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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, shortly, Senate Republicans will confirm the nomination of Pam Bondi to serve as Attorney General and lead the Department of Justice in the new administration.

Yesterday, I came to the Senate floor to discuss the Trump administration's decision to purge Department of Justice officials and warned that Ms. Bondi's record suggests that she will aid in this effort to pack the Department of Justice with loyalists seeking retribution against President Trump's political rivals.

Since the Watergate era, there has been bipartisan support for the principle that the Department of Justice investigations and prosecutions must be independent from the White House. Over the years, both Republicans and Democrats have asked many individuals seeking the office of Attorney General one basic question: Will you be willing to tell the President no?

Given that Ms. Bondi, when speaking about President Trump's criminal indictments, threatened ``the prosecutors will be prosecuted, and the investigators will be investigated,'' I have serious doubts about her willingness to really say no to this President.

This concern is even more pressing because, over the last 16 days, the Trump administration has purged dozens of senior career law enforcement officials at the Department of Justice and at the FBI. This purge has been particularly focused on dedicated, nonpartisan prosecutors and investigators working in the National Security Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On its first day, the Trump administration removed or reassigned as many as 20 experienced professionals with invaluable national security expertise, without any comparable replacements, including the veteran career Deputy Assistant Attorneys General in the National Security Division. These are men and women we have entrusted with the responsibility to keep America safe. They were summarily dismissed by this new President just days into his administration. Those who have been reassigned are reportedly being put in roles concerning immigration enforcement, for which they have little expertise.

We had a hearing this morning about fentanyl and talked about some 70,000 Americans each year losing their lives to this terrible drug. We are all concerned and expressed it at this hearing. But some of the very people who are working in drug enforcement are going to be removed and put into mass deportation of immigrants.

We have said over and over again that if the President is setting out to do what he promised he would do, he needs more personnel to get it done or he will have to cut back invaluable functions of our law enforcement community at the risk of endangering the families and businesses in America.

Since that warning, dozens more senior officials have been removed. At the FBI, at least six FBI Executive Assistant Directors, or EADs, have been removed, including the EADs who oversee the National Security Branch, Intelligence Branch, and the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch. The Trump administration has also removed special agents in charge of at least four major field offices and the Assistant Director of the Washington Field Office.

The Acting Attorney General has also issued a memo firing dozens of career DOJ prosecutors, stating:

Given your significant role in prosecuting the President, I do not believe that the leadership at the Department can trust you . . . in implementing the President's agenda faithfully.

The Trump administration has even asked line attorneys and agents to retire, resign, or be fired simply for handling tasks linked to the investigation of President Trump or prosecution of his misconduct.

The Acting FBI Director informed the entire FBI workforce that he was reviewing the files of ``all current and former FBI personnel assigned at any time to investigations and/or prosecutions'' relating to January 6 and unrelated terrorism cases.

Mr. President, if you are a student of history, you know that when the communists took over the Soviet Union, one of the things that they gloried in doing was rewriting history, trying to make the bad chapters, the embarrassing chapters, the sad chapters different so that future generations never were really quite sure what happened. That is exactly what is going on with January 6, 2021.

Despite the graphic video evidence of what happened on that day when this insurrectionist mob tried to take control of this Capitol and stop the transfer of power from Donald Trump to Joseph Biden--despite the clear evidence to the contrary, they continue to believe that this is a hoax, that somehow these were just tourists coming by the Capitol. Those of us who were there, those of us who remember the danger that was brought by these mobsters and thugs, know that is a lie.

Now they are going through the Department of Justice and saying: If you were involved in prosecuting any of these people who beat up on the policemen in this building, tore down the structures, broke the windows; if you were involved in any prosecution involving them, you are not welcome at the Department of Justice.

They want to rewrite history. They want future generations to believe the lie that they have perpetrated about what happened on that day. Those of us who were there will never forget what actually did happen.

The interim U.S. attorney for DC also ordered an internal review of staff handling cases relating to January 6, moved to dismiss all pending charges against those defendants, and has already fired dozens of prosecutors and investigators who worked those cases.

The people who were spared by the pardon of Donald Trump include individuals who are dangerous. One had a record of 38 convictions for crimes, and they are now back out on the street.

Over the past weekend, thousands of FBI personnel across the country were told to complete a questionnaire that asked a series of questions about their involvement in the prosecution and investigation of January 6.

This shameless partisan retribution is only the beginning. It has been reported that future FBI Director Kash Patel, if he is chosen by the Senate, will be guided by an advisory committee composed of solely partisan political operators, including an associate of Elon Musk's. Elon Musk. Who elected him? By what authority does he have any voice in the administration of our government? Why should he or his minions have access to the private records of American citizens? It is happening.

These actions will cripple FBI field offices and U.S. attorneys offices across the country by increasing the caseload for the remaining agents, dramatically slowing down critical investigations and prosecutions.

The Trump Department of Justice is taking this partisanship beyond the President's personal grievances, as many as there may be. They are already dropping criminal investigations against the President's allies, such as Congressman Andy Ogles. They also have begun systemically stripping the Department of Justice of vital, substantive expertise by reducing personnel from the law and policy sections of various divisions, such as the Environment and Natural Resources Division, which pursues polluters who poison our communities.

As America faces a heightened threat landscape, these shocking removals and reassignments of hundreds of employees deprive the Department of Justice and FBI of experienced leadership and decades of experience fighting violent crime, espionage, and terrorism.

For years, my Republican colleagues claimed they ``back the blue'' and accused Democrats of being soft on crime. We heard it over and over and over. But now, as President Trump is gutting our Nation's law enforcement Agencies and putting our national security at risk, my Republican colleagues do not complain. They are nowhere to be found.

Instead of condemning these actions, they will likely come to the Senate floor tonight and confirm an individual to lead the Department of Justice who is in lockstep with this policy of President Trump and was chosen for the role specifically because she is loyal. More than anything else, she is loyal.

I urge my colleagues to consider what a danger President Trump and Pam Bondi present to this Nation. I will oppose her confirmation and hope my colleagues will do the same.

I will also say letters went out today asking for further hearings on Kash Patel. I have been reading his response to the questions for the record--QFR--and I can tell you, they raise more questions than they answer. He has an attitude. To think this man will be in charge of 38,000 FBI agents and personnel, 400 field offices across the Nation and around the world, is going to have the authority to investigate those whom he chooses, is a frightening thing. His message in politics is ``get even.''

I read his book. It is called ``Government Gangsters.'' This book, in specific detail, talks about his view of politics. He has a long list of grievances, political and personal, and he plans to get even. That is not the kind of person we need in charge of the FBI. He has no experience to point to of any significance which qualifies him for this job.

We have had many Directors of the FBI chosen for long periods of time because of our change in the law. We now have a 10-year period of service for the Director of the FBI, and we also do our best to make sure they are apolitical since they bridge various administrations, not just one or two. That is part of the law, and that is the reason we did it.

Now we are going to put a man in that position who has no experience, no background, and a political chip on his shoulder. I am afraid that is just a recipe for disaster.

I urge my colleagues to think twice about Pam Bondi and Kash Patel. This is not what we should expect or want from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice.
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