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Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, first, I thank the Senator from Connecticut Senator Blumenthal. He brings a level of expertise and experience to the Judiciary Committee and the Senate that is really unmatched. He has been a friend and a faithful participant in this process and in all the time I have served with him. I thank him for bringing us together this evening.

Mr. President, last Friday, I was in Chicago for the formal ceremonial investiture of a new Federal district court judge named April Perry.

April Perry has an interesting story that brought her to the bench. The story starts with her nomination to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, which includes the city of Chicago. She was extremely well-qualified for that position and went through the Judiciary Committee--at the time, I was chairing it--and went through without a hitch. She was approved and on the list of U.S. attorneys.

Now, historically, U.S. attorneys were chosen by voice vote. When President Trump was in his first term in office, I believe he had around 90 U.S. attorneys spread all across the United States, and all but one, perhaps--I am trying to make sure I am accurate here--all but one was approved by voice vote.

Now, look at what happens: To bring a U.S. attorney before us is a much different process today.

What happened?

The Democrats gave President Trump all of his U.S. attorney nominees in his first term, with perhaps one exception, by voice vote. Now, it goes through an elaborate, time-consuming process. What happened?

The Vice President of the United States happened.

Vice President JD Vance, from the State of Ohio, decided to come to the floor during the Biden administration, after we had approved 63 U.S. attorneys, and to object to a voice vote. Now, he said, we are going to go through the regular process. I don't like the way the Department of Justice has treated the former President--at the time, Donald Trump. So we are going to insist you dot all the i's and cross all the t's and go through the process and take several days on each one of the U.S. attorney nominees.

He made that decision after 63 had been approved under Biden, and he made it when April Perry was pending. This was her chance--the Northern District of Illinois--and JD Vance said: No, not the ordinary process, not a voice vote. We are going to take our time.

He applied the standard not just to my U.S. attorney in Illinois but to his own U.S. attorney in Cleveland, OH. He was resolute: We are going to stop the way this has been done in the past.

That was literally the end of the consideration of U.S. attorneys under Joe Biden. If that was his goal--JD Vance's goal, the Vice President's goal--he achieved it.

So what happened next to April Perry, a wonderfully qualified nominee running for U.S. attorney? Well, we sat down and decided that we didn't want to waste that talent. I went to her and said: Would you consider the vacancy for U.S. district court that is open now? You have gone through the vetting. You have gone through the background checks. The FBI has asked all the hard questions. They interviewed all the attorneys you have worked with. Everyone finds you acceptable. Would you consider the Federal bench?

And she said: Yes.

And she was approved. We had her formal investiture this last Friday.

Those are happy occasions, and there aren't many of them, I am sure, in the Federal courthouse--at least not of this caliber.

District Court Judge Virginia Kendall, who is the presiding judge over the Northern District, called together her colleagues to witness this investiture, this happy day for a judge, April Perry. She brought in about 30 Federal district court judges from the Northern District and a number from the ninth district--or the seventh district--of the appellate court. And it dawned on me, as I attended this ceremony for April Perry, that this has turned out to be an important part of my Senate career.

If you would have asked me when I ran for the Senate, ``What about the appointment of judges?'' I would have said, ``Well, that is fairly routine.'' It turns out it is not. It is more than routine. It is one of the more important things you do because the men and women chosen to serve in the Federal court system, article III judges, are appointed for life--for life. To remove them, you have to go through an impeachment through Congress to remove a Federal court judge. That is how important it is. That is how permanent it is--the permanent nature of it--and that is why each selection makes a difference.

I looked at the 30 or so judges that gathered and realized I had a hand in appointing every single one of them and many others too.

And so you go through that process a number of times and you learn. I look back now on all of the district court judges that I have had a hand in choosing, and, I will tell you, for two or three, it was a mistake. If I had it to do over again, I would have asked more questions, and I would have had more information on those who were chosen. But that is over a span of 29 years--two to three. Those who were approved, dozens of others, have really done well, and they have been praised for the job that they did.

So when I was chairman of this committee--fortunate to have that opportunity--we approved, in a 4-year period of time, a record number of Federal court judges: 235.

President Trump, in his first term, had done 234. We passed him by one court judge, and I am proud of that because it was a lot of hard work.

In order to report a judge out of the Judiciary Committee, every single Democrat had to be in their seats for every minute of the vote. There was no proxy. You had to be there. And they showed up, and Senator Blumenthal was one of those. Senator Welch, who has joined us now, was in the Judiciary Committee. And I salute that.

Now, under the second term of President Trump, the rules are changing. They weren't very good in the first round, and they are worse now.

The first Trump administration put forward some of the most extreme judicial nominees ever considered by the Senate. Several Trump nominees had little or no experience in a courtroom--no litigation experience.

Would you hire a lawyer to take your case to trial if they had never been in a trial in their lives?

Three district court nominees--Kathryn Mizelle, Justin Walker, and Sarah Pitlyk won unanimous support from committee Republicans, despite having never tried a case.

Imagine you are going in a courtroom, you are presiding over a trial, and you have never seen one; you have never been in one. You may have seen one on television. You keep looking for Perry Mason and are wondering what is next.

That, unfortunately, was the reality with many of these nominees in Trump's first term. Many Trump nominees took some unusual--if not controversial, if not plain--wrong decisions.

Lawrence VanDyke was a Ninth Circuit nominee. We asked him to affirm that he would be fair--that he would be fair to LGBTQ individuals. He wouldn't say it. He just couldn't get the words out of his mouth.

Michael Truncale, an Eastern District of Texas nominee, said of President Obama that he was an ``un-American imposter.'' Those are the words of this man seeking the Federal bench about the former President. He said he would ``bow to Arab sheiks and other world leaders.''

Where did you find that nominee?

The first Trump administration put forward--get this now--10 judicial nominees whom the American Bar Association found to be ``not qualified'' to serve on the Federal bench--10 of them.

Well, what does the American Bar Association have to do with this?

Historically, the American Bar Association did its own background check on nominees for the Federal bench. Where would they go? Well, they would go in the community. They would go to the judges that this person has appeared before. They would go to their fellow attorneys. They would try to find character references, and they would dig deep.

They had some basic rules. You had to have 10 years of experience as an attorney to even be considered for the Federal bench, and then they rated people ``qualified,'' ``not qualified,'' ``well qualified,'' and such.

Over the strong objections of Senate Democrats, eight of the ``unqualified'' nominees proposed by President Trump, in his first term, were confirmed by Senate Republicans. So even when the American Bar Association says you are ``unqualified'' to serve on the bench, it didn't discourage the loyalists supporting President Trump.

Incidentally, under the Biden administration, 235 Federal judges--how many of them, Durbin--give us the truth here. How many of them were found ``unqualified''? None. Every one of the 235 were found ``qualified'' by the American Bar Association.

As the former chairman of the committee said, ``Elections have consequences,'' and I get it. So I understand that the second Trump administration is going to offer nominees closer to him in political philosophy. But President Trump seems intent on outdoing himself by putting forth nominees who are extreme, partisan, and fundamentally unqualified.

Instead of finding more qualified judicial nominees, Attorney General Bondi ordered the Justice Department to stop cooperating with the American Bar Association in rating nominees. She didn't want to run into the embarrassment that they did in the first Trump term, with 10 of them being found ``unqualified.''

So she said: The way to solve that problem is not to find a better nominee; it is to get rid of the American Bar Association. If they are not going to give grade to these nominees, we don't have to worry about them being ``unqualified.''

She overturned the practice that had been in place for nearly 70 years, going back to a fellow named Dwight David Eisenhower. Both Republican and Democratic Presidents have followed the rule. But, now, the only qualification President Trump looks for in his judicial nominees--and he says as much--is loyalty: Show me loyalty or get the heck off the bench.

Look no further than Emil Bove's nomination to the Third Circuit. As a senior official in the Justice Department, Mr. Bove has done nothing but cater to President Trump's every whim. It is no surprise that President Trump said he nominated Mr. Bove because he said he will ``do anything that is necessary to make America great again.''

For life--judge for life--show me loyalty, and you have got a position for life.

Mr. Bove personally ordered the termination of Federal prosecutors who put violent January 6 rioters in prison.

Understand what happened here. Men and women, professional attorneys working for the Department of Justice, were given assignments: We have a case we want you to pursue and prosecute. It is this individual. Here is the FBI background file. Go to work.

It turns out that these people who once had stormed through that door and went rifling through our desks and aped for photographs, sitting in your chair, Mr. President, on January 6--as a result of their entering this building, 5 Capitol policemen died, and 140 were assaulted.

Should they have been prosecuted? You bet. Beat up on a cop, and you should face the consequences. And they did it, on January 6, in the name of stopping the election the American people had been involved in just weeks before.

I was here, sitting in this chair, as the head of the Capitol Police stood where you are sitting, Mr. President, and told us all: Stay calm. Stay in your chairs. We are going to stay in this room. This is a safe room.

He just said: Stay in your seats.

They grabbed Vice President Pence, took him right out that door, and spirited him off somewhere. But they left us here.

Ten minutes later, the same policeman stood up and said: New announcement. Leave as quickly as possible. We cannot keep this room secure.

The Senate of the United States of America--the Capitol of the United States of America--was being run over by demonstrators and insurrectionists. They were beating up on the police, smashing their heads into the wall and between the door.

They were ultimately prosecuted for it. The prosecutors, the assistant U.S. attorneys who were doing this job, were treated in what way by President Trump when he got back in office? They were treated like they were the ones who broke the law. The prosecutors were accused of wrongdoing.

Well, it, unfortunately, is, in the words of Mr. Bove, a ``grave national injustice,'' he thinks it is, to prosecute these demonstrators. He is wrong.

Grave injustice is what happened to the police on that day. When asked to justify his actions in firing these U.S. attorneys who prosecuted these insurrectionists, Mr. Bove claimed ``heavy-handed tactics'' by prosecutors were ``equally unacceptable'' as physical violence against law enforcement. That is an outrageous and offensive statement by a man who wants to be a Federal judge for life at the second highest court in the land.

Since January 7, 2021, there has been an effort by the MAGA faithful to rewrite the history of January 6, but I witnessed it, and many others did as well.

The truth is this: The U.S. Capitol was violently attacked by insurrectionists intent on overturning the 2020 election results.

The truth is this: Five police officers died, and more than 140 were injured protecting this building, staff, the visitors, and Members of Congress.

Mr. Bove also led the Justice Department's efforts to strike a corrupt bargain with New York City mayor Eric Adams. This is an outrage, what he did. Mr. Bove stated that the charges would be dropped against Mayor Adams without prejudice so that Adams could ``devote full attention and resources to . . . illegal immigration and violent crime.'' In other words, President Trump needed Mayor Adams to do his bidding on his deportation policy.

In response, two staunch conservatives resigned from the Justice Department--Trump-appointed, interim U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon and lead prosecutor Hagan Scotten.

Mr. Scotten wrote to Mr. Bove a quote that will be famous for a long, long time. Mr. Blumenthal repeated it, but I want to say it as well. Mr. Scotten wrote to Mr. Bove, who wants a lifetime appointment to the bench, and said:

I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.

I don't know Mr. Scotten, but I will tell you, his words are persuasive and compelling.

If that wasn't enough, Mr. Bove showed utter disdain for our courts. A whistleblower stepped forward, gave his name, and risked his future to tell us what Mr. Bove had told to the attorneys working on the case against the insurrectionists. According to this credible whistleblower, who provided ample documentation to back up his claims, Mr. Bove told the Department of Justice attorneys that they might need to say ``f you'' to Federal courts that issue orders this administration doesn't agree with. That is the most dangerous comment that a person in a position of authority could make in the executive branch, that they will ignore the court orders that are issued against them.

Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Joshua Divine to the Federal bench-- 34 years old, received his law degree 9 years ago, litigated for 5 years. And beyond his troubling lack of experience, he has taken some extreme positions.

He calls himself a zealot. He calls himself a zealot when it comes to anti-choice. This zealotry has been on full display in his role as the Missouri solicitor general. He has challenged women's ability in his State to access the abortion drug mifepristone and has undermined the decision of Missouri voters to codify abortion access in their State constitution.

Also deeply troubling, Mr. Divine argued in favor of literacy tests at the ballot box, saying that people who ``aren't informed about issues or platforms . . . have no business voting.'' Where does that come from in America? Literacy tests. Where does that come from? It comes from the era of Jim Crow.

After the Civil War, when African Americans were given citizenship and an opportunity to vote, they were intimidated in many States when they tried to. They had to answer questions: How many bubbles in a bar of soap? What do letters of marque and reprisal mean in the Constitution?

Those are impossible questions for anyone, including the lawyers and Members of Congress, and yet off they went. Why did they do it? To discriminate against Black voters. Well, it turns out Mr. Divine believes that literacy tests should be restored.

It shouldn't be controversial for anyone to say that nominee has disqualified himself. The fact that the body confirmed Mr. Divine is outrageous.

These nominees are just the tip of the iceberg. President Trump is going to continue to nominate extreme and unqualified individuals unless the Senate takes a stand.

If a few of the Senators--I am not going to name names--who made statements about principles and values will stand by their own words when it comes to the orders of the court, then they will join us on a bipartisan basis to stop these clearly unqualified individuals.

I urge my colleagues to vote against Mr. Bove and all future nominees whose only loyalty is to the President and not the Constitution.

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