December 11, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10915 

Congress must act now to protect individual retirement accounts and pension benefits and assets. 

This bill provides relief for seniors 

age 701⁄2 and older whom current law 

requires to take distributions from 

their retirement plans. 

Individuals would have the option to 

keep their retirement savings where 

they are. We should not force them to 

take out huge portions of their savings 

when the market is down. 

This bill also contains a number of 

provisions to help ease the strain on 

pension plans. And this bill would help 

to prevent the need for some plans to 

reduce benefits or make extraordinary 

funding contributions due to the market downturn. 

If we fail to act and provide shortterm funding relief, pension plans 

would be unable to afford their increased contributions. By one estimate, current law would require 350 of 

the Fortune 500 companies to contribute an extra $100 billion or more to 

their pension plans next year, even if 

the market rebounds. If these companies did this, they would reduce their 

investment spending by $60 to $70 billion next year. That is something that 

our economy cannot afford. 

This bill provides relief for singleemployer plans that fall below the set 

funding target percentage set in the 

Pension Protection Act of 2006. 

And the bill provides analogous relief 

for multi-employer plans that are faced 

with significant underfunding due to 

market losses. This relief would allow 

them to temporarily freeze their current funding certification or extend the 

time period that they have to restore 

their funding levels. 

The bill also helps prevent benefit restrictions for those single-employer 

plans that may be significantly underfunded next year due to the market 

downturn. 

This bill also contains a number of 

critical technical amendments to the 

Pension Protection Act of 2006. The 

Pension Protection Act of 2006 arguably marks the most sweeping changes 

to the pension laws since the enactment of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. 

Like many complicated pieces of legislation, technical corrections to the 

law must be made. 

Technical corrections to the law are 

often time sensitive. That is, many of 

them must be passed by both Houses of 

Congress before the effective date of 

the statute. 

Many of the rules under the Pension 

Act were effective January 1, 2008. This 

means that the time for passing technical corrections has come and gone. 

If we were not to act and pass these 

time-sensitive provisions now, the pension community and the Department of 

the Treasury—the agency tasked with 

interpreting the statute and providing 

the necessary details on how the new 

law works—would be placed in a very 

tough spot. 

That is, the Department of the Treasury would not have the necessary corrections and clarifications of the original intent of the act to sufficiently 

issue the details necessary to allow the 

pension community to achieve proper 

compliance. This would not be fair to 

the pension community or the Treasury Department. 

Failing to pass these technical corrections would therefore be irresponsible. 

Here in the Senate, we passed the 

technical corrections contained in this 

act back in December 2007. We already 

said that these corrections are good 

pension policy. 

Americans need real help from Congress to make sure that their retirement savings are safe and sound and 

available to them when they need it. 

This bill contains a number of provisions that would help to provide relief 

to individuals and pension plans and 

move the economy toward recovery. 

Individuals and the pension community warned that individual retirement 

account holders and pension plan participants could be adversely affected 

without the provisions contained in 

this bill. Passing this pension package 

sends the right message to individuals, 

plan sponsors, and pension plan participants. 

I thank my colleagues for helping to 

make passage of this bill possible 

today. 

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be read the third 

time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that 

any statements related to the bill be 

printed in the RECORD. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

The bill (H.R. 7327) was ordered to a 

third reading, was read the third time, 

and passed. 

Mr. BAUCUS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the 

quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

f 

NOMINATION OF ERIC HOLDER 

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I want to 

speak for just a moment about the 

comments that Senator SPECTER made 

earlier about the process for considering the nomination of Eric Holder as 

Attorney General. 

The Republican members of the Judiciary Committee have been seeking information and doing work to prepare 

for the hearing. But there is a great 

deal of information that is not yet 

available and a great deal of information that hasn’t yet been reviewed, all 

to the point that it is going to take a 

little bit of time to prepare for the 

hearing in order to do it right. Of 

course, we want to do it right. 

While there is absolutely no desire on 

anyone’s part to slow a process down or 

filibuster or in any other way make it 

difficult for the orderly process to unfold for the confirmation of the nominee of the President, we do ask that we 

be accorded the same consideration 

that was given to others in this situation and that there be adequate time to 

confirm him. I see no reason, if he is 

qualified and if he is confirmed, that he 

could not take office very soon after 

the President himself takes office, perhaps as early as a week or two after 

that. So nobody is talking about a long 

delay, but we do need to have adequate 

time. 

In that regard, since the chairman of 

the Judiciary Committee has indicated 

he would like to begin holding hearings 

on January 8, which is literally right 

after we begin the swearing in of the 

new Members and the beginning of the 

next session, there is not adequate 

time for the kinds of things that have 

to be done if that is the date that we 

meet. This has been conveyed to the 

chairman by Senator SPECTER. He has 

asked for a reasonable amount of time 

to get prepared. I hope that can be accommodated. It is of sufficient concern 

that several of us have indicated, 

through a letter to the chairman, that 

we are going to insist on having adequate time for the consideration of his 

nomination. 

I remember the nomination of John 

Ashcroft who was a colleague of everyone here, a Senator from Missouri, 

when he was nominated to become the 

Attorney General; nevertheless, it took 

4 days of hearings for the Senate to decide to confirm him. His hearings 

began on Tuesday, January 16. As I 

said, they lasted for 4 days. The chairman of the committee has, as I said, indicated that the Holder hearings would 

be scheduled for January 8, more than 

a week earlier. I don’t think that is 

adequate for the things we have to do. 

Ashcroft was voted on by the full committee on January 30. He was confirmed on February 1. So that timing 

certainly would be totally appropriate 

for nominee Holder and would not in 

any way delay the administration with 

respect to the office of the Attorney 

General. In fact, irony of ironies, because Senator Ashcroft was not confirmed until February 1, Eric Holder 

himself, who was in charge at the end 

of the Clinton administration, served 

as Acting Attorney General at the beginning of the Bush administration. 

Senator SPECTER, when he was chairman, accommodated numerous requests for sufficient time on the part of 

the then-ranking Democrat, Senator 

LEAHY, on, for example, the nominees 

of Chief Justice Roberts and Justice 

Alito. I think reciprocation would be in 

order. 

Right now, we don’t even have Eric 

Holder’s questionnaire or FBI background investigation, all of which are 

necessary to prepare for the hearing. 

S10916 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE December 11, 2008 

Senator SPECTER noted that we currently have 86 boxes of archived committee documents relating to Mr. Holder’s tenure at the Justice Department 

to review. There are additional documents that have been sought from the 

Department of Justice and the Clinton 

library which would provide additional 

information that we will need to examine. 

One might say this is a lot of work to 

do for a nominee. Bear in mind, this is 

the Attorney General of the United 

States, an individual who has some 

controversy in his past. I don’t know 

whether this controversy is sufficient 

to suggest that he should not be confirmed, but that is what the investigation and hearings, of course, are all 

about. We are familiar with what these 

items are. 

Mr. Holder was involved in the pardons of members of the FALN organization by President Clinton, the pardons of Marc Rich, Pincus Green, 

Susan Rosenberg, and Linda Sue 

Evans. He was also involved in a controversial raid in Miami by the Border 

Patrol action to take Elian Gonzales 

into custody. He was involved in death 

penalty approvals, rejections, or disputes. One that troubles me—and I 

want to get to the bottom of this—was 

the decision of the Department of Justice not to defend the power of Congress to enact a particular statute, 18 

U.S.C 3501. There was Supreme Court 

litigation called Dickerson v. United 

States, including Department of Justice responses to Judiciary Committee 

inquiries on the subject and views of 

U.S. attorneys and Department advisory panels on the matter. The case involved challenging Miranda doctrine. 

Paul Cassell, a competent attorney, argued that case. The Justice Department, contrary to precedent and tradition, didn’t defend the Government’s 

position; that is to say, the Congress 

having passed a statute and defended 

the power of Congress to enact that 

statute. 

I don’t know whether any of those 

controversial matters are enough to reject the nominee, but they are well 

known, controversial, and I think we 

have an obligation to look into all of 

these matters. I am not alone. Richard 

Cohen wrote in the Washington Post 

that Eric Holder should not be the Attorney General. I don’t know whether 

he is right or not, but the questions he 

raises need to be examined. 

Glenn Greenwald wrote in the Salon 

magazine that Holder’s involvement 

with the Rich pardon was ‘‘substantial, 

continuous, and concerted, much, 

much more than ‘peripheral,’’’ which is 

the way Holder himself described it. 

One final note. In addition to having 

plenty of time to review and prepare 

and review documents and the FBI 

interviews and background checks of 

Eric Holder and prepare for his hearings, we will want to have sufficient 

time also to carefully consider other 

top Department of Justice nominees, 

such as the Deputy Attorney General, 

Associate Attorney General, Solicitor 

General, and the heads of the Office of 

Legal Counsel, the Criminal Division, 

the Civil Rights Division, and the National Security Division. 

I hope if we set the right precedent 

with the Attorney General himself, 

these other matters will be considered 

in due time and we won’t have to argue 

each time there is an insufficient opportunity to conduct the kind of examination that would be necessary for positions as important as these. 

So I hope our colleague, the chairman of the committee, will reconsider 

his initial decision to schedule the 

hearings on January 8. If we can move 

those back even a week, that would 

provide time for us to conduct the 

process properly. We are not asking for 

some outrageous delay just for the 

sake of delay. I hope he can accommodate us, and knowing of the views of 

the other members of the committee 

on the Republican side, that he would 

be willing to do so. 

I suggest the absence of a quorum. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The 

clerk will call the roll. 

The legislative clerk proceeded to 

call the roll. 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that the order 

for the quorum call be rescinded. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. NELSON of Florida). Without objection, it is 

so ordered. 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, a 

moment ago I had the honor of presiding before the distinguished Senator 

from Florida replaced me in the chair, 

and I was presiding during the time the 

distinguished Senator from Iowa, Mr. 

GRASSLEY, and the distinguished Senator from Arizona, Mr. KYL, came to 

the floor to discuss the timing of the 

nomination proceedings for the President-elect’s candidate for Attorney 

General, Eric Holder. I had the chance 

to hear the points that they made, and 

I wish, just briefly, to respond to a few 

of them. 

As the junior member of the Senate 

Judiciary Committee, I am certainly in 

no position to speak for the chairman. 

Obviously we heard Senator KYL ask 

that the timing be done on a reasonable basis, and I think Senator LEAHY, 

the very distinguished chairman of the 

Judiciary Committee, is nothing if not 

reasonable and has shown enormous 

reasonableness with the timing of all 

the nominees that have come before 

him. And I would expect this to be no 

different. But in evaluating the reasonableness of the schedule that the chairman has proposed, or, I should say, announced, it may be worth putting it 

into the context of the history of these 

sorts of nominees. 

If you go all the way back to President Carter, for more than 30 years, 

whether the Senate was controlled by 

Republicans or Democrats, or the 

President was a Republican or a Democrat, we have had nominees for Attorney General come through the process. 

And throughout that long span of time, 

the average time between the announcement by the President of his 

choice for Attorney General and the 

nomination hearing, the average 

amount of time has been 29 days. And 

the average amount of time until a 

committee vote has been 37 days. 

So that is the background. If you average over 30 years, from the announcement, 29 days to the hearing, 37 days to 

the vote. The schedule that Chairman 

LEAHY has proposed is 39 days to the 

hearing, and he hopes for 50 days to the 

vote. 

So instead of the average that it has 

been over 30 years of 29 days, the Republicans have 10 extra days beyond 

the average to do the work that they 

assert that they need to do, and the 

vote may not come for 50 days, which 

is 11 days longer than the average. 

I think everyone in this body understands the importance of a new President having his new Attorney General 

in place quickly. The President is 

going to be sworn in on January 20, and 

I think it is in all our interests as 

Americans to make sure that his 

choice is honored in a reasonable timeframe so that when the President takes 

office, he has an intact team. Certainly 

with the Attorney General as such an 

important part of the President’s national security team in this time of national security concerns, he should 

have an intact team. 

And so it seems to me that the average is a pretty reasonable place to 

start, and when the chairman has given 

an extra 10 days beyond the average 

just to the beginning of hearings, and 

hopefully an extra 13 days beyond the 

average for the vote, it’s a pretty good 

signal that the chairman is being very 

reasonable about this. 

Most recently, some of the Attorneys 

General whom we have seen, Attorney 

General Mukasey had a period of 30 

days from his nomination to the start 

of the hearings. That was at President 

Bush’s request. Remember, he indicated that he wanted to get him in 

place soon. The Department was in 

grave distress and we needed to act 

quickly. We acted in 30 days. We are 

acting here in 39 days, more than was 

given for Attorney General Mukasey. 

The vote hopefully will be the same as 

for Attorney General Mukasey: 50 days 

from the announcement to the vote. 

It doesn’t sound unreasonable. Nobody said it was unreasonable when Attorney General Mukasey was put 

through that schedule. I don’t see how 

it can be unreasonable that Eric Holder 

should have a more generous schedule, 

and somehow that is no longer reasonable. 

For Attorney General Ashcroft, it 

was 25 days to the hearing instead of 

39; 39 days to the vote instead of the 

hoped-for 50. For Attorney General 

Reno, 26 days to the hearing instead of 

39 days; 27 days to the vote instead of 

the hoped-for 50. Nearly twice as much 

time as for Attorney General Reno. 

So I think the point is pretty clear. 

It is the tradition and the history of 

December 11, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10917 

this body to honor the President’s request to act quickly, and in terms of 

the reasonableness of the schedule that 

Chairman LEAHY has proposed, he has 

proposed a schedule that is on the generous side of the average and of recent 

history. 

With respect to the concern that 

there is a lot to look at in Eric Holder’s history, well, every lawyer who is 

experienced and active enough in the 

profession to be a candidate to be Attorney General of the United States 

has got a long history to look at. That 

is a given. That is a constant. That is 

not something that is different about 

Eric Holder than about any of his predecessors. 

Indeed, if anything, the opposite concern would be justified, which is that 

we have already had a lot of time to 

look at Eric Holder. First of all, he has 

an astonishingly distinguished record 

to be Attorney General. It is remarkable—his personal story, his career. It 

is all spectacular, truly. But specific to 

the question of nomination, this is a 

lawyer who came right after law school 

to the Department of Justice and 

served as a prosecutor for a decade 

prosecuting public corruption cases. So 

he had to be cleared by the FBI to 

come in as a Department of Justice attorney, and he served there for all 

those 10 years. That is all a matter of 

clear public record. Everybody has had 

a chance to look at that forever. 

The next thing that happened, in 

1988, Eric Holder was nominated by 

President Ronald Reagan to the bench 

to serve as Superior Court judge in 

Washington, DC. Again, he was confirmed by the Senate. We had a full 

look of everything up to 1988. 

After his service on the bench, Eric 

Holder was nominated by President 

Clinton to serve as the United States 

Attorney for the District of Columbia. 

United States Attorney Holder and I 

were colleagues; me in Rhode Island, 

him down in DC. I went through that 

process of nomination and confirmation. It is exhaustive. It was done for 

him. He was confirmed at that time. So 

as of the date he was appointed United 

States Attorney for the District of Columbia, we had done a complete Senate 

look of his record to that point. 

And that wasn’t the last time. In 

1997, President Clinton nominated 

United States Attorney Holder to serve 

as the Deputy Attorney General of the 

United States, Attorney General 

Reno’s No. 2 in that department. And 

he was then confirmed by this body, 

the Senate, unanimously. And, again, 

we had that full record of his before us 

at that time. 

So this is a guy who has been the 

subject of very public attention as a 

public official, the Deputy Attorney 

General. There isn’t a whole lot that 

one does as Deputy Attorney General 

that isn’t available to the public, that 

isn’t in the news media. This is not 

somebody who has come out of nowhere and who has a great, vast mysterious past history that we need to 

have a look at. Indeed, this body has 

had three looks at him, confirmed him 

three separate times. The most recent 

time as late as 1997, unanimously. So I 

think the notion that—with only 1997 

to now to look through, a period of a 

mere decade—the idea that he is being 

shoved unreasonably rapidly through 

the process, when he is substantially 

slower than the average, simply 

doesn’t hold water. 

And I would urge my Republican colleagues—again, they can have discussions with the chairman that obviously 

are at a rank higher than mine—but I 

would urge my colleagues to consider 

their views in that context: in the context of a spectacularly qualified individual who has thrice been confirmed 

by this body, as recently as 1997, and 

who is being given more time for scrutiny than the average or the recent 

Bush appointees, and in an environment in which I think we can all agree 

that after the Bush management of the 

Department of Justice, we badly need a 

new Attorney General in there and 

soon. 

So with those observations I will 

yield the floor. I thank my colleagues 

for waiting while I finished my remarks. I see the distinguished Senator 

from Oklahoma on the other side of the 

Chamber and I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized. 

Mr. COBURN. I ask to speak in morning business. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague and his informed 

words. Much of what he has stated I 

agree with, but there is a significant 

difference. No. 1 is I was not in the 

Senate when Mr. Holder was confirmed. 

Given the facts that played out associated with pardons that President Clinton had, the look needs to be refreshed 

without any question because there is 

no question that Mr. Holder erred in 

his judgment and has essentially said 

so, in association with one Mr. Marc 

Rich, a fugitive. 

I do not doubt Mr. Holder has a distinguished record. He is well qualified 

for lots of areas. I do not think it ought 

to be on the floor that we debate 

whether we have a hearing. But I can 

tell you that the information we have 

requested, both from the Clinton libraries and others, will not be available to us to peruse and to study. I may 

in fact in the long term end up voting 

for Mr. Holder, but I am not about to 

do anything less than a very thorough 

job. 

I also remind my colleagues I was the 

first Republican Senator in the midst 

of the committee to call for the resignation of Attorney General 

Gonzales—rightly so. The position of 

Attorney General, although it is appointed by the President, is very different than all the rest of the appointments because he is for all of us, every 

citizen in this country, the chief law 

enforcement officer of this land. His 

loyalty is not to the President. His loyalty has to be to the Constitution. It 

has to be to the responsible bodies that 

guide this country, although if we in 

fact have hearings early, we will have 

to have additional hearings. We will 

not allow a vote to occur until we have 

thoroughly, to each member of the Judiciary Committee’s satisfaction, had 

the record examined and had the questions answered that are going to need 

to be answered with regard to some of 

the events that have taken place late 

in the Clinton administration. 

That is not to cast any aspersions on 

Mr. Holder. I think he is a fine man. 

But judgment is the key thing that is 

most important and there is a red flag. 

So if it is insisted that we go early, 

earlier than we are prepared so we can 

truly ask the questions we think the 

country would need us to ask, then I 

think we will have a difficult time ever 

moving that nomination. 

That should not be the case. The fact 

is this gentleman deserves the best, the 

most thorough opportunity to explain 

himself in a way where people are asking proper questions, not improper 

questions. More important, the American people deserve for us to do our job. 

That means we have to be very well 

briefed, very well studied on the questions and circumstances about which 

we will apply them. 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Will the Senator 

yield for a question? 

Mr. COBURN. I will be happy to in a 

moment. 

I have given positive comments to 

the press on Mr. Holder, so I am not 

necessarily someone in opposition. But 

I can tell you I am in opposition to not 

being in a position to do my job. It is 

going to be impossible, and I will tell 

my colleague that, with the schedule 

that has been set forth. I will not be 

able to be prepared at the time. I have 

one staff lawyer. For us to go through 

everything to my satisfaction, for me 

to fulfill my oath, that is not a possibility between now and January 9. 

The other thing I would say is much 

of the information we have requested is 

not even going to be available to us 

until January 6. So it would be terrible 

to start the next Congress off having a 

fight about a fight. My hope is we can 

come to a compromise so we all feel 

very well prepared. 

There is no intent to delay Mr. Holder’s nomination. There is every intent 

to make sure we are prepared to thoroughly vet his qualifications of independence and judgment. It is not his 

qualifications as to whether he has the 

capability to fulfill the role. It is 

whether he will demonstrate the independence and the judgment with which 

to fulfill it. 

As my colleague knows—he was at 

the hearing when I asked the Attorney 

General to resign—I am not a partisan. 

The President-elect who nominated 

this man I have a great deal of respect 

for. But I am going to do my job. If it 

means holding up a nomination until I 

get all the answers, then that is what I 

S10918 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE December 11, 2008 

will do. So there is no reason for us to 

do that by not accommodating the 

ranking member on this committee 

and setting the schedule with which 

the minority on that committee are 

not prepared to be prepared to answer 

that. 

With that, I am happy to yield to my 

colleague. 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I appreciate that 

very much. I thank the Senator from 

Oklahoma for his courtesy for yielding. 

I wanted to make sure the distinguished Senator was not suggesting 

that when the Senate allowed 26 days 

between Attorney General Reno’s announcement and her nomination hearing, or allowed 25 days between Attorney General Ashcroft’s announcement 

and his nomination hearing, or allowed 

30 days between Attorney General 

Mukasey’s announcement and his nomination hearing that the Senate was 

then underprepared or had not done its 

job in evaluating, or didn’t have 

enough time to evaluate those candidates. I think they probably did. 

They appeared to going forward. By 

comparison, the 39 days—— 

Mr. COBURN. Reclaiming my 

time—— 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. If I could finish 

the question—— 

Mr. COBURN. I suggest we did a poor 

job with Attorney General Gonzales, 

that is No. 1. No. 2, I was not here then 

so I don’t know whether we did or did 

not. Mukasey—the difference that 

would lie is there is a large red flag on 

one or two specific actions of this gentleman as he acted as assistant Attorney General. That requires good scrutiny. 

I assure my colleague that does not 

mean, and I think he knows this—I 

have not made a decision on this gentleman and I will not until we have 

gone through the hearing process. As I 

have said to the press, I am generally 

inclined to think he is very well qualified for this. But the question of judgment will require a lot of research on 

associated issues that have been outlined here. 

So, to me, it is not a game I am playing. I think my colleagues in the Senate know I work very hard to stay informed and up to detail on every issue 

that is before us. I would say to my 

colleague, to me, I don’t care what the 

time was ever. What I care about is do 

we do it right so we do not have a repeat. 

I am sure my colleague knows he 

doesn’t want us to have a repeat of 

making a mistake and not thoroughly 

vetting someone to the degree we 

should. 

My hope is the Judiciary Committee 

in the next Congress operates very 

smoothly, that we stand on the principles that we spoke about as we went 

through this last year, and that we do 

not see the process of trying to slow 

down judicial appointments because it 

is a partisan issue. 

He has my pledge that will never be 

anything I will pertain to or participate in. If somebody is qualified and 

they are this President’s nominee and 

they are qualified after going through 

the Judiciary Committee and I believe 

they should be voted on, I intend to 

vote for them and not hold them up. 

But I think this is a very different instance. There are two specific problems 

that have to be very well vetted. 

From what we have seen so far, the 

vast majority and minority have not 

met Mr. Holder. We are going to be 

asked to meet with him on the day before the committee hearing so we will 

not have had the time even after we 

meet with him to be able to crosscheck what we have asked him against 

what facts we know because we will 

not have all the facts in, because we 

will not even have all the records from 

the Clinton library at that time. 

I suggest we ought to start it off in 

more of a spirit of cooperation. My 

ranking member is of the learned opinion for the years that he has been here, 

and he is a proven expert in the law, 

that we need more time. We hope that 

request would be honored. 

With that, I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island is recognized. 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I wanted, while 

the Senator from Oklahoma is still on 

the floor, to let him know I appreciate 

his concern and I am grateful for his 

kind words. I would hope the one or 

two red flags that he has mentioned 

are not such as to justify necessarily 

extending the period between nomination and confirmation hearings more 

than 2 weeks beyond what the Senate 

gave for other nominees such as Attorney General Thornburgh, Attorney 

General Barr—almost 2 weeks for Attorney General Reno, 2 weeks longer 

than for Attorney General Ashcroft, 1 

day short of 2 weeks longer than for 

Attorney General Meese. Some of these 

people have some red flags too, but the 

Senate was able to do its job timely 

and I hope we will do so again. 

I yield the floor. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island. 

f 

EXTENSION OF MORNING 

BUSINESS 

Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I 

ask unanimous consent that we extend 

morning business until 7:30. 

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without 

objection, it is so ordered. 

The Senator from Alabama is recognized. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I will 

share a few remarks on the matter before us. I was pleased to support Mr. 

Holder when he was nominated to be 

the Deputy Attorney General. He came 

as a Superior Court Judge in DC, and 

as a U.S. attorney. I thought he had 

many of the gifts and graces that 

would be appropriate for a Clinton deputy. He might not have been my top 

choice, but I thought he had a good 

background and I supported that. I 

have considered him a friend. I tried to 

be supportive of him throughout his 

tenure. 

But I have to say there are some 

problems that are going to have to be 

dealt with. I went through the very 

painful process of Attorney General 

Gonzales and the difficulties he had. It 

was very painful for me. I am not sure 

he was treated fairly, to tell you the 

truth. But it came to a point where I 

think he concluded, and maybe everybody concluded, it was best for him to 

step down as Attorney General. He 

wanted to do the right thing, I believe, 

but made some errors. It damaged the 

Department. 

I spent 15 years in the Department of 

Justice. I was an Assistant U.S. attorney for 21⁄2 years and U.S. attorney for 

12. That is a pretty long time; the biggest part of my professional career, for 

sure. 

I love the Department of Justice. I 

believe it is very important that we 

have leaders committed to following 

the law regardless of position or power 

or influence; that the Attorney General 

should set the example. When I was 

there they did and there was no doubt 

about it. We were encouraged to do the 

right thing. If you took political heat, 

if you were right, the Attorney General 

would back you up, no matter what 

politician might call or what influential contributor or friend might try to 

intervene. You were expected to do 

your duty. That is the way I trained 

my assistants and that is the way I was 

expected to perform. 

So I have no more grim prospect in 

mind, in the beginning of next year, 

than to have to go through a contentious hearing for the Attorney General 

of the United States. As I said, I have 

had nothing but personal affection for 

Eric Holder. 

I want to make a couple of points. 

First, I believe Senator SPECTER is justified in asking that this hearing not 

start so soon. President-elect Obama is 

not in office. He will not be President. 

President-elect Obama will not be 

President at that time. He is talking 

about starting it on January 8 and that 

is very early. Members of the committee have sought a bunch of documents. I am not sure they are entitled 

to all of those documents, but many of 

them are public record documents that 

are quite appropriate to be requested. 

These members have requested those 

documents and they need to be looked 

at because there are some questions 

here that are going to have to be examined. 

I note Attorney General Griffin Bell, 

who is one of the great Attorney Generals ever to serve in this country, 

serving under President Carter, that 

his hearings lasted 6 days. 

John Ashcroft, a member of the Judiciary Committee, one of our own, and I 

believe a man of great integrity and 

commitment to the law, had 4 days and 

my colleagues on the other side had 23 

outside witnesses testify in an effort to 

try and find something to complain 

about. Basically, they did not have