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Floor Speech

I have one question, and it is about just the Justice Department. We just got the shocking news yesterday--every single day, something happens--that once again, the President is treating the Justice Department as his own personal law firm. He has now asked for--and this might have been while the Senator from Oregon was speaking--the President has now requested $230 million back from the taxpayers of this country, off of their backs, to line his own pockets--or he says now to give to a charity of his choice. And to me, this is just another example of how he keeps considering the Justice Department as it should be--not as the people's lawyer but as his own lawyers. In fact, he has installed his own lawyers there.

He has done everything from deciding to pardon George Santos and pardon his friends to prosecute his so-called enemies, including firing career prosecutors to allow him to install a White House aide to go after his enemies.

And so one of my obsessions with having watched this from the Judiciary Committee is just how that can be justice. And I think it does tie in with everything else that is happening.

You know, he is focusing on getting $230 million that he doesn't deserve back into his pocket, instead of helping the American people get healthcare. He is focused on helping his pals and his friends and going after his enemies, instead of doing the work for the American people that he was elected to do.

So I would just like to have my colleague from Oregon answer a question about how he sees this Justice Department fraud and what is happening over there as related to how the President isn't doing anything for regular people and, instead, he is helping his pals.
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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. So when you look at how this all started, I think about all of these people who have stood up--and you are standing up today. I think about career prosecutors in the Justice Department who have basically said: No, I am not going to do the bidding of the President, whether I was appointed during a Republican Presidency or a Democratic Presidency, whether I personally vote Republican or vote Democrat. I have a job to do, and that is to follow the laws of the United States.

And I think the real first indication of this, where people realize just how off the cliff this was going, was when, in fact, there was pressure put on career prosecutors in New York to dismiss these charges that had been the result of a long investigation involving Mayor Eric Adams.

And what I remember from that time was that Danielle Sassoon, who was a very, very well-respected, conservative prosecutor, someone that came up through the Federalist Society, who had clerked for conservative Justices, she decided to resign rather than do their bidding, because she felt that it wasn't consistent with the law, that it was against the law.

And then, another career prosecutor named Hagan Scotten, who was a decorated veteran, who had clerked for then-Judge Kavanaugh and Justice Roberts, he said when asked to file a motion in that case: You may find a fool or a coward to file that motion, but it won't be me.

And those words always echo in my mind.

I say to the Senator from Oregon as he stands up today, of these people through these last months, whether it is standing to march with their kids on their hips, whether it is to stand up, as so many of us have done in this Chamber to fight for healthcare, whether it is people who, like the statistician at the Labor Department, simply doing her job, willing to stand up and give the facts of what the job numbers were--and then the President didn't like it and had her fired, which I always thought was ironic when it is about job numbers, and then you lose another job.

But, in any case, he just fired her.

Or going after Governors at the Federal Reserve or deciding which States he is going to take funding from--in my home State of Minnesota, as I know you have experienced in Oregon, he cut a bunch of energy projects. And I looked at the list, and I thought: Wait a minute. These are all great projects. So many of them were major, major projects with private companies to provide energy in neighboring States like North Dakota and South Dakota.

I kind of looked at the list and saw all the funding, because the company was based in Minnesota, but all the funding was for the surrounding red States. And I just thought: Oops, I guess they didn't mean to put this on the list.

All of that combines, as you look at what is happening with the Justice Department, right now, with a President that has basically decided that there are no norms. And so the only norm left is this body, because the House has decided they are not coming back right now. They are waiting for these Epstein files that they hope will just go away, but it appears they will never go away. They won't even seat a newly-elected Member of Congress from Arizona because they are so afraid of these Epstein files.

So while that is going on and they basically decided to just stay home and hang out and not come to work every day, this is the functioning Chamber, as close as it can come, that is supposed to be dealing with the matters before the country. And the matter before the country right now is what is happening with our healthcare system on November 1. These premiums are going to be doubling in so many States.

You look at some of the States that actually Donald Trump won, like Florida, with millions and millions of people on these plans. You look at Texas. And 75 percent of the people on these plans live in States that Donald Trump won.

So while all that is going on, the President goes to his go-to, and his go-to is messing around with the justice system. He literally pardoned someone, as in George Santos, who claimed to be, what--a world-class volleyball player, producer of the Spiderman movie, and was actually simply a fraudster that the entire Republican leadership of the House of Representatives booted out of the House of Representatives?

The President says: Oh, I am going to bring this guy back, too, because every single day, it is that strong-arm technique. He doesn't care if it leads to more violence, doesn't care if it violates the oath of these lawyers in the Justice Department, doesn't care if people get fired.

What does matter? What does appear to matter is making news that day. What does appear to matter is dominating the news that day--not our country, not the rule of law.

But the one thing I can say, and I ask this of my friend, the Senator from Oregon, because the President seems to think this: But does, in fact, Trump trump the Constitution? Isn't it a fact that our laws and our Constitution, which has withstood--withstood--wars, withstood the Great Depression, withstood Watergate, withstood all these things--why? Because people stood up as the Senator from Oregon is doing today.

Judges stood up, as we are seeing across the country.

There are Trump-appointed judges that have made decisions time and time again, contrary to this administration, because it is against the rule of law. We saw that in a tariff case with those tariffs that are burdening the small businesses in our State. We saw a Trump-appointed judge, a Reagan-appointed judge, and an Obama-appointed judge that stood together and said the tariffs are illegal.

So this is happening, judges are standing up. Our constituents are standing up, as we saw over this last weekend--millions and millions of people standing up, in what was the biggest peaceful protest in the history of this country.

And, yes, Congress needs to stand up, and that is what the Senator from Oregon is doing today--standing up and saying: This is not normal. This is not normal to have a Justice Department that is doing what they are doing. So I do ask the Senator from Oregon, despite him not being a lawyer, to talk about the fact that Donald Trump cannot trump the Constitution of the United States.

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