Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I will not support the nomination Valerie E. Caproni to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. However, I expect that she will likely be confirmed, as will Mr. Broderick. These will be the 30th and 31st judicial confirmations this year. With today's confirmations, the Senate will have confirmed 202 lower court nominees; we have defeated 2. That is 202-2 for President Obama. That is an outstanding record. That is a success rate of 99 percent. I think we have had a pretty outstanding record this Congress.

And we have been doing that at a fast pace. During the last Congress we confirmed more judges than any Congress since the 103rd Congress, which was 1993-94.

So far this year, the first of President Obama's second term, we have already confirmed more judges than were confirmed in the entire first year of President Bush's second term.

At a similar stage in President Bush's second term, only 10 judicial nominees had been confirmed. So we are now at a 31 to 10 comparison, with President Obama clearly ahead of where President Bush was at a similar time frame.

And, as I said, we have already confirmed more nominees this year--31--than we did during the entirety of 2005, the first year of President Bush's second term, when 21 lower court judges were confirmed.

So I just wanted to set the record straight--again--before we vote on these nominations.

I also want to explain why I oppose the confirmation of Ms. Caproni. From 2003 to 2011, she served as the General Counsel of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. During that time, she was involved in the national security letters--NSL--program at the FBI. This program was the subject of a report by the Office of Inspector General--OIG--within the Department of Justice--DOJ, published in 2010.

In that report, the FBI was criticized for its role in the potential abuse by the FBI's use of national security letters. The report also detailed her office's knowledge of the use of exigent letters to short-circuit the NSL process. The IG also found problems regarding the inaccurate reporting of NSLs.

When the Committee reported out her nomination earlier this year, I voiced my concern over the fact that I had made a request to the FBI over 6 years ago, asking for documents regarding exigent letters.

In March 2007, Chairman Leahy and I requested copies of unclassified emails related to the use of national security letters issued by the FBI. I only received a few of these emails, and they were heavily redacted, so in 2008 I asked for the rest.

Ms. Caproni was general counsel of the FBI at the time and told me that the documents I was waiting for were on her desk, awaiting her review. Well, in 2013 as we approached her hearing, I still had not received those documents.

I asked Ms. Caproni about this in her hearing and she had no specific recollection of this request. So, I asked her again in writing. This led to a set of FOIA documents being produced, which are a poor substitute for properly answering a Committee request. It also raises further questions as to why it took 6 years and why Ms. Caproni told me years ago that she was working on responding to our request.

I subsequently followed up with the FBI with specific requests regarding Ms. Caproni's involvement in the matter. The FBI has not responded to my requests.

I also made requests from the DOJ Inspector General. While the IG did make some materials available to me, there are outstanding requests to which they have not responded.

At issue is the correspondence between Ms. Caproni and OIG about the OIG's draft report. These are not ``internal documents'' as the IG has claimed which relate to the internal deliberative process of the OIG. They are not ``internal'' communications because the Inspector General's office is supposed to be separate and independent from the FBI, and Ms. Caproni was the FBI's counsel.

They are, however, a critical component required both for oversight of the underlying program as well as to ensure that the back-and-forth between an independent IG and the agency is transparent and arms-length.

At the time we reported her nomination out of Committee, I stated that while I would not hold her nomination in Committee, I reserved my right to do so on the Senate floor. So now, even though I have consented to the vote going forward, I will not support the nomination.

Ms. Caproni received her B.A. at Tulane in 1976 and her J.D. from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1979. Upon graduation, she clerked for 1 year for the Honorable Phyllis Kravitch, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Following her clerkship, she entered private practice as a civil litigator for Cravath, Swaine & Moore focusing on defense work on behalf of large companies primarily with respect to libel, antitrust, and securities matters. She was in this position from 1980 to 1985.

In 1985 Ms. Caproni became an Assistant U.S. Attorney where she prosecuted a number of narcotics and other criminal cases. In 1989, Ms. Caproni became the General Counsel of the Urban Development Corp--now Empire State Development. There her primary responsibility was to provide legal advice to the executives and directors of the corporation, focusing on administrative law, banking and bankruptcy law, environmental and land use, real estate, and products liability. She returned to the U.S. Attorney's Office in 1992 where she prosecuted criminal cases and became part of the administration of the Criminal Division. She served as Chief of the Criminal Division from 1994 to 1998. In 1998 Ms. Caproni became the regional director of the SEC's Pacific Regional Office where she worked on enforcement of Federal securities laws.

From 2001 to 2003, she returned to private practice at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett where she worked on white collar criminal defense. After this she became General Counsel of the FBI where her primary responsibility was to provide legal advice to executive management. She served there from 2003 to 2011.

In 2011 Ms. Caproni was hired by Northrop Grumman to be vice president and deputy general counsel where she remains today. She is currently responsible for supervision of all litigation and internal investigations, specializing in civil litigation and investigations and setting strategy in cases and investigations that affect the corporation. The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave her a unanimous ``Well Qualified'' rating.

Vernon S. Broderick is also nominated to be U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Broderick received his B.A. from Yale University in 1985 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1988. Upon graduation, he joined Weil, Gotshal & Manges as an associate. His practice there mainly focused on civil litigation, specifically large commercial disputes that involved breach of contract, products liability, patent and bankruptcy.

In 1994, he joined the United States Attorney's Office, first in the General Crimes Unit, then in the Narcotics Unit and the Violent Gangs Unit. He was Chief of the Violent Gangs Unit from 1999-2002.

Mr. Broderick rejoined Weil, Gotshal & Manges as a Counsel in 2002 and was made a Partner in 2005. His practice focused on white collar criminal investigations and prosecutions, regulatory investigations and proceedings, and business litigation. The ABA Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary gave him a unanimous ``Well Qualified'' rating.

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