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Floor Speech

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Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam President, in the months leading up to the 2020 election, Joe Biden distanced himself from the far-left wing of the Democratic Party and pitched himself as a moderate, and for the most part, the media happily played along right until day 1 of the Biden administration--when Joe Biden handed the reins to the most radical slate of nominees this country has ever seen.

The Democrats claim that this administration is transformative, but that is not what Tennesseans believe. All they see is a President who is not in control of his government and a host of unelected bureaucrats on a mission to rip apart this country and to rebuild it in their image. That is the kind of transformation they are carrying out in this country.

This complete disregard for the American people was on display last week during Attorney General Merrick Garland's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It became clear to me from listening to his testimony and reviewing his tenure as our Attorney General that he has truly created a two-tiered system of justice in this country--two systems of justice, two different types of investigations.

Now, under these two separate tiers of investigations and response and justice, there is one standard that applies to people of faith, to parents, to conservatives--really, the heartland of America--and then there is a separate standard for the liberal political elite--people who are after power, people who want to control your life.

Since the Dobbs opinion leak, violence and threats of violence have increased among far-left groups but not among pro-life and conservative groups. Still, the Garland DOJ has targeted pro-life advocates for investigation, prosecution, and even full-scale FBI raids. Let me give you some examples of this. Over 70 pro-life pregnancy centers have been targeted by leftwing activists; yet only 2 individuals have been indicted. Compare that with 25 pro-life advocates indicted under the FACE Act just in the last 5 months.

The Attorney General has been keeping very close tabs on the pro-life community. As I said, there are 25 who are being prosecuted while only 2 are being prosecuted after having carried out 70 acts of vandalism against pro-life pregnancy centers and churches. But he is watching this pro-life community very closely, so I admit I was a little taken aback when he claimed in his testimony that he was completely unaware of a widely reported attack on a crisis pregnancy center in Nashville.

The far-left abortion advocacy group Jane's Revenge appears to have claimed responsibility for the fire-bombing attempt on the Hope Clinic for Women, but the Attorney General is still unwilling to classify this group as a domestic terrorist organization. You heard me right. They fire-bombed a pro-life pregnancy center--a center there to help women with healthcare, to provide diapers for newborns, formula for babies. This group, Jane's Revenge--they were so proud of their work that they spray-painted their name on the walls and took credit for it.

Now, Mr. Garland likes to throw around the label ``domestic terrorist'' when it comes to parents who are concerned about what their children are being taught in school, but he will not use it to condemn far-left radicals who attempt to burn down a crisis pregnancy center. The American public should find this appalling and completely unacceptable. Tennesseans find this unacceptable.

It is also unacceptable that he won't enforce the Federal law that explicitly prohibits protesters from intimidating our Supreme Court Justices. That is right--there is a Federal statute against this, but he is not prosecuting these individuals. Five Justices and their families have endured unimaginable harassment from the constant protesting outside of their private homes. One Justice has even fallen victim to an assassination attempt, but no one--not one, zero, no one-- has been indicted or prosecuted. This is a Federal crime. It is a law on the books.

This is two tiers of justice at work. The American people can see this, and when I am at home in Tennessee, I hear a lot about this. It doesn't matter what side of the political spectrum someone sits on. I hear complaints about this two tiers of justice from Republicans, Democrats, Independents. The reason you do is that people know, sometimes when you establish such a precedent, that it leads to areas you don't want to go and seeing that continue. We are a nation of laws that believes in the rule of law.

Here are more examples of this two tiers of justice. Pro-life advocates are being targeted for prosecution and arrest while far-left, pro-abortion radicals are free to commit violence in our communities. Concerned parents are labeled domestic terrorists. Our Supreme Court Justices, who are subject to relentless protests outside of their homes, are not being protected, and there is not a bit of concern from the country's chief law enforcement officer. I ask you, does that sound like normal conduct to you? Of course not.

It was, as Chairman Durbin said after another recent meeting of the Judiciary Committee, a rough hearing.

Conditions weren't much better over in the Commerce Committee last week, where my Republican colleagues and I truly struggled to see why President Biden had nominated someone with only a year and a half of aviation experience to lead the FAA. That is right--a year and a half of aviation experience to lead our Federal Aviation Administration. Phil Washington's only relevant experience amounts to a year-and-a-half stint at the Denver Airport. He is totally unqualified to lead an Agency that is desperate for true leadership.

The FAA's main mission is to protect and ensure the safety of the flying public, but instead of prioritizing safety, what has Mr. Washington chosen to prioritize in Denver? Well, Mr. Washington's goal is to enshrine diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at the Federal level.

During his hearing, I asked him why he included DEI policies in Denver Airport's procurement process. That is right--procurement. The FAA's current process, which is already terribly long and convoluted, would nearly collapse under the effects of a DEI mandate, but Mr. Washington made it clear he believes that, while the FAA should, indeed, focus on problems like the NOTAM incident and making sure planes don't crash into each other, he would redirect needed attention toward a controversial and unpopular, woke crusade that would do nothing to improve the safety of the flying public.

The administration needs to go back to the drawing board and send the Senate a nominee with true aviation safety experience.

Unfortunately, a lack of experience was the least of our concerns in the case of another Biden nominee who moved through the Senate last week. On Thursday, the Finance Committee voted to advance the nomination of Danny Werfel to be Commissioner of the IRS.

The IRS has a long history of doing whatever it decides it wants to do, from the Lois Lerner scandal, which Mr. Werfel is very familiar with, to last year when the IRS decided to destroy 30 million taxpayer documents--something we only know about because the Treasury's inspector general alerted us. The IRS did not alert Congress.

The IRS has been out of control for too long, and the fact that we have seen this Agency move forward on a so-called transformative agenda without a confirmed Commissioner in charge is proof that in this administration--you have people in that White House who are not sending forward nominees who have the relevant experience and who are qualified to do the job to which they are being appointed.

While I commend Mr. Werfel for being willing to serve our country, his responses during the confirmation hearing and the information he submitted in writing did little to inspire confidence in his willingness to take back control of this Agency.

Tennesseans have serious concerns about how the IRS plans to use that $80 billion blank check that the Democrats gave them this year. They know that under the current regime, this will lead to more audits and more harassment not of big corporations but of--guess what--small businesses, gig economy workers, and Main Street merchants. Meanwhile, taxpayers are sitting ducks for hackers and other bad actors who have found it far too easy to access and steal data from the IRS's own systems.

The American people are entitled to know how any nominee, asking to lead this Agency, will approach the job. The last thing they want to be told is, well, just wait and see.

And there you have it--1 week of damage and disregard for the American people, courtesy of President Joe Biden and the Senate Democrats.

There is only one way that the Biden administration will be able to earn back the confidence of the American people, and that is to start respecting the norms and institutions that our great Nation is built upon. This will require everyone from the President on down to discipline themselves and show the same common sense that Tennesseans show every day as they stretch their budgets to try to deal with high inflation, the prices at the grocery store, and the price at the pump as they try to work through dealing with crime in their communities courtesy of the gangs coming in over the southern border and with drugs running into our communities-- again, coming over that open southern border.

I am not optimistic that President Biden and the Democrats are going to buckle down and be serious about securing our border and about bringing forward nominees who are competent and ready to serve in this administration or judges who have the relevant experience to serve on a Federal bench, but I welcome the Democrats to buckle down, get serious, and take governing seriously. Let's make certain that they bring forward people who are going to do the job with respect for the American people.

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