“We are living in a banana republic where the President is using his Department of Justice to go after his chief political rival, the person he will appear on the ballot with in about a year.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a rejection of “banana republic”-style tactics from President Biden, Senator JD Vance (R-OH) continued his hold policy for nominees to the Biden Department of Justice (DOJ). Senator Vance originally announced his DOJ nominee hold policy in June in response to the DOJ’s unprecedented political prosecution of President Donald J. Trump.
Senator Vance issued the following remarks in his objection to Senate Democrats’ latest unanimous consent requests for DOJ nominees:
Senator Vance: “I think it takes a special amount of gall to be from Joe Biden’s political party and to complain about the fentanyl crisis that is ravaging, not just Ohio, but the entire country, because it is Joe Biden’s border policies that have invited this fentanyl into our country at record levels, and I heard a briefing from the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol today that confirmed that very fact.
“Second of all, [Senator Durbin] said something I actually agree with: that this hold policy that I’ve implemented on Department of Justice nominees is unprecedented. He mentions that we have, in the past, this body before I got here, approved a number of Department of Justice nominees through unanimous consent.
“What the senator from Illinois doesn’t mention, Madam President, is that in that time, when these nominations sailed through unanimous consent, the Department of Justice was not trying to throw the political rival of the President of the United States in prison.
“I object to this because we are living in a banana republic where the President is using his Department of Justice to go after his chief political rival, the person he will appear on the ballot with in about a year. If the Department of Justice will use these nominations for law instead of politics, I am happy to end this hold policy, but so long as the Department of Justice uses its nominations and uses its personnel to go after its political opponents from the President of the United States on down, I will object. Because of that, Madam President, I do object.”
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