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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the confirmation of four pending U.S. attorney nominations.

Currently, in the United States, we have 85 U.S. attorneys. There are several from my State, and depending on your population, it really indicates how many numbers you have. Those U.S. attorney nominations are filled by the incumbent President of the United States. Recommendations are made to the U.S. Senate, and we advise and consent on those nominations. After examinations of their backgrounds, we vote on these individuals to become U.S. attorneys.

Now, we have an agreement that has endured for a number of Presidents over a number of years which says that these will be fairly routine--in fact, very routine. The fact is that each one of the U.S. attorney nominations goes through a review by the Senate Judiciary Committee, by both Democrats and Republicans, and if they pass that review without controversy, they move to the floor for a vote.

To give you an idea of how that works for the Members on the other side who are relatively new to the Senate, when President Donald Trump made nominations of U.S. attorneys, he made 85 nominations. Each one of those nominations came to the floor of the U.S. Senate, and they were approved by voice vote, unanimous consent. In other words, not even a rollcall was required. It was the routine approval of U.S. attorneys' nominations in a situation where a body like the Senate would have a majority of Democrats but approve a nomination from a Republican President by voice vote--no controversy moving forward.

Why is it even important to fill these vacancies? Because these 85 U.S. attorneys are literally the people who implement the policies of the Department of Justice. If the Department of Justice of the United States decides that we are going to have a serious effort under a President to go after fentanyl, for example, or narcotics, for example, or some crimewave in another area, it is the U.S. attorney who runs the play. He is the quarterback in that U.S. attorney's district. So these turn out to be fairly critical.

Some of us stayed up late last night to watch the debate, and in that debate, there was a discussion of crime in the United States and what we were going to do to stop it. Well, both of the candidates-- regardless of party--would be in favor of reducing crime. I am assuming that every one of my colleagues who is on the floor now and wishes to speak would put themselves in the same category. We want to stop crime in our States and in our country, and we rely on the Department of Justice to do that. The one who leads the effort in each and every State is the U.S. attorney.

In this circumstance, we have four nominees for U.S. attorney who have been waiting patiently for the approval of the U.S. Senate. On seven previous occasions, I have requested unanimous consent--the same process that was followed with every single one of Donald Trump's U.S. attorneys. I requested unanimous consent of the Senate to take up and confirm law enforcement nominees nominated by President Joseph Biden. Each and every time, the junior Senator from Ohio--now running for Vice President of the United States--has objected.

I asked him on many occasions when we came to the floor and raised this question: What objection do you have to this U.S. attorney nominee?

He said at the time: I don't have any objection to this nominee. I object to the Department of Justice, and I want to stop U.S. attorneys from being appointed nationwide.

Communities across America desperately need their top Federal prosecutors in place. U.S. attorneys lead the Nation's effort to prosecute violent criminals and protect our communities from violent crime, child exploitation, terrorism, and much more. The U.S. Attorney's Offices in the four districts I am talking about today are no exception.

I just left a meeting this morning. We gathered about 40 or 50 leaders from across the United States to talk about child trafficking. Child trafficking, of course, is a Federal crime, prosecuted by the Department of Justice in each and every one of our States where it happens. I can't think of a more awful situation for a person to live through as those this morning who talked about what they lived through before the prosecution took place and the person was removed from the State. I would not want to play political games with those nominations.

Those U.S. attorneys do critical work in each and every State. We felt that way under President Trump, and that is why we allowed his U.S. attorney nominees to move forward by voice vote. I think President Biden is entitled to the same treatment.

The entire Nation has been impacted by the opioid epidemic. Ohio is one of the States that has been hit the hardest. In 2023, nearly 4,500 Ohio residents died from accidental drug overdoses. This story can be told over and over in State after State. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio can focus her attention on combating this drug crisis with the DEA's Operation Overdrive. This operation is set up at a location in Toledo due to the city's ``copious violent crimes, including homicides, shootings, assaults, and drug overdoses.''

We are talking about serious prosecutions and a team of effective professionals to fight them, not just in Ohio or in Illinois but around the Nation. Instead, this nomination--one of them today which I am suggesting, the nomination of Rebecca Lutzko--has languished for more than a year because of the objection of the junior Senator from Ohio. It may have helped that Senator to make that decision for some other reason, but it certainly doesn't help the fighting of crime in his home State to have a vacancy in this office. He is harming Americans and undermining public safety across the country for reasons I can't explain.

The Senate has a long history of confirming U.S. attorney nominees as I said. We have done it by unanimous consent. We have made it fairly routine, as it should be. All 85 of President Donald Trump's nominees for U.S. attorney were filled by unanimous consent. The Senate has a long history of following that practice. Before President Biden took office, the last time the Senate required a rollcall on a U.S. attorney was in 1975--49 years ago. You have to go back 49 years to find an objection to a U.S. attorney nominee.

At the beginning of a new Presidential administration, it is customary for the U.S. attorney to step down and for the new President to select replacements. That is why, during the Trump administration, we moved so many so quickly. Senate Democrats allowed every single one of President Trump's nominees to be confirmed by unanimous consent, many of whom we would not have personally selected, but it is just as a courtesy to a new President to fill the vacancy. It wouldn't have been fair or realistic to force the Senate to debate and vote on every single one of these nominees. Each one of these votes is a process which eats up several days of the calendar. We already do that for nominations for the Federal bench. It would not have been fair or realistic to expect it for U.S. attorneys. So we respected the then- President. We respected our colleagues, and we respected the need for the Senate to have confirmed leadership in the U.S. Attorney's Office.

We put public safety and the needs of law enforcement ahead of politics. We have done it always when it has come to U.S. attorneys until now. The Senator from Indiana and some of his colleagues have set an unfortunate standard. They are putting us on a path to require cloture and confirmation votes on every U.S. attorney nominee. Talk about a waste of time. That would be a terrible waste of time. This is entirely unsustainable, which is something everyone here knows.

Without Senate-confirmed leadership for U.S. attorneys, public safety will suffer across the United States. Candidates cannot vote to delay these nominations and then stand up and say they are for law and order, and they want to fight crime. We shouldn't be playing politics. I don't know the reason behind this--I believe it is entirely political--but I hope my colleagues will think twice about it. What we do to one another will likely be revisited and become a precedent in the Senate to the detriment of everyone.

These highly qualified nominees that I nominate today--the four of them--have the strong support of their home State Senators, including of several members of the Republican caucus. If President Biden has been accused of misuse of the Justice Department, we shouldn't take that out on these individuals who are competent and qualified to keep us safe.

Until we confirm them, law enforcement agencies in Iowa, Massachusetts, and Ohio will be stymied in their ability to fight crime.

Don't be giving a speech that says ``I want to have a real assault on crime in my State or my district'' and then turn around and stop the prosecutor from being appointed who has that job. Otherwise, that would be a temporary appointment, and the effort cannot be as effective as it might be. That is a loss to the Nation, and it creates a danger to the people living in that particular State.

544, 545, 604, and 605--those are the nominations of Matthew Gannon to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, Rebecca Lutzo to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, Joshua Levy to serve as U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts, and David Waterman to serve as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without any intervening action or debate; that if confirmed, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate resume legislative session.

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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President.

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Mr. DURBIN. Did you hear that? The Department of Justice is too partisan. The Department of Justice is too partisan. It is interesting to note that two of the prosecutions of Donald Trump are not even starting at the Department of Justice. They come from State prosecutions in the States of Georgia and New York, not Washington.

So these nominees for U.S. attorney are being held up because of decisions made by some other prosecutor in another State? Apparently, that is the case in this situation.

I just have to say that at least in one of the prosecutions in New York, they have been successful in bringing a case against the former President and convicting him of felony counts--34, if I am not mistaken. So there is some merit to it that goes beyond any question of intrigue in Washington, DC.

Let me also add that, as far as I can tell, this Department of Justice has tried to take a reasonable position to avoid conflicts of interest. In this circumstance, we have a special attorney who is appointed to prosecute the President's own son--the President's own son--this Department of Justice, which is being accused of being partisan in this situation. There is no precedent for that in history. It is a clear effort by the Biden administration to deal fairly with a painful situation personally.

Well, you look at this and you say: Well, what point have colleagues made today?

What is the net result of this? It means that crimes that are being committed or allegedly being committed in these States are not going to be prosecuted as aggressively as they should.

Don't give me a speech about wanting law and order and safety in community and then turn around and say: To make a political point, we are going to stop sending prosecutors to these areas. It is inconsistent, it doesn't follow, and it is unfortunate.

I am sorry, for these four individuals who are worthy candidates to be U.S. attorneys, that this happened today. It has happened before.

It is a sad day if this is going to be a new precedent, that any President coming in a new term is going to face this kind of an obstacle course for the routine appointment of individuals to enforce the law across the United States. We will not be a safer nation because of this political strategy.

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