Political Quotes

“Madam President, the President and the Attorney General need a Deputy Attorney General who can function, who has the confidence of the Congress and the American people and will do an excellent, first-rate job. There are questions about this nominee. Every nominee who has been nominated for the Deputy Attorney General or other positions in the Department of Justice by President Bush was not rubber stamped within a day or two. Tim Flanigan, a highly competent nominee, was opposed by Democratic lawmakers aggressively after 9/11. The President withdrew him from consideration and then nominated someone who was promptly confirmed. He did not try to ram it down our throats. Frankly, we have a problem of confidence in the Department of Justice. The Attorney General himself, perhaps following the lead of the President, has indicated on a number of different occasions a lack of commitment to vigorous action to prosecute terrorists who have attacked the country, and he has taken other steps. I would have liked to have seen a Deputy Attorney General nominee who was not in that mold but who was more of a career prosecutor who would have helped bring some balance and input from a more traditional view of the role of the Attorney General as someone who prosecutes criminals, protects the United States, defends law-abiding Americans from terrorists and criminals who attack them. That was the approach I took when I was attorney general. I hired people who were proven prosecutors. But Mr.…”