
employ workers at pennies an hour. This trade agreement is pushed on us 
by Wall Street, that wants to make sure that around the world they will 
have financial regulations that make it easier for them to do what they 
do, rather than serve the economies of countries around the world.
  This legislation is strongly supported by the pharmaceutical industry 
that will have the opportunity to prevent poor countries around the 
world from moving to generic drugs and make medicine affordable to the 
poor people in these countries. So all of the billionaire class, all of 
the powerful corporate world is supporting this trade agreement.
  Who is opposing this trade agreement? Well, virtually every trade 
union in America whose job it is to stand up for American workers. They 
are in opposition. I was just at a rally with them the other day. They 
are united. They are in opposition. You have many environmental groups 
that understand this is a bad agreement. You have medical groups that 
understand this is a bad agreement for poor people in developing 
countries, and you have millions of workers in this country who do not 
want to compete. They are not afraid of competition. We are a 
productive country. They do not want to compete against people making 
56 cents an hour or against forced labor in Malaysia. That is where we 
are today.
  Where we are today is, Do we go forward with a failed trade policy or 
do we take a deep breath and say enough is enough? Let us rethink trade 
policy. Let us figure out a way we can grow the American economy, 
create decent jobs in the United States, and, by the way, help poor 
people around the world. All of us want to see wages go up in poor 
countries around the world, but that does not mean wages have got to go 
down in the United States of America. We need a trade agreement that 
works for our people, works for people around the world but is not a 
trade agreement that only works for the Big Money interests in the 
United States.
  I hope very much the Senate will take a real hard look at this trade 
agreement, take a hard look at what people have been saying for years 
about previous trade agreements and say we are not going down this 
failed path anymore.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                      Remembering Dr. Irwin Schatz

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I came across an article in the New York 
Times on Sunday that called my attention to the passing of an amazing 
man, a man who has a connection to the U.S. Senate.
  I rise to pay my respects to a man of uncommon integrity. Dr. Irwin 
Schatz passed away on April 1 at the age of 83. Beloved and respected 
in the medical community, Dr. Schatz spent his career helping people. 
He was a major contributor to the Honolulu Heart Program, a landmark 
study with half a century of followup on Japanese American men in 
Hawaii.
  Dr. Schatz was the rare critic of the notorious Tuskegee, AL, 
syphilis medical experiments.
  From 1952 to 1972, the U.S. Public Health Service conducted the 
Tuskegee clinical study on poor African-American sharecroppers. They 
wanted to know about untreated syphilis on African Americans. There 
were 600 men enrolled in the study. Almost two-thirds had syphilis, 
while the rest were used as control subjects. Between 1932 and 1947, 
the date when penicillin was determined to be the cure for the disease, 
at least seven men died, and their wives, children, and untold number 
of others had been infected.
  Men participating in the study were told they were being treated for 
bad blood. Bad blood wasn't running in the veins of these men, it was 
running in the veins of those who decided this study was worth more 
than their humanity.
  Dr. Irwin Schatz was 4 years out of medical school working as a 
cardiologist at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit when he came across the 
December 1964 issue of the journal ``Archives of Internal Medicine,'' 
which mentioned the Tuskegee study. We cannot be sure how many other 
people read this issue, but Dr. Schatz read it, and he was horrified.
  Dr. Schatz wrote to the study's senior author, Dr. Donald Rockwell. 
His letter was only three sentences long. These three sentences could 
have put his career at risk. Here was this young doctor criticizing an 
investigation overseen by some of the leading figures in the American 
Public Health Service.
  Here is what he wrote:

       I am utterly astounded by the fact that physicians allow 
     patients with a potentially fatal diseases to remain 
     untreated when effective therapy is available. I assume you 
     feel the information which is extracted from observations of 
     this untreated group is their sacrifice. If this is the case, 
     then I suggest the United States Public Health Service and 
     those physicians associated with it in this study need to 
     reevaluate their moral judgment in this regard.

  The sad reality is that the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention buried Dr. Schatz' letter, and it would sit in their 
archives until 1972. A Wall Street Journal reporter found the letter 
the same year that Peter Buxtun,

[[Page 5511]]

health service employee turned whistleblower, told the world about this 
horrific study.
  Dr. Schatz went on to serve in a variety of hospitals. In 1975 he 
joined the University of Hawaii and eventually became chairman of their 
department of medicine. In 2009, he was named a medical hero by the 
Mayo Clinic because of his career but also because of the moral fury he 
expressed in that three-sentence letter.
  Irwin Schatz was truly a hero. My prayers and thoughts go out to his 
sons, Jacob, Edward, Stephen, and our colleague Senator Brian Schatz, 
his nine grandchildren and his family.
  Mr. President, I would like to speak on a separate topic very 
briefly.
  The moment is going to finally arrive in just a few minutes when we 
are going to, I hope, approve by a bipartisan vote the nomination of 
Loretta Lynch to be our next Attorney General. This is a milestone in 
the history of the United States--the first African-American woman to 
become Attorney General of this country.
  I would like to say that I am sorry--and I am--for the delay in 
bringing this nomination before the Senate. It should have been done 
long ago. She is an extraordinary person from an extraordinary family. 
We have been blessed with her public service for so many years, and now 
she has reached the top in her career to be able to serve as our next 
Attorney General.
  I will, with a great deal of admiration and respect, be voting in 
favor of this nomination.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Vermont.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I eagerly echo the words of my dear friend, 
the senior Senator from Illinois. This is a great, historic moment. 
Earlier today, we ended the filibuster on this woman, Loretta Lynch. We 
ended the filibuster of her nomination to be Attorney General of the 
United States.
  The good news is that we ended the filibuster. The bad news is that 
for the first time in our Nation's history, we had to overcome a 
filibuster for an Attorney General nominee--of either party. Eighty-two 
prior Attorneys General, going back to George Washington straight 
through, and not one of them has been treated the way Loretta Lynch has 
been treated.
  I have come to know what a strong and good woman she is from her time 
as U.S. attorney and straight through to her confirmation hearing. At 
her confirmation hearing, those opposed to her brought witnesses but 
when I asked them, are there any of you who would vote against her, not 
a single hand went up.
  You see, I know her strengths. I know she has persevered through much 
more difficult circumstances in her life. I believe this will make her 
even stronger. But do I hope after this extended delay, that Senate 
Republicans will show her more respect as Attorney General of the 
United States than she has received as a nominee.
  She deserves all of America's respect and our gratitude for being 
willing to continue to serve our Nation. Loretta Lynch is eminently 
qualified to be Attorney General. She has twice been unanimously 
confirmed by the Senate to be U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of 
New York. Her record as a top Federal prosecutor in Brooklyn is 
unimpeachable.
  I have no doubt that as Attorney General, Ms. Lynch will effectively, 
fairly, and independently enforce the law.
  She has received the highest praise from those on both sides of the 
aisle. A group of 26 former United States Attorneys from both 
Republican and Democratic administrations have written, ``Ms. Lynch has 
the experience, temperament, independence, integrity, and judgment to 
immediately assume this critically important position.'' A former 
Associate Attorney General serving at the Justice Department under 
President Bush wrote to me saying that ``[Ms. Lynch is] uniquely 
qualified to serve as Attorney General.'' Former Republican mayor of 
New York City, Rudy Guiliani, said, ``If I were in the Senate, I would 
confirm her,'' and Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI and Federal 
judge, has written ``[i]n my twenty-five years of public service--23 in 
the Department of Justice--I cannot think of a more qualified nominee 
to be America's chief law enforcement officer.'' This is just a glimpse 
of the broad support she has received.
  Loretta Lynch deserves to be considered by this Chamber based on her 
record, her accomplishments, and her extraordinary character. Let us 
come together. Let us make history by confirming Loretta Lynch to be 
the first African-American woman to serve as Attorney General of the 
United States.
  I ask unanimous consent to yield back all time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, all time is yielded back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Will the Senate advise and 
consent to the nomination of Loretta E. Lynch, of New York, to be 
Attorney General?
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There appears to be a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator 
from Texas (Mr. Cruz).
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Boozman). Are there any other Senators in 
the Chamber desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 56, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 165 Ex.]

                                YEAS--56

     Ayotte
     Baldwin
     Bennet
     Blumenthal
     Booker
     Boxer
     Brown
     Cantwell
     Cardin
     Carper
     Casey
     Cochran
     Collins
     Coons
     Donnelly
     Durbin
     Feinstein
     Flake
     Franken
     Gillibrand
     Graham
     Hatch
     Heinrich
     Heitkamp
     Hirono
     Johnson
     Kaine
     King
     Kirk
     Klobuchar
     Leahy
     Manchin
     Markey
     McCaskill
     McConnell
     Menendez
     Merkley
     Mikulski
     Murphy
     Murray
     Nelson
     Peters
     Portman
     Reed
     Reid
     Sanders
     Schatz
     Schumer
     Shaheen
     Stabenow
     Tester
     Udall
     Warner
     Warren
     Whitehouse
     Wyden

                                NAYS--43

     Alexander
     Barrasso
     Blunt
     Boozman
     Burr
     Capito
     Cassidy
     Coats
     Corker
     Cornyn
     Cotton
     Crapo
     Daines
     Enzi
     Ernst
     Fischer
     Gardner
     Grassley
     Heller
     Hoeven
     Inhofe
     Isakson
     Lankford
     Lee
     McCain
     Moran
     Murkowski
     Paul
     Perdue
     Risch
     Roberts
     Rounds
     Rubio
     Sasse
     Scott
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Sullivan
     Thune
     Tillis
     Toomey
     Vitter
     Wicker

                             NOT VOTING--1

       
     Cruz
       
  The nomination was confirmed.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. As a reminder, expressions of approval or 
disapproval are not permitted from the gallery.
  The majority leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the motion 
to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the 
President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I appreciate the majority leader making the 
usual request that the President be notified, but I have a sneaky 
suspicion the President knows what the final vote was.

                          ____________________