Bob Barr: “as with most pieces of legislation, it is as important to raise what a proposal does not do as it is what it does do…”

“as with most pieces of legislation, it is as important to raise what a proposal does not do as it is what it does do, and I urge all of my colleagues to listen very carefully to these final minutes of debate. This is a very emotional issue because people who are well-known to us are in favor of it. But this bill should not go forward. This amendment that we have should go forward, and the underlying title VIII stricken, because it will do tremendous injustice to the fabric of how United States attorneys conduct very sophisticated, very complex, very far-reaching multi-state investigations. There is plenty of mechanisms already in place to address the occasional bad apple, if there is a prosecutor that practices misconduct. Notwithstanding that, if we have a problem with a particular U.S. attorney, then we should take action against that U.S. attorney. We can do that under current law and procedures. If we do not like the standards set by an Attorney General, then we should take action against that Attorney General, but we should not throw out the ability, as title VIII would do, of United States attorneys to conduct multi-state investigations, such as RICO, public corruption, drug cases or fraud cases.”