The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“Nominations of Vanita Gupta and Lisa Monaco (Executive Calendar)” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S1452-S1453 on March 10.
The Department is one of the oldest in the US, focused primarily on law enforcement and the federal prison system. Downsizing the Federal Government, a project aimed at lowering taxes and boosting federal efficiency, detailed wasteful expenses such as $16 muffins at conferences and board meetings.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
Nominations of Vanita Gupta and Lisa Monaco
Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard from the nominees for the No. 2 and No. 3 jobs at the Department of Justice.
As you know, earlier today, we confirmed the next Attorney General of the United States, Judge Merrick Garland. I supported Judge Garland's nomination because I think he is a qualified, mainstream nominee with the right experience and the right temperament to lead the Department of Justice. I believe being Attorney General is probably the hardest job in the Cabinet because you have two masters. One is the rule of law, as the chief law enforcement officer for the country; the other is, you are a member of the President's Cabinet and serve at his or her pleasure, obviously, a political appointment.
Judge Garland told me, and I take him at his word, that he would work hard to keep politics out of the work of the Justice Department--a goal that folks on both sides of the aisle should support, especially after the struggles of previous administrations.
As I said, I was proud to support Judge Garland's nomination, and now we begin the process of considering other senior positions at the Department of Justice.
One of the nominees who came before the Judiciary Committee yesterday was Lisa Monaco, who has been nominated to serve as the Deputy Attorney General.
Ms. Monaco is a lifelong public servant who previously spent 15 years at the Department of Justice. She is a highly respected Federal prosecutor and national security expert. She advised President Obama and a number of other top government officials on matters like homeland security, cyber security, and counterterrorism, and her expertise extends beyond the ins and outs of matters of policy. Her knowledge of the Department of Justice as an organization will be invaluable to the Department, whose more than 100,000 employees are responsible for carrying out a diverse set of missions. It is a huge organization with a lot of moving parts.
Like Judge Garland, Ms. Monaco affirmed to me that she does not intend to inject politics or to even give it a hearing within the Department of Justice and her duties as the Deputy Attorney General.
I asked her, for example, if she would allow Mr. Durham, who has been appointed as special counsel, to investigate the Crossfire Hurricane issue from the last administration and the tail end of the Obama administration. She said she saw no reason not to give Mr. Durham a chance to complete his work. That is the same position we took on Robert Mueller, who was appointed as special counsel to investigate President Trump. Again, I take her at her word that she will not do anything to fire Mr. Durham or deprive him of the ability to complete his important work.
Ms. Monaco discussed her experience at the Department over the course of the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. She really does have a lot of important, relevant experience. She talked about the unique role of the Justice Department, which, as I suggested a moment ago, functions both as an executive agency that is charged with implementing the President's policies as well as being an independent investigator and, in some cases, a prosecutor. She described the importance of acting free from political or partisan influence as her ``North Star.''
While Ms. Monaco and I will surely have policy disagreements at some point, I trust her ability to fairly and impartially administer justice while operating free of personal bias or political agenda. I believe she is well qualified to serve as the Deputy Attorney General, and I plan to support her nomination.
Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the second nominee who appeared before the Judiciary Committee yesterday. Vanita Gupta has been nominated to serve as the Associate Attorney General, which is sometimes considered to be the No. 3 position at the Department of Justice. Throughout her career, Ms. Gupta has been a clear and outspoken advocate for some pretty radical policies.
In 2012, for example, she wrote that States should decriminalize the possession of all drugs--not just marijuana but all drugs--which, I presume, would include things like fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamine, and other highly addictive and destructive drugs. In yesterday's hearing, when I asked Ms. Gupta about this statement, she took the opposite position. She didn't tell me ``I used to advocate for that position and have now changed my position.'' She said, unequivocally, that she did not advocate for the decriminalization of all drugs. It became apparent she wanted Senators to forget what she previously wrote:
States should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs, particularly marijuana, and for small amounts of other drugs.
That is a quote from an article she wrote in 2012. Unfortunately, the list of inconsistencies does not end there.
In June of 2020, less than a year ago, Ms. Gupta argued that it ought to be easier to sue police officers in court for money damages. Now, this is sometimes called ``qualified immunity,'' which recognizes the fact that law enforcement officers have to make split-second decisions--life-or-death decisions, actually--and that it would be unfair to them to, in retrospect, go back and flyspeck all of their decisions. In other words, it gives them some room in which to operate, recognizing the unique nature of their job. It applies to other government employees, too. Yet, in June 2020, less than a year ago, she argued that it was time to revisit this doctrine of qualified immunity--in other words, to make it easier to sue police officers for money.
This was one of the many steps that she outlined in an opinion piece in a national publication following the death of George Floyd. Nine months later, she says she does not support that position--one she supported 9 months ago. Now she says she does not support the position of making it easier to sue police officers.
And there is more.
Last summer, Ms. Gupta put her support behind the ``defund the police'' movement. As our country engaged in an important and long overdue debate about the police's use of force and responsible policing strategies, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on that very topic.
Ms. Gupta testified before the committee and said:
While front-end systems changes are important, it is also critical for state and local leaders to heed calls from Black Lives Matter and Movement for Black Lives activists to decrease police budgets and the scope, role, and responsibility of police in our lives.
Yesterday, Ms. Gupta did not mince words. She said she does not support defunding the police, and she said decreasing police budgets was not defunding the police. Well, at the time we were discussing this movement for defunding police, she attempted to parse her words. It is tough to reconcile the stark difference between what Ms. Gupta has said in the past and what she now says as she attempts to win support in the Senate. I am wary and, frankly, skeptical of confirmation conversions wherein people take the opposite positions when they are nominated for important, Senate-confirmed positions from the positions they have taken in the past.
I understand her interest in distancing herself from her previous positions. Decriminalizing drugs, eliminating qualified immunity--
making it easier to second-guess and sue police officers for money damages--and defunding the police are radical policy positions that should disqualify someone from becoming the third-highest ranking official at the Justice Department. In order to be confirmed, Ms. Gupta knows she needs to convince us that she actually holds mainstream views on law enforcement strategies and issues. I find it hard to believe that these views, which are not from decades-old law school writings but are recent public statements--indeed, sworn testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee--are views she no longer holds, which she said she held so recently.
I want to be clear on one point.
The opinions of Ms. Gupta's as a private citizen are not an issue. She has every right to hold opinions that differ from mine or anybody else's, but when you are the nominee for a high level--indeed, one of the highest levels--of critical law enforcement positions, these are highly problematic and, to my mind, disqualifying.
Perhaps more so than any other Federal Department or Agency, the Department of Justice must operate free from bias and political agendas. The men and women leading the Department must be able to separate their personal beliefs from the jobs before them. No matter how they feel about the wisdom of the policies enacted by Congress, their jobs are to enforce the law not as they want it to be but as it is. People across the country should have confidence that the senior leaders at the Justice Department will follow the law as written--
without fail. We can't have leaders who turn a blind eye to whatever is politically convenient when it conflicts with their personally held positions.
Based on Ms. Gupta's clear history of radical policy positions, which stands in stark contrast to the laws she would be charged with enforcing, I do not believe she can separate her convictions from the job at hand. Leaders within the Department must be able to view all matters as matters of fact and as matters of duty, not just as matters of opinion or as platforms to argue for changes in the law.
As the Senate has considered the President's nominees over the past several weeks, I have been very clear that I will not oppose nominees based simply on the President's political party. I think the President is entitled to some deference as to the people he chooses. That was the strategy of our Democratic colleagues previously, and it is incredibly damaging to both our country and its institutions. Just because a President you don't like has nominated somebody does not justify opposing that President's nominee. I will continue to evaluate all nominees of this President based on their merits and their abilities to do the jobs for which they were nominated.
I firmly believe that the American people deserve to have qualified, fairminded individuals leading these important Departments and Agencies. For the Department of Justice, which is responsible for enforcing the law of the land and imparting fair and equal justice, that is doubly true. There is simply no room for political or partisan or ideological agendas at the Department of Justice. I am concerned that Ms. Gupta will continue to pursue those objectives from within the Department and use all of the Department's tools and the authority given to her to achieve these ideological outcomes. Therefore, I cannot support her nomination
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Smith). The Senator from Iowa.
