Business meeting to consider the nominations of Melissa Holyoak

Good morning everybody. We have today's agenda, two bills, seven nominations. Today we'll vote on two U.S. Attorneys, Melissa Holyoak of Utah, Phil Williams, Northern District Alabama. The two bills and the remaining nominations will be held over to the next meeting. Before we vote on nominations, mention that next week our committee will continue our bipartisan work to keep Americans safe. In the last few weeks, our committee has advanced legislation protecting American communities, reporting bills to protect children from predators who coerce them to physically harm themselves, others, and even animals. We've reported a bill that would modernize sentencing guidelines for sexual abuse material for children. We reported a bill that penalizes the extortion and coercion of children using child sex abuse material, commonly known as sextortion. And just last week we reported a bill that would protect Americans who rely on ATMs for cash withdrawal for robbery and violence. As I said a few weeks ago at my town hall meetings in Iowa, people always ask me why Republicans and Democrats can't get along and why we don't speak to each other. Well, it's certainly true that we have our differences. Our recent work demonstrates this committee can work together to tackle real problems affecting the American people. Next week, this committee is going to take another step in this bipartisan direction. We're going to consider a strong bipartisan bill sponsored by Senator Cortez Masto, a Democrat, and this Senator to combat the threat of illicit xylazine and our country's other drug epidemic problems. Our bill will help protect Americans from a toxic sedative commonly known as "tranq" that's often mixed with fentanyl and leads to tragic loss of American lives. This bill does this while protecting its legitimate use by veterinarians, farmers, ranchers, and wildlife personnel. This bill, as I said before, is bipartisan. It's been a priority of both the Biden and the Trump administration and is cosponsored by 14 Democrats and 15 Republicans, including several members of this committee. In drafting this bill, our committee has heard from victims who have lost loved ones to fentanyl and xylazine. Just two days ago, just two days ago, we heard from a mother who lost her son to this poison. Her son will be forever 27 and her grief is palpable. We'll never be able to return lost loved ones to their families, but we can work together to save other families from similar tragedy. I'm looking forward to working with my colleagues once again in a bipartisan way to solve real problems for American people. Just a few other matters regarding leadership changes at the Department of Homeland Security. I appreciate Secretary Nielsen's service. As this committee's oversight hearing showed, improvements can be made. I look forward to Senator Mullen's nomination process and working with him as the new Secretary. I'd also like to quickly bring this committee's bipartisan hearing on Nazis and Swiss banks. The witnesses included UBS, Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Neil Barofsky. The committee has done good bipartisan work on this historic matter and my oversight continues full force. Then accordingly, I'm considering calling a second hearing in the fall, if not earlier, to serve as another investigative update. And finally, due to UBS's failure to fully answer this committee's questions for the record, I've kept the hearing record open for now. Senator Durbin.

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. On his first day in office, President Trump issued a quote "full, complete, and unconditional pardon" to nearly 1,600 rioters who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. These pardoned rioters pose a clear and present danger to public safety. Since President Trump's blanket pardon, they have gone on to violent crimes, a violent crime spree, particularly targeting police officers who defended the Capitol and prosecutors and FBI agents who investigated them. Just last week, pardoned rioter Jake Lang was charged with threatening an officer who defended the Capitol. Lang told Metropolitan Police Commander Jason Bagshaw he should quote "be put down like a dead dog" and quote "public execution is the only solution for animals like you." Also last week, rioter Brian Bettencourt was arrested for assaulting a woman on a Metro train in Northern Virginia, the latest in a string of arrests. One of his earlier victims said quote "he has a long history of terrorizing women and teenage girls." Pardoned rioter Bettencourt is a self-professed white supremacist who was photographed holding a Confederate flag in the Capitol during the insurrection. He said he wanted to be quote "a lone wolf killer" and run people over with a vehicle and kill people in a church. Pardoned rioter Bettencourt. Also last week, rioter Andrew Johnson was sentenced to life in prison for multiple child sexual abuse offenses. Johnson, who called himself quote "an American terrorist" and a proud J6er, molested a child under 12 and another under 16 last year after he was pardoned by President Trump. To make matters worse, he tried to silence one of his victims by saying he would be compensated by the Trump administration for being a January 6 offender and would put the victim in his will. Meanwhile, President Trump continues to put forward extreme and unqualified U.S. Attorney nominees who defend these January 6 rioters and embrace the big lie that the 2020 election was stolen. First, it was Ed Martin, who helped lead the so-called Stop the Steal movement to overturn the 2020 election. Martin claimed the insurrection was quote "like Mardi Gras," calling for quote "less judgment on somebody who would hit a cop." He called the January 6 prosecutors terrorist and despicable people. Next, it was Wyoming U.S. Attorney nominee Darren Smith, zero experience as a litigator. It's hard to imagine any previous president of either political party would put a nominee forward for U.S. Attorney, the head prosecutorial spot in that state, with a person who has no courtroom experience, none. Let alone he was on Capitol grounds on January 6 and made the reprehensible claim that police officers who risked their lives that day were guilty of quote "massive incompetence." Took no exception to the rioters, but said the police were massively incompetent January 6. Today this committee will consider another MAGA extremist with zero experience as a prosecutor, Phil Williams, nominated to be U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Is it too much for this committee and Senate to ask that nominees at least have darkened a courtroom in their past, perhaps even served as a prosecutor if they want to be the chief federal prosecutor in their state? Williams called the prosecution of January 6 rioters quote "the Salem witch trials on a national scale." This is a man who is seeking to be U.S. Attorney. He specifically criticized the prison sentence of rioter Guy Reffitt, claiming he was quote "non-violent." Let's take a look at rioter Guy Reffitt. He came to the Capitol in body armor, carrying handguns and flex cuffs. Before his arrest, Reffitt threatened his own minor children, telling them quote "if you turn me in, you're a traitor, and traitors get shot." He said that to his own children before he came out here. But U.S. Attorney Phil Williams thinks he was mistreated, non-violent. This nominee is not ready for this job. Why is a president nominating these January 6 apologists? Because he wants to make the case that the 2020 election was stolen in order to justify interfering in the 2026 election. And he wants loyalist prosecutors who will help him carry out this mission. Consider the recent raid in Fulton County, Georgia, where the FBI seized truckloads of election materials. Trump has been obsessed with Fulton County since his failed attempt in 2020 to pressure Georgia officials to quote "find 11,000 votes" to overturn the election. Just this week we learned the FBI seized election records in Maricopa County, Arizona, another swing state that Trump lost in 2020. The end game is clear. President Trump himself told us we should take over the voting, Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. It's very transparent what he's all about. That's why Trump this week said that he would not sign any other legislation until Congress passes the so-called Save America Act, a bill that would disenfranchise millions of Americans. Republican Senators won't speak up against this authoritarian president, but the American people will. I yield.

Senator Whitehouse.

Thanks, since we're waiting for a quorum and since we're considering U.S. Attorneys today, I wanted to draw a little bit of attention to the situation with the U.S. Attorneys in Missouri and in Georgia with respect to the affidavit that supported the search and seizure of the Fulton County election records. Having been a U.S. Attorney, the way that this ordinarily works is that if you have a multi-state investigation, the U.S. Attorney who is running the investigation brings in the U.S. Attorney for a state in which material is sought, in which a search warrant is going to be executed. And that U.S. Attorney goes to their local judge, gets the search warrant, and then the materials go to the U.S. Attorney who's leading the investigation. In this case, the U.S. Attorney from Missouri cut out the U.S. Attorney from Georgia. So if this case were to go to trial or to be charged, the defendant would have some interesting questions about why the Department of Justice didn't follow regular procedure. If they pursued that, they'd find out that the U.S. Attorney from Missouri who did this is riddled with election denial history from his previous career and is tied in with some of the worst election denial people in the administration who talked to him about this. So that opens a whole other avenue for a defendant if charges are ever brought to challenge what went on in that process. To make it worse, the local special agent in charge of the Atlanta field office was quit or was forced out just days before this search warrant, which is strongly suggestive that the local FBI office wanted no part of this and that he might even be objecting to it. Again, another avenue for a defendant to explore in the event that charges were ever brought. Then you get to the affidavit itself, which is weird in at least two respects. First, it left out a lot of information about the credibility of anonymous witnesses that were cited in the affidavit. There was enough information about those so-called anonymous witnesses that it's not that hard to figure out who they were, and once you know who they are, it's not hard to figure out that the affidavit left out significant information about their role in the election denial conspiracy in Georgia. Why would an FBI agent leave out that information that goes to the credibility of those witnesses? Again, if you have a defendant, that is a question the defendant gets to explore and it's not going to make the search look good. Why open that avenue? Then the affidavit left an explicit out in which the agent said, you know, maybe there's no crime here. So there's some real sensitivity because that is very uncommon language in a search warrant affidavit predicated on investigation of crimes. Lastly, there were some very strange officials present, including a very senior Department of Justice FBI official and the Director of National Intelligence. I'm aware of no occasion on which the Director of National Intelligence has ever attended the execution of a search warrant. It is exceedingly bizarre. More than just being bizarre, though, it opens up a challenge for any ultimate defendant because any person who shows up at the execution of a search warrant is a witness to the execution of the search warrant and is amenable to discovery, to examination by a defendant. That's why when I was the U.S. Attorney in Rhode Island, when I was the Attorney General in Rhode Island, I made a point of not going to the site of the execution of a search warrant because I would have made myself a witness as to the execution of that search warrant and there's no need for that. It is bad practice to have unnecessary people at the execution of a search warrant. Now with respect to the Director of National Intelligence, she's also the coordinator of something called the Weaponization Task Force, the Weaponization Working Group. I call it Weaponization Task Force because it's WTF. I mean, seriously. Why would you want to have the person who started and is a key part of this so-called weaponization group, which worked secretively within the Trump administration, exposed to the examination of a defendant if charges are brought? Why would you want to open all of that up? It makes no sense. So when you add all of that up, you're faced with the question, was this the most incompetent search warrant ever? Do they really not know what they're doing enough that they make rookie error after rookie error after rookie error after rookie error after rookie error that would expose the government to considerable examination by a defendant? Is that what that was? Or was it something worse? Was it that they never expected that there would ever be a defendant? So all these holes in that search warrant affidavit, in that search warrant process, in that search warrant execution would never be explored because there'd never be a defendant. And if they expected that there would never be a defendant, then the big lie in that search warrant affidavit is that they were pursuing evidence of a crime. It suggests very strongly that they were not pursuing a criminal investigation and opening up all those avenues of challenge, but rather all they wanted to do was to get their hands on that election information which they had tried to do over and over again civilly, which they had failed in doing, and maybe this was the last desperate effort to fake a criminal investigation to get their hands on election information so they can monkey wrench Georgia elections with that information in the future. That is as plausible an explanation of what took place as any other, in fact, a good deal more plausible. So as we're considering U.S. Attorneys, it's worth paying attention to the mischief that is being done by this Department of Justice and, I guess, by the Director of National Intelligence using regular processes of the Department of Justice, not following the proper procedures for those processes, and having an ulterior motive, which in this case may very well be to add to election interference in Georgia by faking a criminal execution with a fake criminal search warrant with a fake criminal affidavit, search warrant affidavit behind it. Thank you very much.

Before Senator Cornyn, are we going to get one more? What? We're waiting on Senator Britt. Oh, they're all over there. Senator Cornyn.

Mr. Chairman, I just I just had a question for the I just had a question for the ranking member. I've heard other people say this, but I heard him say it this morning that the SAVE America Act will disenfranchise millions of Americans. The legislation requires proof of American citizenship and a photo ID to vote, so I don't understand how it could disenfranchise millions of Americans and maybe he would explain.

I'm happy to. Thank you for that question because I think all of us should be aware of the fact of what is required by this act when it comes to registering to vote. You have to present identification, correct? But your driver's license, which most people use in the course of business every single day, is not acceptable. What is acceptable is a passport. Fifty percent of Americans do not have a passport. Those who want to obtain it so they can vote will pay $186 and wait three or four weeks for that to happen. Secondly, you can use a birth certificate. But any person who has changed their their name as a result of a marriage or a hyphenated relationship has to find not only their birth certificate but some correction of it to prove that they're eligible and register to vote. It's estimated that nine percent of the voters in America do not have the identification required by this bill. It means ultimately that those people will not be voting, and I think that is the ultimate goal of this administration.

Would you bear one last question? Those are all matters that could be addressed by amendments to the bill itself if we get on the bill, correct?

When's the last time we amended a bill?

For which I would think there would be broad broad support. Mr. Chair, parliamentary inquiry, do we have a quorum present? We do have a quorum, but I I think we ought to let Lee shortly speak on this. Yeah. Then we'll vote.

I'm happy to report to my my dear friend and colleague Senator Durbin from Illinois. You're in luck. We've taken care of that. When you read the bill, what you'll discover is that we've made special accommodation for those who don't have documentation or for those who can't find their birth certificate, maybe their house burned down, maybe their dog ate it, whatever it is. When all else fails, if you don't have documentation establishing the information on your birth certificate or what would be in a passport or otherwise, the bill contains a provision requiring each state to allow an alternative mechanism by which someone can by attestation issue a sworn statement establishing the critical facts underlying their citizenship. It then puts the onus on the state to follow up on that and to and to determine the authenticity of it. States have access to their own records, states have reciprocity with other states and are able to achieve verification of that. So we've taken care of that problem and so I'm sure you'll be elated to hear that and we look forward to having your affirmative vote when we vote on the SAVE America Act. We took great pains to go out of our way to make sure that no American, no American would be left in the dark. This will not cost them a dime and no one will be excluded if they can't find their documentation.

Well, this is such a scourge on American political scene that in the last 20 years, there have been 24 identified cases of non-Americans trying to vote. Twenty-four people in 20 years. And we're the President has said we won't consider any other legislation until we consider this bill.

Okay. We'll now consider the nomination of Melissa Holyoak to serve as U.S. Attorney for Utah. Clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Graham. Aye. Mr. Cornyn. Aye. Mr. Lee. Aye. Mr. Cruz. Aye. Mr. Hawley. Aye. Mr. Tillis. Aye. Mr. Kennedy. Aye. Mrs. Blackburn. Aye by proxy. Mr. Schmitt. Aye. Mrs. Britt. Aye. Mrs. Moody. Aye. Mr. Durbin. No. Mr. Whitehouse. No. Ms. Klobuchar. No by proxy. Mr. Coons. No by proxy. Mr. Blumenthal. No by proxy. Mr. Hirono. No by proxy. Mr. Booker. No by proxy. Mr. Padilla. No by proxy. Mr. Welch. No by proxy. Mr. Schiff. No by proxy. Chairman Grassley. Aye. On this vote, the ayes are 12, the nays are 10.

Majority supporting the nominee will be she'll be reported. Phillip Williams, Jr. of the Northern District of Alabama. Senator Durbin to speak.

Mr. Chairman, as the chief federal law enforcement in their district, U.S. Attorneys must serve as an apolitical, fair-minded prosecutor, protecting victims and holding bad actors accountable. But this administration has repeatedly nominated unqualified MAGA extremists like Ed Martin and Lindsey Halligan to carry out President Trump's retribution campaign. Phillip Williams bears many unfortunate similarities to Ed Martin. Neither had any prosecutorial experience prior to their nomination. Instead, like Mr. Martin, Mr. Williams' main qualification appears to be his podcast and social media post in which he spouts MAGA orthodoxy. Both whitewashed January 6th and maligned law enforcement. Mr. Williams claimed the January 6th rioters were hunted down by federal law enforcement, whom he accused of quote prosecutorial abuse many, many times over. He also minimized the attack on the Capitol, stating quote it certainly was not an insurrection. We know the truth. The mob of MAGA faithful broke into this building, attacked law enforcement, and attempted to stop Congress from certifying the 2020 election. Mr. Williams' MAGA loyalty is not limited to whitewashing January 6th. He claimed without any evidence that federal judges who've ruled against President Trump are trying to set him up. Mr. Williams applauded President Trump's deal to send migrants to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador because he said there's quote no intention of rehabilitation or release. He said the inhumane treatment of migrants is quote exactly what we voted for. Mr. Williams is not fit to be U.S. Attorney. I urge my colleagues to oppose him.

Clerk will call the roll.

Mr. Graham.

Aye.

Mr. Cornyn.

Aye.

Mr. Lee.

Aye.

Mr. Cruz.

Aye.

Mr. Hawley.

Aye.

Mr. Tillis.

Aye.

Mr. Kennedy.

Aye.

Mrs. Blackburn.

Oh, I'm sorry, I missed it. Aye by proxy.

Mr. Schmitt.

Aye.

Mrs. Britt.

Aye.

Mrs. Moody.

Aye.

Mr. Durbin.

No.

Mr. Whitehouse.

No.

Ms. Klobuchar.

No by proxy.

Mr. Coons.

No by proxy.

Mr. Blumenthal.

No by proxy.

Ms. Hirono.

No by proxy.

Mr. Booker.

No by proxy.

Mr. Padilla.

No by proxy.

Mr. Welch.

No by proxy.

Mr. Schiff.

No by proxy.

Chairman Grassley.

Aye.

On these votes, the ayes are 12 and the nays are 10.

The nomination getting a majority is favorably reported. Senator Britt.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. On behalf of Senator Tuberville, I just wanted to speak briefly on in the support of the nomination of Phil Williams to be U.S. Attorney for the Northern District. Senator Tuberville and I believe his legal career spans over two decades, during which he has appeared in court over 700 times and tried over 30 cases to verdict. He is a decorated veteran who served his country in the military for 30 years, retiring in 2017 having reached the rank of colonel. His career in the military included two combat tours, each in one in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He also served his state as a member of the Alabama legislature. Out of respect for my colleagues' time, I'm not going to be able to respond to everything, but I do think it's important to note that Mr. Williams has been publicly and consistently clear that violence, including the violence on January 6th, is unacceptable. He stated, "I don't believe the violent acts of January 6th were worthy of support. I don't. I don't think anyone should have broken windows or pushed or shoved law enforcement officers. There never should be things that were broken in the Capitol. People shouldn't be climbing on walls or bomb-rushing their way into members of Congress's office. They should not have done that. I don't support that," end quote. Violence is never acceptable, whether we're talking about back then or whether we're talking about the ongoing violence against ICE and other federal law enforcement officers that we are seeing today. I think it's clear Mr. Williams believes that, and I just want to say thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me an opportunity to speak on behalf of Senator Tuberville and myself and look forward to seeing Mr. Williams' nomination on the floor.

On the same subject, I'd like to enter into the record six letters supporting Williams' nomination, including letters from Alabama's Attorney General, representatives in the Alabama state legislature, two state judges, the former commissioner of Alabama's Ethics Commission, and a former U.S. Army judge advocate. The meeting is adjourned.