Prepared Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa
Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary
Executive Business Meeting
Nominations:
John B. Owens to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit
Michelle T. Friedland, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit
Nancy L. Moritz, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Tenth Circuit
David Jeremiah Barron, to be United States Circuit Judge for the First Circuit
Matthew Frederick Leitman, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan
Judith Ellen Levy, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan
Laurie J. Michelson, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan
Linda Vivienne Parker, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan
Christopher Reid Cooper, to be United States District Judge for the District of Columbia
Gerald Austin McHugh, Jr., to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
M. Douglas Harpool, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Missouri
Edward G. Smith, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Sheryl H. Lipman, to be United States District Judge for the Western District of Tennessee
Stanley Allen Bastian, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Washington
Manish S. Shah, to be United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois
Peter Joseph Kadzik, to be an Assistant Attorney General
Robert L. Hobbs, to be United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Texas
Gary L. Blankinship, to be United States Marshal for the Southern District of Texas
Legislation:
S.619 Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013,
S.1410 Smarter Sentencing Act of 2013,
S.1675 Recidivism Reduction and Public Safety Act of 2013,
S.975 Court-Appointed Guardian Accountability and Senior Protection Act
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Mr. Chairman,
I want to be clear about the so-called obstruction being talked about. The reason we didn’t have the business meeting on November 21st was because, minutes before it was scheduled to start, Senators learned we had to report to the floor because Senate Democrats were going to invoke the nuclear option, destroying two centuries of Senate history and precedent by breaking the rules with a simple majority vote.
I want to give some figures to show that the so-called obstruction of nominees is a figment of imagination and is blatantly misleading. We have confirmed 44 judicial nominees this year. Contrast that with the 21 judicial nominees confirmed during President Bush’s entire fifth year of his presidency.
The only thing I can see that has been, and continues to be, obstructed is the rights of the minority.
Today on the agenda we have two US Marshal nominees that can be done by voice vote. All the judicial nominations on the agenda appear for the first time, and we request they be held over. I understand that we will also be holding over the sentencing bills today as we continue to work on them, but that we may be taking up Senator Klobuchar’s bill, S. 975.
With regard to the nomination of Mr. Kadzik, it is no secret that I have concerns with this nomination. I felt that he was not forthcoming during his nomination hearing. I also still have major concerns about the lack of respect for congressional oversight process shown by the way Mr. Kadzik handled another committee’s subpoena in 2001 for his testimony in the matter of billionaire tax fugitive Marc Rich.
Those concerns about respect for congressional oversight process are underscored by Mr. Kadzik’s unwillingness to be responsive to this committee’s Questions for the Record. Getting him to answer simple inquiries has required two or even three sets of questions. He wouldn’t even promise to answer each individual question from members of this committee. In one set of responses, he repeated word-for-word the same answer to a previous question nine times.
When he had information he thought I didn’t want to hear, he glossed over it. I asked Mr. Kadzik at his nomination hearing whether he intended to provide certain documents Chairman Darrell Issa and I had requested relating to a briefing by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Since his response failed to mention the documents, I prompted him about the documents again at the hearing, and he evaded the question.
Only after two subsequent sets of Questions for the Record did Mr. Kadzik finally come clean and just say that the Department would not provide those documents “except in the most extraordinary of circumstances.” This is the type of information Mr. Kadzik should have provided initially, instead of avoiding the issue. Mr. Kadzik’s seeming inability to give straightforward and accurate answers to simple questions causes real concern for me about his ability to perform this job.
The Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs needs to ensure that Congress receives accurate information from the department. This became a problem with Mr. Kadzik’s predecessor, who made claims about Operation Fast and Furious that later had to be retracted.
Additionally, I have concerns about Mr. Kadzik’s track record at the Office of Legislative Affairs. I have numerous outstanding document requests related to a range of issues that need to be dealt with. One of them involves a bipartisan request for a Government Accountability Office study that Senator Whitehouse and I made over a year ago. The Office of Legislative Affairs, under Mr. Kadzik’s direction, has helped block the Government Accountability Office’s access to a database necessary for an important study on drug shortages.
Both in the Marc Rich matter and his current time in the Office of Legislative Affairs, Mr. Kadzik’s actions suggest a lack of respect for the congressional oversight process. As a candidate to be Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs who already works in that office, Mr. Kadzik had the opportunity to demonstrate a real commitment to the role of congressional oversight in our constitutional system of check and balances.
The Justice Department’s Office of Legislative Affairs has a lot of work to do to rebuild trust and confidence after the false letter it sent to me and later withdrew on Fast and Furious. I wish I could say that Mr. Kadzik had demonstrated the kind of serious recommitment to open, honest, and forthright cooperation with congressional oversight that the office needs. Unfortunately, he has not. Therefore, I will vote no on his nomination.
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