Political Quotes

“I rise today to seek unanimous consent to confirm Mr. Matthew G. Olsen, President Biden's nominee to be the next Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division at the Department of Justice. As we all know, America recently marked the 20th anniversary of one of the darkest days in our history: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I am privy to the intelligence information being collected from across our IC community, which sets forth the myriad threats our Nation continues to face both at home and abroad. And the Senator from Texas, who is a great member of the Intelligence Committee, is aware of those threats as well. Our ability to counter these threats and ensure our national security is dependent on having qualified individuals nominated by the President in place so they can do their jobs and, importantly, be held accountable through the confirmation process. Prior to the attacks of 9/11--and this was one of the things that were pointed out by the commission afterwards--literally 57 percent of the Federal Government's Senate-confirmed top, top national security jobs remain vacant--57 percent. And one of the key recommendations of the 9/11 Commission was to accelerate the process of national security appointments. Unfortunately, if we fast-forward 20 years, today you would think we would have learned the lesson, but today the situation is actually worse than it was prior to 9/11.…”