Political Quotes

“Madam President, I don't know if the Judiciary Committee voted yet, but if they haven't, they will vote shortly on the nomination of William Barr. I knew Mr. Barr when he was Attorney General and when he was general counsel to Verizon--that is a New York company where I dealt with him-- and I have always respected his public service and his intelligence. But when his authorship of an unsolicited memo to the Justice Department criticizing the special counsel's investigation was uncovered, I came to the conclusion that he is the wrong person to serve as Attorney General at this challenging moment for our country. The memo alone, I felt, was disqualifying--maybe not under any President but certainly under this President, who is utterly contemptuous of the rule of law. But I wanted to give Mr. Barr a chance to change my mind, so I met with him a few weeks ago. Our conversation focused on three issues. The first was an issue that had been discussed at his Judiciary hearing where I didn't think his answer was very satisfactory, so I asked him again, very directly, whether he would recuse himself if ethics officials at the Justice Department said he should. Regrettably, he would not commit to do this. Instead, he said he would make his own decision. The second issue I brought up was the need for the special counsel's report on Russian influence in the 2016 election to be made public.…”