If confirmed, I believe General Kagan will be an outstanding Solicitor General.

I would urge you all to please respond to those questions as quickly as possible.

I want to make sure the Solicitor General is going to be sensitive to the role that you can play in making sure that the appropriate protections are maintained within our Constitution.

Dean Kagan will bring distinction to the office, continue its highest traditions, be a forceful advocate for the United States before the Supreme Court.

So we expect that message to be very clear to all the people in the Department of Justice as to restoring the confidence that partisan politics will not play a role in the deployment of career personnel.

I very much support your statement of aggressively enforcing the laws of our country regardless of your personal views.

partisan politics played within the Department of Justice as it relates to the retirement and promotion of career attorneys.

Thank you, Senator Kaufman.

These are very important positions, and as Senator Whitehouse said, it is going to be long days.

I would also hope that there would be some transparency in making those judgments so that there is an opportunity for input and challenge if it is a fundamental issue.

let me very briefly explain this amendment. This amendment improves the SBA program for surety bonds for small businesses. In the underlying bill the committee has brought out an additional $15 million that will allow SBA to help with the…

Clearly, terrorism--fighting terrorism was a national priority that, by necessity, received much more attention and requirements for the local U.S. Attorney's Office to devote its resources.

The Constitution is not only loved and respected, it is the basis of the rule of law of our country.

There are things that we can do as far as the statutes are concerned, and we look forward to your recommendations in that regard.

I also want to thank all of you for being willing to serve your country.

We do have a justice integrity bill which Senator Specter and I have filed that will allow for ten pilot programs to work within each of the U.S. Attorneys.

I appreciate that clarification for the record.

I would just urge you to take a very active role in that regard, and I thank you for your response.

We know that the overwhelming percentage of people who are incarcerated on crack violations are African American and minorities.

I think it's, 5 grams will trigger a minimum sentence of 5 years for crack cocaine violations, whereas powdered cocaine, it's 500 grams, so you have a 100:1 disparity.

I want to talk a little bit about the U.S. Attorneys and the supervision of U.S. Attorneys.

the minority use of crack cocaine is much lower than the incarceration rate of minorities for violations of the crack cocaine statutes.

this amendment directs $25 billion to a targeted list of infrastructure programs, including highway, transit, and water and sewer programs. Adopting the amendment will make investments in our Nation's physical infrastructure a clear focal…

I must point out that when then-President-elect Obama indicated that his choice for Attorney General would be Eric Holder, I was very excited and supportive of his selection. The confirmation process of the chairman of the Judiciary…

DHS said it had done an "exhaustive" search of its databases and could find no information relating to the MSP surveillance operations.