Josh Hawley Questions Top Trump Administration Judicial Nominees About Their Backgrounds, Experience

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At Wednesday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned top Trump Administration judicial nominees.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Judge. We will start now the questioning. I will lead us off. Mr.

00:04Bluestone, let me just start with you. We'll just go down the panel. You are

00:08currently a violent crimes prosecutor in the United States Attorney's Office in

00:14the Eastern District. Tell us a little bit about the work that you do, the kinds

00:18of cases that you prosecute, and what you've learned from that experience.

00:23Thank you, Senator Hawley. Being in AUSA and the Eastern District of

00:29Missouri has been probably the most fulfilling job that I've had. It was

00:33commended to me by Judge Grunder, and frankly, before I clerked for him, it was

00:37not something that was really on my radar, but as both of my home state senators are

00:42aware, there has been a violent crime epidemic in the city of St. Louis, in

00:46particular, and the area surrounding it, and it has been so gratifying to be able

00:50to do something about that. I prosecuted carjacking offenses, armed robberies,

00:56other gun crimes, drug crimes, have been involved in white-collar investigations as

01:02well, and the work is extremely rewarding. I will say I fully appreciate the

01:09importance of every single case that would come before my court if I were so

01:14fortunate to be confirmed. Having seen probably north of 100 cases myself, it's

01:21incredibly significant to the defendants who would be appearing before me, the

01:25victims, their families, law enforcement who were involved, and I take that

01:28responsibility very seriously now, and I would then, too. I would also note that

01:33in addition to being a violent crimes prosecutor, I also serve as our district's

01:37appellate chief, so I handle my own cases certainly, but also I'm responsible for

01:42overseeing every appeal, both civil and criminal, that comes through our office.

01:46Is it safe to say, Mr. Bluestone, given your experience as a federal prosecutor, the

01:51volume of cases that you've seen and handled, that you know your way around a

01:55courtroom? I would like to think so. We would like to think so, too. I supervise more than a

02:01thousand cases, and as I mentioned, handled more than a hundred of my own. Fantastic.

02:05Mr. Devine, let's talk a little bit about your experience. You are the

02:08Solicitor General of the State of Missouri. If you had to ballpark it, this may be tough, but if you had to

02:13ballpark it, how many cases would you say that you have litigated? Just in your role

02:18as a Solicitor General, you were Deputy Solicitor General for several years, but

02:21let's just leave that to one side. Just as SG, how many cases do you get? I mean, it

02:25would be impossible to know. It's in the hundreds of cases that I have

02:29supervised or personally litigated myself. As Solicitor General, I oversee the

02:33appeals for 200 attorneys in the office. We're getting a lot of appeals that are

02:37coming through that we're supervising on a daily basis. I also have a second job, not

02:41just Solicitor General, but also the Director of Special Litigation. And so

02:45I'm in charge of the unit, the trial unit, that is tasked with taking some of the

02:49most complicated matters that the State of Missouri is dealing with and taking

02:53those matters to court, to trial court especially. So in these dual roles, you

02:58have represented the State of Missouri in trial courts. That's right. And in

03:01appellate courts. That's right. And in the State Supreme Court. That's right. And in the

03:04United States Supreme Court. That's right. You've handled some of the

03:09offices most complex matters, most complex litigation. Give us one example of a piece

03:15of complex litigation that you have handled and what you learned from it. Yeah, I

03:19think I think the student loans cases that the office argued, we've now had

03:24three of those cases over the during the previous administration. Those were very,

03:28very quick cases. The administration at the time was trying to cancel hundreds of

03:33billions of dollars in student loans. We felt that that was unlawful. There wasn't any

03:37statutory basis for that. The courts ultimately agreed with us in all those

03:40cases. But it was a very, very quick moving thing and we needed to move quickly

03:45to ensure that there wasn't permanent irreparable harm. So one thing we did in

03:49one of those cases, we actually sued before the rule had been published. Which is a

03:55pretty novel thing to do and we were able to come up with an interesting

03:59argument that ultimately prevailed in court for why we were able to do that. We

04:02showed that there is irreparable harm. Two hundred billion dollars was about to go out

04:06the door and we ultimately prevailed in that litigation. And your success record

04:10is hard to argue with. I mentioned it in my open statement, which you have won in

04:14judgments for the state of Missouri through the litigation you've handled

04:17totals in hundreds of billions, if you add it all up. Is that correct? That's

04:21right. I think about seven hundred billion. Seven hundred billion. That's pretty

04:24good, General Bailey. That's pretty good. Ms. Lanahan, in my expiring moments here, let me

04:30just ask you to say a word about your extensive and varied legal career. You're the

04:33principal deputy solicitor general now for the state of Missouri. If you had to

04:38ballpark, how many cases would you guess that you have handled in trial courts,

04:42appellate courts? You know, put them all together. I mean, what would it be?

04:44Certainly upwards of 50 and I have also been in charge of many of the appeals in

04:50our office. I oversee directly at least one-fourth of the appeals and I review

04:55them before they are sent in and I've been doing that for the last four years or so. And

05:00we have a numerous, numerous appeals out of many, many groups. So that's employment

05:06law. And remember that when you're doing an appeal, you're not only dealing with

05:10the trial court issues and whether what the trial court got it right, but also the

05:14appellate issues, which is a whole nother layer of separate issues on top. Very

05:18good. Well, Judge Stevens, I wanted to ask you a whole bunch of extremely

05:21difficult questions that would have really been impossible to answer, but I'll

05:26leave that to Senator Schmidt. But first, Senator Durbin.

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