-9999

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, in a moment, we will begin the process of confirming four outstanding new judges to the bench in the State of Missouri. This has been a long road for my State. We have waited a long time to have these four vacancies filled, and I am absolutely delighted that in just a few moments, we will begin to fill them. And I want to thank President Trump for nominating four truly outstanding individuals to these roles: Josh Divine, who is the current solicitor general of the State of Missouri and whom I had the privilege of having serve on my staff as my chief counsel, among other roles, for a number of years; Judge Cris Stevens, who is currently serving the Missouri State courts with distinction; Maria Lanahan, who is serving the Missouri Attorney General's Office even now; and Zachary Bluestone, who is a Federal prosecutor in the State of Missouri. Each of these four individuals will soon take his or her place on the Federal bench and I am confident will be a great credit not just to my State but to the United States, where I hope they will serve as Federal judges for a very long time to come.

I want to say just a brief word about each of them. I want to start with Josh Divine, whom we will be voting on here just shortly. Josh currently serves as Missouri's solicitor general, and before that, as I said, he served here in the Senate as my chief counsel. In fact, I have had the opportunity to work with Josh on a number of occasions. I first hired him to the Missouri Attorney General's Office when I was attorney general, and he was just a young deputy. He served there and then came to the Senate and served on my staff and clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court, then came back here to the Senate as my chief counsel and then back to the State of Missouri.

Josh's record as solicitor general of Missouri is truly exceptional. He has argued--litigated--numerous cases in our State courts and Federal courts, from the trial court level all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, and here is the thing that really strikes me about Josh's record. If you total up his courtroom victories for Missouri, the dollar amounts that he has won on behalf of the State of Missouri, you won't believe the total. It is $725 billion--billion--in successful judgments on behalf of the people of Missouri. That includes a successful lawsuit against the Chinese Communist Party for their role in the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent coverup and the many harms that it caused to the people of Missouri.

This is a very successful litigator. This is a very successful trial lawyer, a very successful appellate lawyer, and he is going to make an absolutely outstanding judge on the Federal bench for the State of Missouri.

I want to share just one personal story about Josh that I think illustrates his character more even than his win record does. You know, just a few years ago in the midst of an intense period of work for the State of Missouri, Josh and his family were taking a brief vacation, and he was catastrophically injured in a skiing accident that left him unable to walk. In fact, for a number of days, doctors feared for his life. I remember getting the call; people saying that, you know, Josh Divine has been seriously, seriously injured. We don't know if he is going to live.

He lived, thank God, and then they told him: You may or may not walk again. Do you know, over a period of months that followed, Josh set himself to regaining, with 100 percent confidence, his ability to walk. And I remember talking to him while he was yet in intensive care and then in the hospital for a long period of time and seeing the pictures of him propped up there in his bed already back to work for the State of Missouri, with his briefs around him, his laptop in front of him, writing briefs, on calls, trying to direct motions, argue them, if possible, over the phone. It was incredible.

And what he did then for a period of months after that is he taught himself to walk again. You will see him, I am sure, walking in and out of the courthouse soon in his new role on the bench. He has regained, with 100 percent capacity, his ability to walk, and it really is a testament to his determination, to his grit, to his faith, and also to his family.

Who really deserves the praise here is his exceptional wife Elizabeth, mother of six children with Josh. I think a seventh is on the way. They are an incredible family. They are an incredible couple. They have already served the State of Missouri with distinction, and I know Josh is going to continue to serve the State with distinction for years to come.

Judge Cris Stevens is such an exceptional jurist, and I know that my good friend and colleague Senator Schmitt will have more to say about him in just a moment. They worked very closely together, and Judge Stevens, as I said, is already serving the State with distinction on the State bench. We look forward to having him on the Federal bench for many years to come.

And Maria Lanahan and Zach Bluestone both have rendered distinguished--distinguished--service to the State of Missouri; in Maria's case, in the Missouri Attorney General's Offices, arguing cases for the State, winning judgments for the State; and Zach Bluestone, a Federal prosecutor who has been prosecuting violent crimes, going after child sex abusers, and taking the worst of the worst off of our streets in the State of Missouri. He is an exceptional Federal prosecutor. He is going to be an exceptional Federal judge.

As we come to the end of what has been a long road, to be honest, for these judicial nominations in the State of Missouri, I just couldn't be more grateful. And I want to end by how I began by thanking President Trump for his exceptional leadership, thanking him for choosing these four outstanding individuals who I know are going to make the State of Missouri proud. They are going to make the United States proud, and in just a few minutes here, I look forward to casting the first vote to begin this process to seeing them on the Federal bench.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source