Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy at the Hearing on the Nomination of James B. Comey as Deputy Attorney General

STATEMENT OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY AT THE HEARING ON THE NOMINATION OF JAMES B. COMEY AS DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL

I welcome Mr. Comey to the Committee. I have had the opportunity to meet him and have heard much praise of him by those who know him well, so I am encouraged that we will have a Deputy Attorney General of high caliber and integrity if we confirm him.

The Deputy Attorney General is one of the most important officials in the federal government. Especially when the Attorney General has close ties to the President, the Deputy may often be in day-day-charge of the Department.

When my brother was Attorney General, his Deputy Attorney General was an outstanding Denver lawyer, Byron White, who performed so well as Deputy that President Kennedy appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1962. His successor was Nicholas Katzenbach, a war hero and law professor, who also did an outstanding job and was promoted to Attorney General when my brother came to the Senate in 1965.

Mr. Comey has many superb models to guide him as he meets this new challenge. Perhaps the most relevant one today is that of William Ruckelshaus, Deputy to Elliot Richardson, who was Attorney General during the Watergate crisis.

As part of his own confirmation proceedings, Mr. Richardson made a clear commitment to the Committee, the Congress, and the nation that he would not fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, except for "extraordinary improprieties." When Cox investigated the White House too well, President Nixon ordered him fired. Richardson refused, and resigned. Ruckelshaus, as Acting Attorney General, also refused, and resigned.

Those acts of courage and integrity by both the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney, which took place exactly 30 years ago this month, stand out in the annals of the Justice Department as a moment which all of us hope will never have to be repeated.

We are faced today, however, with a serious problem of possible White House abuse of power involving the disclosure of the name of a CIA covert employee. The President himself has asked for a vigorous examination of the alleged security leak and intimidation campaign at the White House. The Justice Department has begun an investigation, but it is far from clear that the integrity of that investigation is being respected, especially in the light of the close ties between the Attorney General, the President, and the White House staff.

Many of us on both sides of the aisle are hopeful that the appointment of Mr. Comey will facilitate Attorney General Ashcroft's decision to recuse himself from the investigation, so that Mr. Comey would be serving as the Acting Attorney General for the purposes of this investigation.

Obviously, we don't expect Mr. Carey to become part of a new Archibald Cox situation. But his impressive qualifications and the timing of his nomination are auspicious.

I am hopeful that your testimony today will contain an agreement in principle as to the steps you will take on this matter once you are confirmed, along the lines we discussed on Monday, and that the committee can work out the details quickly with you before you are confirmed. Based on our meeting this week, I think your own integrity, and dedication to the integrity of the Department, will lead you to co-operate with the members of this Committee, so that when you are confirmed we and the public can be confident that we will know what really happened, who was responsible, and that Justice has been done.

I also look forward to hearing your views on a number of other key issues involving the Department, including:

• the Department's civil right activities, which are so central to its mission in so many areas.

• the Department's challenges to the sentencing responsibilities of judges, including the so-called "blacklisting" of judges.

• the need for hate crimes legislation and plastic gun legislation,

• the Department's current role in immigration activities, and

• the Department's refusal to release a variety of documents that should be public.

I commend Mr. Comey on his nomination, and I look forward to working with him.