Blackburn asked Durbin, “So you’re telling us to shut up? You want us to shut up? Is that what you’re saying?”
In a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Thursday, Democratic Chairman Dick Durbin prohibited GOP Senators from discussing two Biden judicial nominees before roll call votes. Simultaneously, Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn accused Durbin of impeding her request to subpoena the flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced pedophile, on the same day.
“I think this deserves some commentary given the nature of the nominee and I’d like to ask to speak on the nomination,” one senator said.
Watch Senate Judiciary Chairman, Democrat Dick Durbin ram through committee votes on federal judges without letting Senators speak.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) December 1, 2023
The “party of democracy” is destroying it in real time. pic.twitter.com/2YVWwvRHzA
Blackburn added, “Mr. Chairman, I would also like to speak on the nomination.”
Durbin replied, “I understand what you’d like to do, but I’m saying that in fairness, we’ve debated these nominees twice, I ask the clerk to call the roll.”
A commotion ensued as senators raised questions about why they were not permitted to speak before the roll call.
“You’re going to have a lot of consequences coming if you go down this road,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton said. “I’ve cautioned a lot of you.”
“So you’re telling us to shut up? You want us to shut up? Is that what you’re saying?” Blackburn said.
One Senator asked those who were not able to speak previously on the issue to raise their hand, adding, “We’ve got several folks, Mr. Chairman, who didn’t have a chance to speak.”
“We want to tell you again why these nominees are awful,” another senator added.
“Mr. Chairman, you can’t limit debate without invoking Rule four. You haven’t done that,” said one member, to which Durbin replied, “we have debated.”
“We’ve, we’ve debated on prior occasions where we didn’t have a quorum. That vote didn’t count. We got people who were here now who weren’t here then who’d like to speak,” the senator said.
As the roll call proceeded, when the clerk reached Cotton’s name, he declared, “Mr. Cotton suggests that the chairman reconsider his decision and allow Senators Cornyn and Blackburn to speak. Consider that my vote. Everyone on that side who’s hesitant to address me or Dick Durbin should contemplate it too.”
Cotton responded, “Now I guess Senator Durbin isn’t going to allow women to speak. I thought that was sacrosanct in your party.”
“Mr. Chairman you just destroyed one of the most important committees in the United States Senate,” Senator John Cornyn said. “And you set a precedent which will be repeated. Any time one party or the other takes advantage and takes the low road it sets a precedent that will then become a norm.”
The hearing centered around two judicial nominees, Mustafa Taher Kasubhai and Eumi Lee.
In the same session, Durbin initiated a vote to approve subpoenas for conservative donor Harlan Crow and Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo. The allegations suggested their involvement in providing vacations to Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.
The vote succeeded with support from 11 Democrats, and all Republicans exited the room by the conclusion of the roll call, as reported by The Hill.
Blackburn said that Durbin had blocked her requests to subpoena both Justice Sonia Sotomayer’s staff, as well as Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs.
“This is a sad day in the history of the prestigious Judiciary Committee and further underscores the Left’s two tiers of justice crusade. Senate Democrats have long been trying to undermine the Supreme Court and Justice Clarence Thomas, but want to ignore Justice Sotomayor allegedly using her taxpayer-funded staff to coordinate speaking engagements in exchange for selling and promoting thousands of her books. They also don’t want to have a conversation about the estate of Jeffrey Epstein to find out the names of every person who participated in Jeffrey Epstein’s human trafficking ring,” Blackburn said.
