Senator David Perdue on Thursday reaffirmed his support for Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the Senate Floor.
“I rise today to speak in defense of a dear colleague of ours, who is now the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. He is my friend, and more importantly, he is a former colleague of this very body.
He’s a man of integrity.
He is a man of principle. I trust him and I take him at his word.
Furthermore, he has repeatedly said, just today, that he will in fact recuse himself, if and when it becomes appropriate. In my opinion, it is not appropriate right now. But, if it ever were to become appropriate, he has said that he would.
I’ve never witnessed anything quite like this in my brief time in the United States Senate. The last two years have been very interesting, but never have I seen the hypocrisy that we see going on around this one issue.
It is increasingly clear that the Minority Party is singularly focused on sabotaging this new administration at every turn. Today is no exception.
They have exercised procedural rules in the Senate time and again beyond the intent of the Founders’ design in order to stop President Trump from even getting his team in place. Our President today, as we stand here in this well, cannot have a staff meeting because he doesn’t have all of his Cabinet members in place.
As for the Cabinet members who have been confirmed, the Minority Party seems equally fixated on finding any red herring they can ultimately find to undermine the individual’s character.
We have literally reached a point where members of this body are slandering former colleagues for having and taking the same opportunities afforded to them.
This morning my colleague, the senior Senator from Missouri, tweeted that she had never, ever, met with or taken a call from the Russian Ambassador. But her own Twitter account proved that she has at least twice in the last four years.
Thirty members, as a matter of fact, of this body met with the Russian Ambassador and ambassadors from other nations in 2015 for a sales pitch on President Obama’s deal with Iran. Many of them – including the senior senator from Missouri – were open supporters at that time of candidates in the Presidential race.
In the process of this hypocrisy, the Minority Party is prohibiting us from taking action on legislation that would solve many of the problems that have manifested themselves over the previous eight years.
Make no mistake, Russia is a traditional rival whose actions pose a definite threat to global security and even our security here at home.
Their actions over the last eight years have helped destabilize Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and it was the inaction and refusal to lead of the past administration – a policy the Minority Party followed hook, line, and sinker – that created a power vacuum around the world and allowed this Russian resurgence.
I have said this repeatedly, and I’m going to continue to do so. Until there is a definite proof that Russians changed a single vote from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, I will be focused on one thing, and that is doing exactly what the American people sent us up here to do—and I encourage my colleagues to do the same—and that is not to engage in political theater for the sake of partisan politics, but working together to get America back to work.”