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Floor Speech
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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, as my colleague Senator Schiff from California has just so powerfully stated, we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis--a crisis that would have been unimaginable just weeks ago, a crisis that involves a President disobeying the law.
Now, Presidents in the past have disobeyed the law. They have sought to test the boundaries of their power, and the courts have blocked them. But never has a President violated so many significant laws and the Constitution so rapidly, so repeatedly, that we are, as Senator Schiff said, lost in the chaos. And it falls to the arbiters of law-- our courts--but it is also incumbent on the enforcers of the law.
Any of us who have served in the Department of Justice--I was U.S. attorney for Connecticut for 4\1/2\ years--knows that the most important decisions that any prosecutor, any law enforcer makes is whether to uphold the rule of law and sometimes say no to an FBI agent who is too enthusiastic about a case and wants to indict someone who could not be convicted, a public official who is close personally or politically and has overstepped their powers or ethics. To be fair, independent, objective, to be completely impartial, and to uphold the rule of law is the first duty of anyone in the U.S. Department of Justice.
I have more than respect, I have reverence for the Department of Justice, and that is why I am so deeply disappointed that we are here tonight for the nomination of Pam Bondi.
The Attorney General of the United States of America is supposed to be the people's lawyer, not the President's. Donald Trump has said he wants the Attorney General to be his Roy Cohn, his fixer, his personal attorney.
Well, Ms. Bondi said she would be the people's lawyer, but that claim is betrayed by almost everything else she said and, most importantly, what she would not say.
Here is what she would not say. She would not say that she would say no to the President when he asked her to do something illegal or immoral. She dodged that question. She would not say that she was wrong for spreading lies about fraud and cheating in Pennsylvania during the 2020 election. She dodged that question, too. She would not say that President Biden won the 2020 election or that President Trump lost. She ducked it.
Now, the issue of whether President Trump asked his Attorney General to do something illegal or immoral is not a hypothetical. It is not abstruse or abstract. It is real. We know it is real because every one of his past Attorneys General ran afoul of Donald Trump because they would not do something illegal or immoral--our colleague Jeff Sessions, Bill Barr. No matter how good their intention, nobody can talk Donald Trump out of what he wants to do, and the law is no concern, nor is the lawyer. He will get lawyers to do whatever he wants, and Pam Bondi was reassuring--very reassuring--to one person--Donald Trump--when she dodged those questions because what he wants is a loyalist, a sycophant, an acolyte, and he wants a puppet to do his bidding.
The American people need a lawyer at this moment in history, at this point of constitutional crisis, who will truly speak truth to power. We use that phrase all the time, ``speak truth to power,'' but in this instance, it is the essence of what an Attorney General has to do at this moment in our history. And Donald Trump doesn't want to hear the truth. As much power as he has, he wants to hear an Attorney General tell him: Fine to go ahead. You have the green light.
If Pam Bondi thinks she won't face that same dilemma that Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions did and every other lawyer who has worked for Donald Trump has faced, she is either delusional or disingenuous--delusional or disingenuous. For me, both are disqualifying for this job. And she can't even pass that low bar of saying she could say no. Her answer is: Oh, well, he would never do anything like that. He is my friend.
As we are here tonight, the Trump Justice Department is reported to be preparing to purge hundreds or even thousands of FBI agents or other personnel in the Department of Justice for nothing more than doing their jobs. These agents were assigned to criminal cases involving Donald Trump. They didn't leap forward. They didn't volunteer. They were assigned, and, like FBI agents do, they took the assignment. Now they will pay a price in their careers unjustly, unfairly, and unwisely because it will deter other FBI agents from doing their job when it comes to drug cases or terrorism cases.
We have heard also that assistant U.S. attorneys are being reassigned from drug cases and terrorism cases so that they can do immigration. We are hearing that career civil servants must be loyal to Donald Trump in this Department of Justice--well, to Donald Trump and to them.
We all know something fundamental in this body--that we swear an oath. The lowliest private in the U.S. Army or the Navy or the Marine Corps or the Air Force takes an oath. They raise their right hand, just as we do. Anybody in the Cabinet takes that oath, and they swear allegiance, but it isn't to the President, and it isn't to the government; it is to the Constitution. That is what is at risk here. That is what Pam Bondi cannot do in good conscience if she is confirmed because her allegiance will be to Donald Trump.
The purge of agents and the reassignment and retribution of others not only damages morale, the effectiveness of the Department of Justice, it undermines the rule of law.
The Attorney General--perhaps chief among Presidential appointees--is responsible for making good on the constitutional promise that no man or no woman is above the law, that we have no king in the United States. We are no longer a monarchy. We can no longer ask a billionaire to rummage through the files of the Department of Treasury that have information about the Presiding Officer and every one of us who serves in this body and almost every American because we all pay taxes; we all have Social Security; we get tax refunds. Veterans get disability benefits. Almost anything the U.S. Government does creates a record in the Treasury Department, and all that information is being read and scanned and now collected. That is the news of the day.
More bad news about Elon Musk. Who is going to stop Elon Musk when he is doing something illegal and immoral? It won't be Pam Bondi because she is Donald Trump's lawyer. That is a real and present danger for every one of us in this country.
After I was U.S. attorney in Connecticut--I was the attorney general of my State for 20 years. In that job, also, I took an oath to the Constitution of the United States as a State official, as well as to the constitution of the State of Connecticut. It isn't an abstract notion; it is what we all do. If she is confirmed, maybe Pam Bondi will be able to raise her right hand and recite after whoever is administering the oath, but it will not be an oath she is capable of keeping.
And so on this critically important vote for our country, I don't think there is a Cabinet officer more important at this moment in our history. I urge my colleagues to say no to this nomination.
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