Orrin Hatch: “let me briefly turn from the judicial to the executive branch and, in particular, to the Department of Justice. My…”

“let me briefly turn from the judicial to the executive branch and, in particular, to the Department of Justice. My Democratic colleagues have helped drive from office several top Justice Department officials and yet are now slow-walking confirmation of their replacements. On March 11, the Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Grace Chung Becker to be Assistant Attorney General of Civil Rights. Grace served as a counsel on my staff when I chaired the Judiciary Committee and has been a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division for the past 2 years. She currently heads the division in an acting capacity. My Judiciary Committee colleagues will remember Grace as a talented, brilliant, and dedicated lawyer, a person of the highest character and integrity--one of the most likable people who ever served on the committee, one who served both sides, I think, graciously and well. She received her law degree magna cum laude from Georgetown, where she was associate editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. That was after receiving her B.A. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and her B.S., once again magna cum laude from the Wharton School of Finance. I think I see a pattern here. After clerking for judges on the U.S. District Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, Grace spent a year in private practice before entering Government service.”