Political Quotes

“Mr. President, for many years, the Judiciary Committee and the Senate have been well served by the distinguished service of Ayo Griffin. Ayo is a talented lawyer and a principled public servant, respected and admired by his peers, who has ably guided some of my most significant legislative initiatives. Ayo's career has always demonstrated what Victor Hugo called ``conscience in the service of justice.'' By the time Ayo joined my Judiciary Committee staff in 2011, he had already taken on difficult work conducting foreign corruption investigations in private practice. He had volunteered with human rights litigation and anticorruption training in Cambodia. In the important tradition of making legal aid available to all people, even unpopular defendants, he had represented pro bono detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention center in Cuba. Here in the Senate, Ayo took on legislation to improve our prisons and strengthen law enforcement, to prevent domestic violence and sexual assault, to reform our immigration regime, to curb gun violence, and to undo the damage done to our campaign finance system by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision. In the wake of the flood of secret money unleashed by Citizens United, Ayo helped me craft the DISCLOSE Act to require groups spending large amounts to influence our elections to identify their donors and to prevent corporations and other wealthy interests from using shell corporations to funnel secret money to super PACs.…”