Thank you very much, Chairman. I appreciate that we are hearing from our colleagues at this important moment for this important vote.
So I start with this. As you know, this year thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents descended on Minnesota. Two of my constituents, Renee Good and Alex Ready, were killed. They should be alive today. After they were killed, the federal government refused to cooperate with state and local law enforcement, blocking Minnesota investigators from accessing the scene of Alex's death, even though they had a judicial warrant. Federal investigators mishandled evidence, and they failed to process Renee Good's car for evidence.
Everyone in this room has seen those videos. Everyone in this room knows that at the very least those cases should have been and should be investigated, and they are now.
Instead of cooperating with local law enforcement, which I pressed the department to do from the beginning, and as the Justice Department had done in past cases, including following the assassination of Speaker Melissa Horton and her husband, the marching orders from the Justice Department to federal prosecutors in Minnesota were to investigate Renee Good and her wife.
Joe Thompson, who is the lead fraud prosecutor in my state, and who I recommended to serve as acting US Attorney under this administration, and was appointed as acting. He resigned after that. He resigned along with 14 other prosecutors because they did not believe what they were being asked to do was ethical. These are career prosecutors, no politics, not interested in politics.
And then, more than six months after Renee and Alex's death, when I asked Acting Attorney General Blanche if the department would finally fully cooperate with state law enforcement in these investigations, he said it depends on what full cooperation means. The floodgates were opened to some extent. Some information was finally passed along to the state, but it is unclear if they have all the information that they need. Minnesotans deserve transparency and accountability.
And not just for the killings. We also saw repeated violations of Minnesotans' constitutional rights. I asked Todd Blanche about one such case. I asked if it is unacceptable for federal agents to forcibly enter someone's home without a warrant and drag them into the street without even checking if they have the right person.
This happened with Among Elder, a US citizen, saying he was a US citizen, dragged out in his underwear and Crocs, thrown into a car, and driven around for an hour before they realized they had the wrong guy.
Mr. Chairman, when I asked Todd Blanche about this and if this was a violation, he said it depends and it was not a black or white answer. Mr. Chairman, what is black and white is that a nominee to be the chief law enforcement in our country should be able to condemn the actions taken in that case.
Upholding the independence of the Justice Department is vital to its legitimacy. I know this firsthand. Before I was elected to the Senate, I served for eight years as a chief prosecutor for the largest prosecutor's office in Minnesota. I led teams of hundreds of line attorneys and professional staff.
And like acting Attorney General Blanche, I would sometimes receive calls from powerful people about cases trying to influence the outcome, trying to get a plea, trying to get us to dismiss a case. But no matter who it was, I made clear to the people who worked for me that we weren't playing that game.
I made clear that investigations and charging decisions were based on the facts and the law. Not once did I cross that line because, as I told Todd Blanche, once you cross that line, it's hard to go back. Because the minute you cross the line and allow anyone else to influence a prosecutor's decision, whether that call is a friend or a lobbyist or the President of the United States, you can never go back.
And I think Todd Blanche knows this. Before his confirmation as Deputy Attorney General, he told me he understood that his clients are the people of the United States, not the President. To quote Senator Adam Schiff, what happened to that Todd Blanche?
Since then, however, Acting Attorney General Blanche has said of the Justice Department's investigations into people the President has had issues with in the past, Blanche said that is his right and indeed it is his duty to do that. In fact, the President has repeatedly directed the Justice Department to engage in political prosecutions related to his personal grievances.
FBI Director Comey, former cyber office director Chris Krebs, Jerome Powell, the former chair of the Federal Reserve, the New York Attorney General, civil rights organizations, journalists, and yes, even sitting US senators.
And while acting Attorney General Blanche told me that he believes all decisions have been made, in his words, solely based on the facts and law, it's not credible. We've seen the president's social media posts. We've heard from career prosecutors. We've seen the judges appointed by presidents of both parties throwing out meritless cases and subpoenas.
Mr. Chairman, if the president can direct prosecutors to go after people like Jim Comey and Jerome Powell, he can go after any American. That is not equal justice under the law.
We've all seen the department can be used also to reward the president's friends. Under acting Attorney General Blanche, the department moved to vacate convictions of leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who participated in January 6th.
And a matter of less public note, but incredibly important to our economy, is antitrust. It is devastating to our economy if the Justice Department stands back and lets the big get bigger and the small get crushed. And that is exactly what's happening right now.
As a former top Trump administration antitrust official said, antitrust cases in this last year, quote, were being resolved based on political connections, not the legal merits, end quote.
As just one example, after Assistant Attorney General Slater, the former and well-respected head of the Antitrust Division, who 20 of the 22 senators on this committee voted for, the department abandoned the case against Live Nation after the president met with the company CEO and discussed the litigation, and we know how that story ended with the state's attorneys general, Democrat and Republican, continuing that case and winning in a big way, and now we await the remedies not from the Justice Department sellout settlement, but from the attorneys general of this country.
Finally, I have great concerns about Acting Attorney General Blanche's willingness to uphold the department's independence as the president tries to use the department to undermine our democracy ahead of the midterms.
We know that under Todd Blanche's leadership, the Justice Department has already tried to coerce states, including Minnesota, on the very day Alex Prady was killed, to turn over voters' sensitive information. In fact, they tried to tie that to the ICE presence. Give us that, we'll change that.
Nineteen federal courts, in opinions issued by judges appointed by both Republicans and Democrats, have now found this effort to be unlawful. The president has also floated the unconstitutional idea of ending mail-in voting, and the Justice Department is defending his direction to the Postal Service to not deliver certain ballots.
And according to state election officials, including Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, the Justice Department has stopped providing the briefings and trainings that have long been standard to ensure that states are prepared to prevent and respond to emerging election threats. And when I pressed him, Todd Blanche would not even definitively say that he will not deploy armed agents to polling locations.
Whether it is not answering these questions, not providing transparency and accountability, or repeatedly failing to enforce our nation's civil and voting rights laws, reproductive rights, or consumer laws, I have grave concerns with Todd Blanche's leadership at the department. What we need at the Department of Justice is the courage to stand up for the rule of law.
Like we saw from Tom Calhoun Lopez, an Army veteran and prosecutor at the Minnesota US Attorney's Office during Operation Metro Surge. He said that what the Justice Department told his office to do was, quote, 'antithetical to the principles of law enforcement.'
Hagen Scott Scotton, decorated Iraq War veteran who clerked for Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh, and the lead prosecutor in the Mayor Adams case, who resigned instead of carrying out politicized orders, wrote this: 'I expect you eventually find someone who is enough of a fool or enough of a coward to file your motion, but it was never going to be me.'
When I think about the countless Justice Department officials who have stood up for the rule of law over the last 18 months, it is clear that the president's lawyer, Todd Blanche, is not the right person to be chief law enforcement officer of the United States. Unlike the public servants I just mentioned, he has shown that he sees his role to serve Donald Trump and not the American people, and not the rule of law. I oppose this nomination.
