Dick Durbin: “I come to the floor again to discuss two U.S. attorney nominations that have been on the calendar for weeks: Rebecca…”

“I come to the floor again to discuss two U.S. attorney nominations that have been on the calendar for weeks: Rebecca Lutzko, nominated to be U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, and April Perry, nominated to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. On several previous occasions, I have had to come to the floor to request unanimous consent for the Senate to take up these noncontroversial, bipartisan nominations and confirm these law enforcement nominees. Each time I have come to the floor, asking for this, the junior Senator from Ohio has objected. He says that he ran for office to ``[f]ight the criminals--not the cops.'' It turns out to be a hollow promise when he is holding up criminal prosecutors, at a professional level, in two major parts of the United States--one of them in his own State. Our communities desperately need top Federal prosecutors in place. Interested in stopping fentanyl? I am. Thousands of people are dying. Well, who is going to prosecute those cases? The U.S. attorneys will-- 93 of them across the United States--but you can't prosecute the case if you don't have the U.S. attorney there to lead the effort and to coordinate the effort with other branches of government. You can have an interim in there, and I am sure that person will do as good a job as he can, but it isn't like having the permanent person that you need as a U.S. attorney.…”