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Floor Speech

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Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, I want to thank Senator Schumer, the Democratic leader, for his words.

This is a really tough moment for me, not just because this is in New Jersey. This is someone who has had something I have never seen before--hundreds of judges, hundreds of Federal prosecutors and Federal public defenders from both parties come forward, saying that Emil Bove should not be on the Third Circuit as a judge for a lifetime position; not only that, but that his temperament of using vulgarities to show, it is claimed, that folks should disobey--that the Trump administration should disobey--court orders disqualifies him from being on the bench. That is one thing that bothered me.

The other thing is the fact that he has had some of the worst ethics violations of any judge I have seen come before the Judiciary Committee in holding back exculpatory evidence when he was a prosecutor. He was called by former prosecutors and former defense attorneys the drunk driving version of a prosecutor--reckless and dangerous.

Then, finally, what was the ultimate frustration was we saw a whistleblower come forward who had impinged his testimony with receipts, but there were other whistleblowers trying to come forward who were afraid for themselves because of this climate in which people who stand up and speak the truth are often targeted and attacked. Contrary to what my colleague was saying on the floor, their lawyers were trying to get somebody in the Republican Party just to listen to the evidence, and no one wanted to even listen.

This is a sad day for our democracy. This is a sad day for the judiciary and a sad day for the U.S. Senate, whose constitutional obligation is to advise and consent, to look at all of the evidence, especially when you have whistleblowers standing up with courage and wanting to speak the truth--not even to listen to it. We saw those tactics in the Judiciary Committee: not wanting to have debate, not wanting to have a discussion, rushing this nominee through as quickly as possible to this floor for a vote before any more evidence could come out before another 200, 300, 400 judges or prosecutors could come out with damning indictments of this man's qualifications.

This is a very unfortunate day for the U.S. Senate, a very unfortunate day for the State of New Jersey, and a very unfortunate day for the Third Circuit. I am expressing my deepest disappointment in this body in its abdication of its responsibilities.

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