Ms. Klobuchar: Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to urge my colleagues to vote in favor of confirming Loretta Lynch as attorney general. I disagree with my colleague from Texas. I serve on the Judiciary Committee, as does he. I listened to her questions. I asked her questions. I listened to her answers. In my view, she has passed her senatorial interview. She has picked up support from several Republicans. She answered questions for eight hours during her confirmation hearing and submitted detailed responses to 900 written questions.
And what I would like to most focus on today is the claims that I just heard from the senator from Texas that she is somehow lawless. Okay. Let's look through the facts here. She has earned the support of members of both parties. Do the Republicans that support her for this position think she is lawless? I don't think so. She has earned the support of top law enforcement groups and 25 former U.S attorneys from both Republican and Democratic administrations. Now, let's start with the obvious here. She is supremely qualified for attorney general. She has a world-class legal mind, an unwavering commitment to justice, an unimpeachable character and an extraordinary record of achievement.
During her time as U.S attorney for the Eastern District of New York, she tackled some of our nation's hardest cases, from public corruption to civil rights violations to massive crime rates. She currently leads the U.S attorney's office that has been charged with prosecuting more terrorism cases since 9/11 than any other office in the country, including trying the al Qaeda operative who plotted to attack New York City’s subway system. Would you hand this over to a lawless person? No. You would hand this over, this important job of going after terrorists, to someone who respects the law, who enforces the law, not, as my colleague from Texas has said, someone who is lawless. And let me tell you, this is a concern in my state.
Just this week, our U.S attorney Andy Lugar indicted six people, six people in the Twin Cities area that were plotting to go back to assist ISIS, to assist a terrorism group. So I care a lot about having an attorney general in place that actually knows how to handle these terrorism cases, that is going to lead the justice department and understand the importance of going after these cases. Loretta Lynch is exactly the type of tough and tested leader we need at the Justice Department to lead the effort. She has been endorsed by leaders ranging from the New York Police Commissioner. I don't know if my colleague from Texas considers him lawless, to the President of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the President of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Alberto Gonzalez at this time could vote on Ms. Lynch. Rudy giuliani says it's time to confirm her. These are not people that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle normally say are lawless.
Now, this is the story of Loretta Lynch and why I think she has been able to wait out this long, long process. Loretta Lynch has a lot of patience. When she was a little girl, she took a test and she did incredibly well on that test. She did so well that they didn't believe she took that test. Then they asked her to take that test over again and she scored even higher. When she was the valedictorian of her class and the principal came up to her and said this is a little awkward, you're african, we might want another white student to share the honor, that's what happened to her, she said all right. That is a woman who has been through something and can wait this out.
Well, she waits no longer after today. Now, the other thing I heard from our friend on the other side of the aisle, from Senator Cruz, was that somehow she is lawless because she supported something that every president since Dwight Eisenhower has supported, that has asked their attorney general to do, that the attorney general has looked at the legal issues surrounding the issuance of an executive order regarding immigration. Every attorney general since Eisenhower’s administration has advised their president on these issues. George Bush, the first George Bush, the second George Bush, Ronald Reagan. Every single one of these presidents, there was some kind of executive order issued involving immigrants. I know because we have Liberians in Minnesota that have been there for decades because of unrest in their country under an executive order, something sometimes congress gets involved in, sometimes the president reissues, but that is one example of a group of people that have been able to stay in our country legally, work in our hospitals, work in our industries, raise their families in this country because of executive orders. So to say that it is sometimes lawless, how lawless for her to support the simple idea that a president can issue an executive order and of course we can debate the merit of that. We can talk about the fact that of course we would rather have comprehensive immigration reform, that's why I voted for it. Of course that would be better so the president could just tear up his executive action. He said he would be glad to do that. But the point of this is that every attorney general in a Republican Administration since Dwight Eisenhower has supported their president when they issued an executive order, so this idea that by somehow saying that that is legal makes this nominee lawless is just plain wrong.
We look forward to another robust debate on immigration policy. Comprehensive immigration reform should be debated and passed by congress, but Ms. Lynch should be judged on her record and her record alone, and when you look at her record, we should be proud to having her as our next attorney general of the United States of America.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.