Patrick Leahy: “I thank the Senate for moving expeditiously on the Hutchinson nomination. I note that on Monday and Tuesday of this week…”

“I thank the Senate for moving expeditiously on the Hutchinson nomination. I note that on Monday and Tuesday of this week the Judiciary Committee followed through on its confirmation hearing for Robert Mueller III, the President's nominee to be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I mention this because this was the fifth confirmation hearing the Judiciary Committee held in July for judicial and executive branch nominees, which is pretty good because we were not allowed, under the reorganization, to have Members assigned to our committee until July 10. In fact, I cannot think of any time in the last 6 years where the Judiciary Committee held five confirmation hearings in 3 weeks. Two of those hearings involved judicial nominees to the Courts of Appeals. I appreciate the fact that the Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus, noted that we held the hearing on the two district court nominees for Montana "in a very expeditious fashion." It was gracious of Senator Hutchinson to offer his thanks for our scheduling the confirmation hearing of Asa Hutchinson to be head of the DEA "so expeditiously" after Senate reorganization.”