Patrick Leahy: “I tried to help, just to be fair. Let me say this, in the remaining 3 minutes. It doesn't have to be this way. We are…”

“I tried to help, just to be fair. Let me say this, in the remaining 3 minutes. It doesn't have to be this way. We are moving far more rapidly than the Republicans did when they were in charge and President Clinton was President. We have had a lot that has gone on in the past few months. I have not used the events and aftermath of September 11 as an excuse but have instead continued to hold hearings and votes on judicial nominees. Some of the Republican special interest groups pooh-pooh the fact that we even would refer to the events of September 11. They allow it as a justification for many things and an excuse for everybody else but not for the Judiciary Committee. Well, we have not made excuses. Instead, we build a good record. We actually had to put together an antiterrorism bill during that time, which we did, one which the President certainly felt good about. He praised me and Senator Hatch for our work on that. We had to do that. We had this building that we are in right now emptied because of an anthrax scare. Most of our staffs, Republican and Democratic, are in the Dirksen and Hart Buildings. That was vacated for a period of time because of anthrax. The Hart Building was vacated for a very considerable period of time. I was one of those who received an anthrax letter designed to kill me, as was Senator Daschle. Me and my staff--it turns out there was enough anthrax to kill an awful lot more people than that. So this has not been a usual year.…”