Jeff Sessions

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, on behalf of the leader, it is the leader's hope and intention to have a final vote on the pending concurrent resolution before the Senate adjourns on Tuesday, March 28. However, if a consent agreement cannot be reached, a cloture vote will occur on Wednesday morning. With that in mind, I send a cloture motion to the desk and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Madam President, I always enjoy the remarks of the Senator from South Carolina. I am glad he doesn't speak with an accent. I can understand him better than most around this body. He is a straight shooter and a skilled lawyer who understands what the legal system is about and what we are doing in the Senate. I respect that. I respect his conclusion, which I believe is legally sound, that most of the campaign proposals which have been proposed in recent years run afoul of the Constitution, according to a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. That is a fact. I believe that is a good fact. Some would say: Well, you want to limit free speech when you want to stop burning the flag and you want to prohibit that and that is free speech. The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 majority, held that the act of burning a flag is free speech. I don't agree with that. In 1971, the Supreme Court didn't agree with that. For over 200 years they didn't agree with that. Over 40 States have laws against it. When it passed this time recently, it was a 5-4 majority. But in my view, the flag of the United States is a unique object and prohibiting its desecration will not in any way fundamentally alter the free expression of ideas in this country. You can speak about why the flag ought to be burned and that sort of thing, but we know the act of it is different from speech. It seems to me if it is speech, and if the Court is correct in saying it is speech, then the people of the United States care deeply about protecting the flag. They have an avenue to adopt a restricted, narrow constitutional amendment that doesn't in any way jeopardize the ability of our people in this country to speak freely but would allow States to prohibit the burning of a flag. That is what I think we ought to do. I think it would be healthy for this country to adopt a constitutional amendment that would allow the protection of the flag because people on the battlefield have died for that flag. More Medals of Honor have been awarded for preserving and fighting to preserve the flag than any other. We know the stories of battle when time after time the soldier carrying the flag is the target of the enemy. When he fell, another one would pick it up. When he fell, another one would pick it up. When he fell, another one would pick it up. That is the history. We pledge allegiance to the flag, not the Constitution, not the Declaration of Independence. We pledge allegiance to the flag because it is a unifying event. It is a unifying symbol for America, and having a special protection for it is quite logical for me. I do not believe we should never amend the Constitution. I do not think we amend the Constitution enough. But we want to have good amendments that are necessary, that are important, that enrich us, and that make us a stronger nation. I support that. With regard to the amendment of the Senator from South Carolina, I respect his honesty and his direct approach. I think by his amendment he recognizes in the most fundamental sense that when you constrain the right of people in this country to come together, raise money, and speak out on an issue that they care deeply about, you are indeed affecting independent thought, free debate, and freedom of speech. The Constitution of the United States says Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. I am really surprised to look at this amendment. It goes in just the opposite way. It says Congress shall have the power to place reasonable limits. So right away we are amending the first amendment. We are saying Congress shall have the power to place reasonable limits on the amount of contributions that may be made and accepted, and the amount of expenditures made by and in support of or in opposition to a candidate for office in the United States, State and Federal--the two clauses of this amendment. We are saying incumbent politicians in this body ought to be seeking to encourage laws that would prohibit people from gathering together and raising funds and speaking out. The Senator said we want a constitutional amendment because it will allow any other thing you want to do, whatever you want. He said it will allow that in terms of campaign finance. That is a scary thing to me--whatever we want. What do incumbents want? They want many times to keep down debate. They want to keep from the people the errors they may have made, or the acts they have carried out with which the people do not agree. Many times the only way we can ever know what the truth is, is for people who care about those issues to raise money and speak out against it. I feel very strongly about this. I think this is a major event. If the flag amendment is a 1 on a constitutional scale, this Hollings amendment is a 9 or a 10. It is the first time in the history of this country I know of where we have submitted a constitutional amendment that does not increase our freedom, our liberties, and our ability to act and speak as we choose. It will be the first time I know of where we are proposing a constitutional amendment that would clearly dampen, reduce, and control the free rights of American citizens to speak out on issues they care deeply about. The Cato Foundation, a conservative think tank, and the ACLU, a liberal group, are horrified at the very thought of this. This is basic constitutional law. We are talking about restricting the right of people to run advertisements during a campaign season to say why they care about issues. What more is free speech about? Chief Justice Rehnquist, in talking about the flag burning, said, ``At best, burning a flag is a grunt or a roar.'' It is not really speech at all, if you consider it some sort of expression, which I think is a stretch. But even then, you consider it inarticulate speech. That is not of great value compared to the unifying symbol of the flag. But when you talk about taking away the right of American citizens to run ads on television, to buy newspapers, to print handbills and pass them out, and to say they can't do that; why? Well, you just can't do it during an election cycle. When do you want to speak out? What good is it if you do not want to do it during an election cycle? I do not want to use all the time I have. We have two excellent scholars who care deeply about this issue who wanted to speak before I got unanimous consent. I don't want to take their time. I will just say this before I yield the floor and ask that my time be given back to them. We do not need to be retreating from freedom. We do not need to be retreating from free debate. We do not need to be adopting a constitutional amendment that will allow our children and grandchildren not to rise up, raise money, and speak out and condemn a group of incumbents who they believe are not doing the right thing in America. Sometimes that is the only way you can get the message out. Frankly, I am not one of those who believes our national news media is fair. I think it is ludicrous to expect and to suggest they are fair and objective. They are clearly, in my view, biased toward big government and liberal activity. I am not going to say I am going to subject my campaigns to constant reinterpretation of what I do to some media outlet that may get worse than it is today. Apparently, they have unlimited rights to run their programs every day and call it ``news'' if they want to. Somebody who has a different view cannot raise money, buy time on their program, and rebut that? This is fundamental stuff. This is right to the core of what the first amendment was all about. The first amendment is about intelligent debate, argument, concern over policy issues--not whether or not you have a ``grunt'' or a ``roar'' in burning a flag. I don't believe that was ever intended to be covered by the Constitution. If so, we don't need to go in this direction. It is one of the most adverse steps we could take. It would be an error of colossal proportions if this Senate were to vote to amend the great charter of freedom, the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States, out of some vain, hopeless effort that we are going to suppress the right of free American citizens to raise money and speak out on what they believe in. I am prepared to vote on reasonable controls on campaign funding as long as it can pass constitutional muster. I believe fundamentally our best protection is to allow people to speak; if people give money, disclose how much money they give, and let everybody know promptly and immediately. If the public knows where the money is coming from, they may judge the value of the ads. In my Republican primary 3 years ago for the Senate, I had eight opponents. They spent $5 million among them. I spent $1 million. Two of my opponents spent more than $1 million of their own money. I had to raise every dime I could raise, some $900,000. I worked hard, and I won the race. John Connolly, mentioned earlier, spent more money per vote than any man, and he got clobbered. Other senatorial candidates have spent tens of millions of dollars and have been clobbered in races. I do not believe money always tells the tale. It was difficult for me when I faced the guy spending $1.5 million of his own money on a Republican primary in Alabama, but that is the way it is. I do not see how I can tell that person he cannot spend that money and express what he believes and cares about in that election about why he would be an outstanding candidate. Many gave to me because they believed I could be an effective voice for their concerns. That is what America is all about. I don't believe it corrupts politicians. I believe it sucks them into the system and makes them be participants. They speak, run ads, and attack, sometimes, unfairly. If we can figure out a way to do a better job of disclosing how this money is spent and from whom it comes, I think that will help the public. I appreciate the leadership of Senators Bennett and McConnell, who are scholars on these issues. I believe the Senate should do well to listen to them. I agree with the Senator from South Carolina, this is really important. More Senators need to be paying attention to this crucial issue in our Nation's history. I yield to the Senator from Kentucky.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I now ask the Senate stand in adjournment under the previous order.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a star print of S. 2285 be made with the changes that are at the desk.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand in recess from the hours of 12:30 to 2:15 for the weekly party luncheons.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until the hour of 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, March 28. I further ask unanimous consent that on Tuesday, immediately following the prayer, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and the Senate resume consideration of S.J. Res. 14, as under the previous agreement.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I now ask for its second reading and object to my own request.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I understand that H.R. 2366 is at the desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, the bill we have just considered is a very important piece of legislation that has been the subject of considerable effort for over a year now in the Judiciary Committee in the House. Great efforts have been expended by all parties interested in this legislation to achieve a piece of legislation that would provide enhanced protections to private property owners and at the same time would not undermine, in a real and significant and unnecessary way, the ability of law enforcement agencies to seize and forfeit to the interest of the Government assets from illegal drug dealers and other criminal assets that are forfeited. In the early 1980s, this Congress passed one of its most historic pieces of legislation that attacked crime in America. It was the asset forfeiture law. At that time, I was a U.S. attorney in Mobile, AL. This Federal law became a daily part of the work of my office. We instructed our assistant U.S. attorneys that whenever they were prosecuting a drug case, it was not just enough to sentence and punish the criminal, they ought to be sure the ill-gotten gains, the profits they made from selling illegal substances in this country, would be seized and forfeited to the United States. On a regular basis that was done all over this country. It was a major, important, historic step against crime, particularly against drug crime in America. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of dollars, have been forfeited from illegal enterprises since that day. The forfeitures are conducted under this Federal law, although States have the ability to forfeit assets, too. In Federal court, the Government had to prove its case, seize the asset; a cost bond would be posted by the defendant if he wished to contest the seizure, and a court would hear the case and make a ruling in that fashion. A number of people believed strongly that requiring a person to post a cost bond was not a healthy thing under our legal system. They wanted to change that. Chairman Henry Hyde in the House Judiciary Committee felt that way; so did Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We began to analyze and study what we could do to deal with this problem of asset forfeiture. At the time, Senators Schumer, Thurmond, Biden, and myself introduced asset forfeiture reform legislation in the Senate. Senators Hatch and Leahy introduced another piece of legislation that was closer to the Hyde bill. For some months now, we have worked together to see what we could do to protect legitimate constitutional rights of American citizens, while at the same time protecting this tremendous asset to law enforcement of the seizing and forfeiting of assets. It is wrong, in my opinion, for a person who has made his money and his livelihood for years selling dope in America to go to jail and leave a mansion out there that he can come back to and the Federal taxpayers having to pay for his time in jail, or to have bank accounts with hundreds of thousands of dollars in them and not have that seized by the Government but, in fact, serving his time in jail and getting out and living high off the ill-gotten gains he achieved as a drug trafficker. I would say, 98 percent of forfeitures in America today in Federal court are as a result of drug cases. In my relatively small office in Alabama, when I was a U.S. attorney, we seized probably $8 million to $10 million that we actually turned into the Federal Treasury, after expenses and other items were paid. In one case, we seized a Corvette automobile that was rumored to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars because it was a unique Corvette. In fact, the drug dealer's car eventually was sold for $170,000, as I remember. We seized mansions in Florida on the Gulf Coast. We seized bank accounts in foreign countries--big freighters, small boats, expensive sail boats, automobiles of all kinds, and bank accounts into the millions of dollars. These are effective tools against the drug trafficking industry. In fact, many countries now recognize that, and they are at this time attempting to pass similar laws in their countries. It certainly is important to America. I believed very strongly that when we set about amending this law, we do not need to place any unnecessary burdens on law enforcement and the prosecutors who will have to handle these cases. In fact, a large percentage, perhaps 90 percent or more, of these cases are confessed by the defendant because he has to establish where he got this money. Not many people can explain why they have $50,000 in cash in the trunk of their car along with maybe a few kilograms of cocaine. Normally, there is evidence in addition that they have been a drug dealer and that they haven't had employment; that their house note is being paid in cash. Oftentimes they paid for their Mercedes automobile in cash, those kinds of things. So the proof turns out to be pretty good, as a normal rule. I believe the negotiation over this legislation was a fine example of the Senate at work; the Senate and House, as a matter of fact. We believe the agreement that has been reached today will both satisfy the House Judiciary Committee leadership and the Senate Judiciary Committee leadership. Now it has already passed the Senate. If the identical bill passes in the House, it will become law. We will have done what we set out to do, to pass legislation that will strengthen protections and civil liberties in America without undermining the rule of law in this country. I was proud to be a part of that. We worked very hard on it. I express particular appreciation to my staff on the Judiciary Committee: Kristi Lee, who is now U.S. Magistrate in Mobile, AL, and Ed Haden, who is with me today, who both worked with extraordinary skill to make this legislation become a reality. In recent weeks, I am particularly proud of the work Ed Haden has done to be firm and strong for good, solid legislation that could have the support of law enforcement in America. I also express my appreciation for the leadership of Senator Hatch who chairs the Judiciary Committee. His skill and knowledge on these issues is unsurpassed, and his dedication to American law is unsurpassed. I also was extraordinarily impressed with the commitment and knowledge and ability of Chairman Henry Hyde of the House Judiciary Committee. His insight and commitment to making this law better was remarkable, and I think the result has been something of which we can all be proud.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the committee substitute be agreed to, the bill be read a third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. I understand the Vice President is in the Chamber. Under the Senate rules, a person who has a personal conflict of interest in a vote is not allowed to vote. I make a parliamentary inquiry----

Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the Chair, and I thank the Senator from Vermont, the distinguished ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who has always played a big role in these issues and is an outstanding advocate. If I ever got into trouble, I would like him to represent me. I think that is what we should do. That is the purpose of my motion. In a prompt evaluation of this matter, the public and this country are entitled to know about it, because, remember, once that confirmation is concluded, there is absolutely no other action this or any other body in the United States can take against any judge--in this case, Judge Paez--short of impeaching him for a criminal act. We ought to consider that and take our time here in a few more weeks to settle this matter. We will feel better about ourselves. Perhaps the judge will have an answer. He certainly has a number of friends. He has a good family. I believe his deficiencies for the position revolve around an honestly held political philosophy that I do not agree with--judicial activism. That is the main basis for opposing his nomination. But I am very troubled by the case I cited because I do not understand how it could have been disposed of in the way it was. I believe the judge should have blown the whistle on this with a proper plea bargain. It was not done. I would like to have him have an opportunity to explain why. I yield the floor.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I would like to sum up briefly and say there is new evidence that Judge Paez, a sitting district judge, while being nominated to the Ninth Circuit, under nomination by the President of the United States, found on his docket--rightly or wrongly, out of 34 judges--the John Huang case, and he accepts a plea bargain that did not require Huang to plead at all to the $1.6 million in illegal campaign money he raised for the Democratic National Committee, for the Clinton-Gore campaign. He pled guilty only to a small contribution in the city of Los Angeles. He was given immunity for that amount. When the guidelines were calculated based on the evidence the judge had at that time, he should have added two additional levels for having a substantial part of the scheme being outside the United States, two to four additional levels for being an organizer or a manager, and two additional levels for violating a position of trust as the vice president of a bank. Those are levels that should have been added by the judge. He failed to do so. In so doing, he was able to find a level of eight, the highest possible level in which he could give this individual zero time in jail, straight probation, and immunity on the most serious charge. I believe it is wrong, and we need to have a hearing on it to find out how it happened.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, a point of order.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator and I appreciate his leadership on this issue and his courage in standing up for it. It is really offensive to me that it would be suggested I or other Members would oppose someone simply because they were Hispanic, African American, or any other nationality, religion, or racial background. I hardly knew he was Hispanic until we were into this matter. He has been held up for a number of years for reasons that have been discussed in some detail. He has stated, as a State judge, a philosophy of judging that is the absolute epitome of judicial activism. He said that when a legislative body doesn't act, it is the responsibility of the judge, or the judiciary, to act and fill the void. Well, when a legislative body, duly elected by the people of the United States, fails to act, that body has made a decision--a decision not to act. But they are elected. If they do the wrong thing, they can be removed from office. But now we want to have a Federal judge who is unelected, with a lifetime appointment, to blithely walk in and say: Well, I don't like this impasse. You guys have a problem and you didn't solve it, so I am going to reinterpret the meaning of the Constitution. That word doesn't mean that, or ``is'' means something else. So I am going to make this legislation say what I want it to say. I am going to solve this problem. You guys in the legislative branch would not solve it; you failed to solve it, and you are thinking about special interests. But I am above that, and I will do the right thing. Mr. President, that is judicial activism. That is an antidemocratic act at its most fundamental point because that judge has a lifetime appointment. He has no accountability to the public whatsoever. It is a thunderous power that the Founding Fathers gave Federal judges. And for the most part they have handled themselves well. But this doctrine of judicial activism that they have a right to act when the needs of the country are at stake is malicious, bad, and wrong. It undermines the rule of law. It undermines the democracy at its very core. Hear me, America. When you have a Federal judge who is an unelected person unaccountable to the people, we have gone from a democracy to something else. I believe that is not healthy. His statement in that regard is a fundamental statement that indicates to me he is particularly not a good choice for the Ninth Circuit. As the Senator so ably pointed out, it is the most activist circuit of all. I know the Senator mentioned the recent case in which he was reversed. The city of Los Angeles passed a statute against panhandling after an individual on the street of Los Angeles was murdered when he wouldn't give somebody 25 cents. They passed legislation. The Los Angeles City Council is not a city council that has set about to deny civil liberties. They are one of the most open cities in the world. What did Judge Paez do, according to the Federal Supplement opinion of his district court order in 1997? He found that the ordinance was invalid on its face under the California Constitution's Liberty of Speech clause for discriminating on the basis of content between categories of speech. The case was appealed to the Federal court. They certified that question, as they sometimes do, to the California Supreme Court. This is a California statute, and the Federal judge was invalidated by the California Supreme Court. Out of deference and respect to the California Supreme Court, what is your opinion of that? They reviewed the matter. They came back and concluded that the judge was wrong after having delayed the implementation of a duly passed statute by the duly elected leadership of the city of Los Angeles. This one sitting, lifetime-appointed judge unaccountable to the American people wiped it out. The California Supreme Court said this: As noted above, the regulation of solicitation long has been recognized as being within the government's police power. And, yet, plaintiff's suggested approach to content neutrality in many instances would frustrate or preclude that means-- Let me stop-- [T]he kind of narrow tailoring that is generally demanded with regard to the exercise of such police power regulation in the area of protected expression. If, as plaintiff suggests, lawmakers cannot distinguish properly between solicitation for immediate exchange of money and all other kinds of speech, then it may be impossible to tailor legislation in this area in a manner that avoids rendering the legislation impermissibly over-inclusive. It is free speech to say ``stick'em up, turn over your money or your life''? No, it is not. This is a pretty cutting and direct rebuttal, and a blunt condemnation of Judge Paez from the Supreme Court of California--not a right-wing court, I submit: In our view, a court should avoid a constitutional interpretation that so severely would constrain the legitimate exercise of government authority in an area where such regulation has long been acknowledged to be appropriate. Indeed, one of the main reasons our murder rate fell in this country a few years ago was because Rudy Giuliani, as mayor of New York, examined what was happening to crime in New York, and he decided that what was happening was we were allowing panhandlers and drug dealers to be wandering the streets and they focused on small crime. They had a plummeting of the murder rate in New York. It dropped by about two- thirds in almost 1 year's time. In fact, there was almost a one-half decline in the murder rate in 1 year. This judge would say those kinds of regulations that allow a city to take control of its streets is not valid, and it was reversed by the Supreme Court of California in pretty blunt language. To say he is not an activist and not willing to use his power as an unelected public official to set public policy in America is wrong. That is only one of the cases that is involved here. I am concerned about the sentencing of John Huang. It is a very important case. It is a case of real national importance. His activities were followed. The Democratic National Committee had to give back $1.6 million in contributions that had come from illegal sources, mainly foreign sources--the Lippo Group, and Riady, and so forth. That was a major news story, and it was for years. We, as members of the Judiciary Committee, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, leaders in the House and Senate, urged Attorney General Janet Reno to set up an independent prosecutor to investigate this campaign finance problem. She steadfastly refused to do so, although she did in a lot of other cases. The employees of the Department of Justice are answerable to the Attorney General, who holds her office at the pleasure of the President of the United States. She can be removed at any moment by the President of the United States. She decided she would hold onto that case. She would not give it up, and she assured us that they would effectively prosecute it; they would get to the bottom of it and crack down on these illegal contributions from foreign governments, mainly believed to be the People's Republic of China, a Communist nation, and a significant competitor of the United States, while they were stealing our secrets at the same time from our laboratories. This is a serious matter. She would not give it up. She said she would do a good job with it, and they took the case and investigated it. Her underlings met with John Huang's lawyers in Los Angeles, and they discussed the case and the disposition of it. I was a Federal prosecutor for 15 years. I have some experience. I have been here for 3 years, but most of my career was as a Federal prosecutor. So they have this meeting and they reach a plea agreement. I have a copy of the plea agreement. They had a plea agreement and presented it to the judge. I tell you, a judge is not required to accept a plea agreement under the law, and I can document that entirely. A judge is not required to accept a plea agreement presented to him by a prosecutor. It is common knowledge and everyday practice. You present a plea to the judge. By accepting it, he accepts the guilty plea of that defendant. If he rejects it, he doesn't take the plea. What did the plea agreement say about that particular issue? They said: Oh, you know, the judge is just a victim of the prosecutor. He is just bound by them. I am telling you that a judge is a force. A Federal judge to a Federal prosecutor is a force. What he says or she says goes. They can demand all kinds of things before they take a plea, and they should demand all kinds of things before they take a plea. For those who think the judge had no authority, I will read the exact language between John Huang and the Clinton Department of Justice prosecutors. Paragraph 15: This agreement is not binding on the court. The United States and you understand that the court retains complete discretion to accept or reject the agreed-upon disposition as provided for in paragraph 15(f) of its agreement. If the court does not accept the recommended sentence, this agreement will be void, you will be free to withdraw your plea of guilty. If you do withdraw the plea, all that you have said and done in the course of leading to this plea cannot be used against you. In addition, should the court reject this agreement, and should you, therefore, withdraw your guilty plea, the United States agrees it will dismiss the information, the charge, that is brought against you, without prejudice to the United States right to indict you on charges contained in the information and any other appropriate charges. This is basic. They go to the court and plead guilty. The judge does a pre-sentence report, as the Senator from Vermont said. A judge ought to be impeached if they don't do a pre-sentence report on a case such as this. That is routine. A pre-sentence report is made, which has not been made part of the record. There was a plea on what is called an information, not an indictment. That means the case was not presented to a grand jury of 24 citizens to have them vote on what charges should be brought against John Huang. Remember, the investigation began out of the charges of $1.6 million to the 1996 Democratic National Committee to benefit the Clinton-Gore campaign. Some say: Jeff, you are just playing politics. You want to talk about campaign finance reform. I am talking about the judge who took the plea on the man who was a central figure in the gathering of this money from a Communist nation. This is serious business. We ought not to treat this lightly. Any judge who had already been nominated by this President for a higher Federal court position, I believe, should have realized the significance of the position he was in and conducted himself with a particularly high level of scrutiny. It was produced after this plea agreement was signed between the prosecutor and John Huang and his attorneys. They produced an agreed-upon charge--not an indictment because it wasn't a grand jury; it is called an information. It is written by the prosecutor, saying: The United States charges. They did this, and presumably filed the case on the docket. In some fashion, the case went to Judge Paez. Out of 34 judges, this case goes to the Judge who is already being nominated by the President for another high court position. I know we have a clerk who has written a letter, but clerks get their fannies in trouble if they don't say those kinds of things. I don't know how this case got to him. I would like to have that clerk under oath for about an hour, and I will know after that whether or not it was handled in a legitimate way. That is what I believe. This little one- or two-line statement doesn't say a lot that satisfies me. I have seen many of those statements. The President submitted a many affidavits saying, ``I didn't do anything wrong'' in his civil cases. We learned later that he did do some things wrong. It is curious to me that Judge Paez had drawn the other significant campaign finance reform case for the Democratic National Committee in the Clinton-Gore campaign. That was a Maria Hsia case. Maria Hsia is the one laundered the money through the Buddhist nuns for the campaign. He got both of those cases. That is a pretty high number. I would like to see a mathematical calculation of the chances of the two most prominent campaign finance reform cases both falling to 1 judge out of 34 judges in Los Angeles, California. I don't know how it happened. Maybe there is a good explanation. If there is, I am pleased to accept it. I have been in courts and my experience is, and this is the reason I am concerned, usually in Federal courts, if there are 50 indictments returned by grand jury, they go on some sort of ``wheel'' and are randomly assigned. Cases that proceed on information by a prosecutor do not move through a grand jury. They move through the system in a different direction and do not always go on random selection. Years ago, I remember when we would take the case to whatever judge was available. If a defendant wanted to plead guilty and we were satisfied, we called the judge and said: Judge, can you take the plea this afternoon at 4 o'clock? He would say, OK, or we would find another judge. It is much more possible there is ``judge shopping'' on a plea to an information than on an indictment returned by a grand jury. I think we ought to know this before we vote on a lifetime appointee. I wish it had been discovered sooner. This is not an individual member of a law firm who had his practice disrupted. He is now a sitting Federal judge with a lifetime appointment. If he is not confirmed by this Senate, he will still be a Federal judge. He was previously confirmed by this Senate to be a Federal judge for the district court. I submit it is not too much to ask for a few weeks, 2 or 3 weeks, to have the matter cleared up. It has been 4 years; what is 3 more weeks to get the matter settled? That is what we ought to do if we want to do our duty. I believe the evidence shows with some clarity why I believe the judge's actions at a minimum did not meet standards required of him. There has been a lot of talk from those who defend Judge Paez. They say he is a victim of the prosecutor. Prosecutors have to take the pleas. It is routine to take the pleas. This was not routine, No. 1. Then they say the prosecutors were not doing their job. The prosecutors didn't tell him everything. He could not know everything. We have examined the portions of the sentencing record we have been able to obtain, and we know at least some of those facts of which he was aware. I will analyze, based on the record, what he knew and what the sentencing guidelines require in terms of a sentence. I think I will demonstrate to the satisfaction of any fair observer that the judge did not follow the sentencing guidelines effectively. He found a lower level of wrongdoing than he should have. That level of wrongdoing allowed him to issue a light sentence instead of a sentence in jail. I take very seriously the sentencing guidelines that were passed by this Congress a number of years ago. In the early 1980s, I was a U.S. attorney, a Federal prosecutor. The whole world held its breath when the U.S. Congress eliminated parole. It said to Federal judges: We are tired of one Federal judge giving 25 years for bank robbery and another giving probation for the same bank robbery offense. We don't want one judge who doesn't like drug cases giving everyone probation and another judge hanging an individual for minor amounts. We are going to have guidelines. They passed detailed guidelines, and say the range would be 26 to 30 years. If the judge desired, he would give the lowest sentence allowed, 26; if he desired, he could give an individual 30. The guidelines mandated and controlled sentencing. It was designed out of concern that there had been racial disparity. It was designed out of concern about an individual judge's predilictions to be soft or tough, and tried to create a uniform sentencing policy. We held our breath. We didn't know if judges got their back up. They didn't like that. They had complete discretion before. They fussed. We wondered if they would follow. They did follow it. The courts of appeals and the Supreme Court directed them to follow. If they didn't follow guidelines, they reversed the sentences and sent the case back, saying: Follow these sentencing guidelines. Even if we don't like them, they were passed by the elected Representatives of America in Congress. We, as judges, have to abide by those guidelines. That is the basic point on that. The plea agreement was stunning, in my view. And the information that was filed for the case was very troubling to me. We have a national matter involving the very integrity of the Presidential election by the infusion of large sums of illegal cash. It made national news, TV, radio, magazines, newspapers. What do the Department of Justice prosecutors do? Where do we charge John Huang with this fundamental violation of the 1996 election? Is that what he pled guilty to, in this information and plea agreement? I have it right here. He did not plead to one dime of illegal contributions to the Clinton-Gore Democratic National Committee campaign in 1996. His plea was to a $5,000 and a $2,500 campaign contribution to the Michael Woo for Mayor Campaign Committee in Los Angeles. That is what he pled guilty to. That is all he pled guilty to. What did the prosecutor recommend? He recommended a nonincarcerated sentence of 1 year probation, no jail time, don't go to the Bastille, don't get locked up, don't serve time in jail for one of the biggest intrusions of illegal cash in the history of American political life. Plead guilty to a violation in a mayor's race. Don't discuss the matter of the Presidential election; it might embarrass the boss of the prosecutor who is handling the case. This is raw stuff. It goes to the absolute core of justice in America. As U.S. attorney in Mobile, I prosecuted friends of mine, classmates of mine, business people I knew in the community, and drug dealers galore because I swore an oath we would have ``equal justice under law.'' It is on the Supreme Court, right across this street. Go look at it: ``Equal Justice Under Law.'' I assure you that, this very day in Los Angeles, CA, 25-year-old crack cocaine dealers are getting sentenced to 20 to 25 years in jail; some, life without parole. I was involved in a cocaine smuggling case. Five guys from Cleveland or somewhere brought in 1,500 pounds of cocaine, and the five of them got life without parole the same day because the Federal sentencing guidelines are tough on drug dealers. And they have tough provisions for corruption cases. But what did he get? He got 1 year probation and a $10,000 fine. Do you think Mr. Riady would be glad to pay that fine? Do you think the Lippo Group could afford to pay a $10,000 fine for their buddy Johnny Huang? He testified. They said, you need to get at the bigger fish, and they did this because John Huang agreed to testify. Against whom did he testify? Did he provide important information? That is what prosecutors have to ask themselves. They had apparently debriefed him at the time of his plea and gotten him to tell what he knew and what he was going to cooperate about. Who was the big fish? Who was the big fish that this great team of prosecutors agreed to prosecute? It was Maria Hsia. That is the only person, to my knowledge, John Huang has ever testified against. From what I hear, it was a pretty weak bit of testimony in a recent case in Washington. So they plea-bargained with John Huang, the big fish, and ended up getting testimony against some little fish. What happens to Maria Hsia, the lady who raised all that laundered money at the Buddhist temple for Vice President Gore, the President of this Senate, when he chooses to be, there raising the money? She got convicted on five counts, allowing her to be sentenced for up to 25 years in jail. It has always been curious to me why they did not try that case in Los Angeles, which would have been a much more favorable forum, according to most experts, than here in Washington. They brought it up here. Many say the Department of Justice was shocked they got a conviction, but they got a conviction. So now we have John Huang who raised $1.6 million, who pled guilty to a piddling mayor's race case and got 1 year probation, testifying against Maria Hsia, who, in my view, would be less culpable than he. She is subjected to up to 25 years in jail. I am not talking just about politics. I love the Department of Justice. I spent over 15 years of my career in the Department of Justice. I love the ideals of the Department of Justice. When they sentence young people to jail for long periods of time, any prosecutor, any judge who does not have a moral commitment of the most basic kind to ensure that when people in suits and ties who have a lot of money commit crimes, they serve their time, is not much of a judge or prosecutor, in my view. They are not worthy to carry the badge. What else did they do in this great prosecution that Janet Reno held onto? I was stunned. He was given transactional immunity. Listen to page 3 of the prosecutor's agreement that the judge approved. Not only did they not indict him for the $1.6 million or any of those funds, they gave him absolute immunity. Look at the language. This is the agreement, the contract between the prosecutor and Huang: The United States will not prosecute you for any other violations of Federal law other than those laws relating to national security or espionage, occurring before the date this agreement is signed by you. That is a very dangerous plea agreement. I always warned my assistant U.S. attorneys not to sign those kinds of agreements. Under this agreement, had John Huang committed overt bribery, had it been proven he walked into the Oval Office, as I think he did on a number of occasions, and met the President of the United States and gave him $1 million cash for some bribe, he could never be prosecuted for that. He had complete immunity once this plea agreement was accepted. If he had committed a murder, he had complete immunity under Federal law based on this agreement. If he brought in drugs from the East, he would have been given complete immunity and could not be prosecuted for it. He was given a sweetheart deal, a year probation and a $10,000 fine. That is not worthy of justice in America, I submit. It is a pitiful example of prosecuting, a debasement of justice. It is wrong, not right, not according to ideals and standards. I am stunned reading this document. How did they do it? These Federal Sentencing Guidelines contain some pretty tough stuff. How did they wiggle this thing down to get a probation deal? Let's see. I have the document here. We looked at it. We looked at the factors in this kind of case, including the evidence the judge had, according to the transcript of sentencing. There is probably more evidence than this he could have considered, but we know that the judge was given these facts. The judge started out with a base level of 6. That is the basic sentencing level for this type of fraud or deceit activity. I do not disagree with that. The prosecutors recommended a number of things, and the judge agreed. They recommended only a four-level departure downward for his cooperation. Apparently, the prosecutors felt the level of cooperation rendered by John Huang was not that significant. They asked for a four-level downward departure. In addition, he had to then deal with the factors that would require an upward raising from level 6. The judge found more than minimal planning. He upped it two. Certainly there was more than minimal planning in this deal to raise the money, even for the race in Los Angeles. It was 100-something thousand dollars--$156,000, I believe, for the total--even though he pled guilty specifically to $7,500. They gave him that sentencing and some other increases and decreases and adjustments. I will go over several on which I believe the judge was clearly wrong. In the facts before Judge Paez, I believe the evidence was clear that a substantial part of this fraudulent scheme was committed outside the United States. Indeed, the money came from outside the United States. That is what was illegal about it. In the facts, the prosecutor said in the very information itself: In 1992-- This is about the mayor's race-- . . . defendant Huang and other Lippo Group executives, entered into an arrangement by which (1) Huang and others would identify individuals and entities associated with Lippo Group that were eligible to contribute to various political committees. They would find some people who were not identified as foreign and identify them. That is the first step. The second step, according to the Justice Department prosecutors, was: Huang would solicit the Contributors to make contributions to various political campaign committees. Huang would find buddies at Lippo, and say: You are eligible to give; you give this money. And he would solicit them to give the money. No. 3, the illegal part: Lippo Group-- A foreign corporation out of Jakarta, Indonesia, with direct connections to Communist China. Lippo Group would reimburse the Contributors for their contributions. Do my colleagues see what that is? It is the classic launder. Lippo Group cannot give a contribution, so they take one of their employees, Huang, and get him to identify some people who can, and then reimburse him for the contributions. That is specifically provided for in the Federal election campaign law, and it is illegal. Wrong. No-no. You cannot do that. Did some of this involve out-of-the-United States activities? Yes. Under the Federal guidelines, a judge is required to add two levels to the sentencing for that. Did Judge Paez do that? No, he ignored that provision of the sentencing guideline. He had that information because it was in the charge brought against Huang to which Huang admitted and pled guilty. By the way, apparently the pattern of the contributions to the mayor's race was exactly the same as they used in the Presidential race: At least 24 illegal contributions spread out over a course of 2 years involving multiple U.S. and overseas corporate entities of which John Huang was responsible for soliciting and reimbursing the illegal contributions. Those are the facts that were before the court. Judge Paez had that information. Under the normal reading of the sentencing guidelines, that would have added between two and four levels because he would have been acting as an organizer or manager in this criminal activity. He clearly was. He was the hub of it. He was the organizer, the manager, and manipulator of it all. He was the one doing the dirty work to put it together. What did Judge Paez do? He ignored that and did not increase it one level for being an organizer and manager. I believe he clearly was required to do so if he were following the law that was mandated from this Congress. These were the facts before the court. No. 3: John Huang was an officer and director of various corporate entities involved in this case and also was director and vice chairman of a Lippo bank. According to the guidelines, if a person commits a crime, and at the time of committing that crime, abuses ``a position of public or private trust,'' such as a director of a bank--we have that all the time. Bankers are being sentenced, directors are being sentenced, and they have their sentence enhanced because if they are an officer of a bank, the court holds them to a higher standard and they get more time than a teller would get for a similar crime. For abusing ``a position of public or private trust . . . in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense,'' as section 3B1.3, add two levels. Did the judge do that? No; no increase in levels. When it all settled, Judge Paez was able to do what the prosecutors wanted. He helped them out. He bent the rules. He ignored the rules. He violated the rules. And what level of offense did he find? He found level 8. Why is that important? Level 8 calls for a sentence of from zero to 6 months. A judge can give zero or as high as 6 months. That is the only range if he finds this level. If it had been level 9, zero would not be in the chart. It would not fit. If it was level 9, he would have had to serve time in jail. If it would have added up to, as I think it should have, at least to eight more levels, he would have faced from 12 to 30 months in the slammer, where he ought to be. That would be a good deal for him because that does not include the $1.6 million he raised in the Presidential campaign. I do not know how in America we have become so blase. We have been so beaten down and so overwhelmed with manipulation of lawsuits and courts that I do not think we realize what is happening in this country. I am amazed there was not an absolute outrage by the people who were following this case over this plea. Maybe they thought he really was going to blow the whistle on somebody. Maybe they thought he was going to blow the whistle on the chairman of the Democratic Party or the Vice President or the President or the chairman of the campaign committee or some big fish. Maybe they thought this was not such a bad idea because certainly the prosecutors would not give away the case to get some piddling testimony against Maria Hsia. They probably did not need his testimony against her anyway. I do not know about this. We need a hearing with Judge Paez. Having sentenced young people to jail with no background, no money, bad homes, dealing in drugs, how can he send them off to jail regularly and not send this guy in a suit and tie connected to one of the most wealthy enterprises in the world, the Lippo Group out of Indonesia, connected to Communist China, to jail? Why didn't he see fit to do anything about that? Did it have anything to do with the fact the President of the United States had nominated him already for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals? That is a troubling thought. He is entitled to have a day's hearing on it, be asked about it, and defend what he did. My analysis is this is not good. Further, in my practice before Federal judges, they were not at all worried about prosecutors. If I had walked into the Southern District of Alabama, before any of the Federal judges in that district-- basically, good, solid judges, not political, not out to befriend any political entity--and said, ``In our plea agreement, judge, he is going to plead guilty to contributing to the race of the mayor of Mobile; we are going to give him immunity for all these other charges'', I do not believe I would have the guts to walk in that courtroom. That judge would say: Counsel, I am reading in the New York Times this man gave $1.6 million to the President's race. You have him plead guilty to contributing to the mayor's race, and you give him immunity for that plea? You want me to accept that plea? You are going to have to convince me. Show me. None of that happened. He did not question this plea a bit. He facilitated this coverup because he accepted all their accounting measures which manipulated the guidelines so he could get the sweetheart deal of probation. That is wrong. That is not good. I am troubled by it. I wish I realized this had happened and that we would have slowed down the hearings when they came up so we could have gotten into it. I wish I had. I do not supervise the staff of the Judiciary Committee who does most of the background work. They do a great job. Somehow it just did not get into our brains that this was a problem. The more I investigate, looking in recent weeks at the actual documents from the court, and the more I read about this agreement and the sentencing guideline violations, the more this matter is stunning to me. I do not like it. I believe it is potentially an abuse of justice in America. If that is so, and it was done to protect a political party, or a Presidential candidate, or a Vice President, then why should we reward this judge with an elevation to a higher court by this very President who was protected? Why should we do that? I do not think it is a good idea. In our committee, it was a 10-8 vote that reported out this nomination. Eight members of the committee, based on the judge's own judicial activist views, opposed this nomination. That was before we focused on this at all. I am concerned about that. I wrestled with how to debate this procedurally. I have not agreed with some of my distinguished colleagues that we ought to conduct a filibuster. I just do not like that. I know Senator Leahy talked about distinguished jurists and all. He did not have any hesitation to oppose Judge Bork, an extremely brilliant person, for the Supreme Court, but he did not filibuster that nomination. We took the vote. He fought it as hard as he could, but he did not filibuster it. I am not one who thinks we need to get into filibustering these nominations. He would be 1 of 28 judges. It would be unfortunate to move us farther to the left in the Ninth Circuit and make it even harder to get back to the mainstream. We ought to recognize he is a sitting Federal judge; he gets a paycheck every week. The difference in pay for a district judge and a circuit judge is not much, frankly; he would hardly miss the money. I think we ought to take a few weeks here and get into this. Let's have a hearing on it. Motion To Indefinitely Postpone Mr. President, I move, in a postcloture environment, to postpone indefinitely the nomination of Richard Paez in order for this body to get the answers I believe every Senator deserves with regard to the concerns I have raised about Judge Paez over the last several days. It is not in order for me to move to postpone to a time certain, according to our parliamentary and Senate rules, or I would do so. Personally, I think 3 weeks, unless there is some complication, would be more than enough time to have a good hearing. I am willing to vote; if he is confirmed, fine. If he has good answers for all this, fine.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, may the Vice President exercise his discretion and recuse himself?

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the motion.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. SESSIONS. As to whether or not the Vice President should be required to recuse himself under these circumstances on the vote.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the Paez nomination.

Mr. SESSIONS

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes.

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I believe I have the responsibility today to write the majority leader to ask that we not proceed to vote on the Paez nomination, and to ask that additional hearings be held on that nomination to determine whether or not he correctly and properly handled the guilty plea and sentencing of John Huang in Los Angeles, CA, that fell before his jurisdiction in the Los Angeles district court. This is a matter of importance. It is something we have not gotten to the bottom of. It is something my staff has uncovered as we have come up to this final vote. I believe it is important. Judge Paez is a Federal judge today. He has been controversial because of his activist opinions and background and has been held up longer than any other judge now pending before the Congress. We have only had a few who have had substantial delays, probably fewer than two or three. There are two now who have been delayed. He is still the longest. I do not lightly ask that he be delayed again, but he is a sitting Federal judge; he has a lifetime appointment. It is not as if his law practice is being disrupted and he is being left in limbo about his future. He can continue to work until we get to the bottom of this. The President seeks to have him confirmed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is the highest appellate court in the United States except for the Supreme Court. It is a high and important position. We ought to make sure we know what really happened out there when John Huang was sentenced. Basically, that is what happened. The John Huang case was part of the investigation of campaign finance abuses by the Clinton-Gore team in the 1996 election. Mr. Huang is the one who raised $1.6 million, a lot of it from foreign sources, the Riadys in China--those kinds of things. Ultimately, the Democratic National Committee had to refund $1.6 million that they believed they had received wrongfully and illegally. Eventually, the Clinton Department of Justice proceeded with this investigation. The Judiciary Committee chairman, Orrin Hatch, and the chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Fred Thompson from Tennessee, repeatedly urged the U.S. Attorney General not to investigate that case herself because she held her office at the pleasure of the President of the United States. He could remove her at any time. Even if she did a fair and good job with it, people would have reason to question it. They urged her repeatedly--and I have, others have, and a large number of Senators have--to turn this over to an independent counsel. She did on many other investigations. But this one they would not let go of; they held onto it. The President's own appointees held on to this campaign finance investigation. I spent 15 years as a Federal prosecutor, 12 as a U.S. attorney, 2\1/ 2\ as an assistant U.S. attorney. I have personally tried hundreds of cases. I have personally participated in, supervised, and directly handled plea bargains. I know something about the sentencing guidelines, which are mandatory Federal sentencing rules saying how much time one should serve. What happened is that the case did not go before a Federal grand jury for indictment. The prosecutor, a Department of Justice employee, and Mr. Huang and his attorneys met and discussed the case. They reached a plea agreement. That plea agreement called for him to plead guilty to illegal contributions to the mayor's race in Los Angeles for $7,500-- maybe another little plea, but I think it was just that $7,500--and he would be given immunity for the $1.6 million or any illegal contributions he may have received for the Clinton-Gore campaign that had to be refunded. He would be given immunity for that. He was supposed to cooperate and testify. That was going to justify the sentence. After they reached this agreement and Mr. Huang agreed to waive his constitutional rights to be indicted by a grand jury, he said: Don't take me before a grand jury. You make a charge, Mr. Prosecutor, called an information, instead of an indictment, and I will plead guilty to that. So they worked out an agreement. He agreed to plead guilty to that. Sometimes that is done. It is not in itself wrong, but it is a matter that increases the possibility of an abusive relationship between the prosecutor and the defendant, I must admit. They say that cases are randomly assigned in Los Angeles. There are 34 judges in Los Angeles. Judge Paez was one of those judges. He got the Huang case. Curiously, he also got the Maria Hsia case. They had a case against Maria Hsia in Los Angeles because she was involved in this, too, and they eventually tried her a few days ago and convicted her in Washington on charges of tax evasion, I believe, arising out of this same matter. She was tried and convicted here on separate charges. Oddly, this judge, who was a nominee of the President of the United States, somehow got these cases and presided over them. I think there is a real question whether he should have taken the cases. There is no doubt in my mind, as a professional prosecutor who has been through these cases for many years, that the prosecutor's duty is to make sure the defendant is given credit for cooperating; that is, spilling the beans, admitting he did wrong, asking for mercy in those cases, agreeing to testify about what he knows. When you do that, you are entitled to get less than the sentencing guidelines would cause you to get. But the critical thing is, Mr. Huang knew high officials in this administration and knew the President. I believe he spent the night in the White House. He has certainly been there for meetings at times. So this was a man who had been involved in not just some inadvertent event but a very large effort to solicit foreign money, some of it connected to the country of China, which is a competitor of the United States. It was a big deal case. Knowing that the person who had nominated him at that very moment could have been embarrassed or maybe even found to be guilty of wrongdoing if Mr. Huang spilled all the beans, I am not sure he should have taken the case at all out of propriety, but he took it, assuming he did the right thing. The case then came up for sentencing. Some of the people who defend Judge Paez have told me repeatedly in recent days that they don't believe it was Judge Paez's fault so much as it was the fault of the Department of Justice, that they did not tell him all the truth; they acted improperly; if they had told him all the facts, he may have rendered a more serious sentence than he did under these circumstances. I have had my staff review the plea agreement. Much of it is not available to us. We did not get the pre-sentence report, which I would love to see. We did not get to see some other matters involving the extent of the cooperation of Mr. Huang. That was not available to us. But we do have a transcript of the guilty plea, what went down and what facts were produced and what facts the judge did know and the judge was told. It appears to me the judge was not told all the facts by the Department of Justice. That is a very serious thing, if it occurred. It is a failure on their part to fulfill the high ideals of justice in this country. If we look on the Supreme Court building, right across the street from the Capitol, the words written in big letters on the front of that building are these: Equal justice under law. When charges were brought against President Nixon, the impeachment charges voted against him were clearly established by the Supreme Court--that the President and no person in this country is above the law. We are a government of laws and not of men. That is a foundation principle of America. It is in our early debates about establishing the Constitution and the rule of law. We are a government of laws and not of men. That was raised during the drafting of the impeachment clause. I remember I researched that at the time. That high ideal was discussed by the people who wrote our Constitution. So I say to you that this was a high-profile case of immense national interest. It had been a subject about which TV and news stories, magazines, newspapers, and so forth have written--the Huang case. The American public had every right to expect this case would be handled scrupulously and that there not be the slightest misstep. A judge with a lifetime appointment ought not to have felt in any way obligated to do anything other than conduct himself according to the fair and just aspects of handling this case. That, to me, was basic. That is why we give the stunning power of a lifetime appointment. But we have to ask that they adhere to high standards in utilizing that power. If they misuse it, we can't vote and say: We don't like the way you are doing your job, judge, we are going to remove you. No. He has a constitutional right to a lifetime appointment, unless he commits an impeachable offense. Bad decisions are not impeachable offenses. So the judge took this case, and I believe he had a high obligation to conduct himself properly. The whole Nation was watching. Maybe he didn't have all the facts, but we found that he started at a base level of 6. Under our Federal sentencing guidelines--many of you may not know, but this Congress did a great thing a number of years ago. When I was prosecuting cases, they eliminated parole and put a restriction on how a judge could sentence. They said you have to carefully evaluate every case that comes before you, and we have a sentencing commission that goes over the details. There are guidelines about what you must find. If you find the defendant used a gun, or that he is a previously convicted felon, or that he used corrupt means to organize an entity, all of these factors could increase the time he or she serves in jail. How much money was involved could increase the time in jail; a little bit is less, and more is more. Judges have used all of those guidelines. But there was great concern in the Congress that many judges in Federal court didn't sentence appropriately. You might have an offense in one district that is treated one way, and it might be treated much more lightly in another district. So he got the base level for that. One of the factors that the judge had awareness of and had the evidence on was that a substantial part of this fraudulent scheme was committed outside the United States. Under the sentencing guidelines, that calls for adding two different levels to this sentence. Judge Paez made no adjustment. He did not increase the level for the fact that in part of this scheme the money came from outside the United States. People who were giving the money were from outside the United States. A substantial part of this involved international activity. That is precisely the motive behind adding to punishment within the level of guidelines. The judge failed to do so. I believe he clearly should have done so under the circumstances. He also had evidence that at least 24 illegal contributions were spread out over the course of 2 years involving multiple U.S. and overseas corporate entities, which John Huang was responsible for soliciting and reimbursing these illegal contributions. So he was actively involved with these corporations. Under Federal guidelines, ``If an individual is an organizer or a manager that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense''--that is a direct quote--``under 3(b)1.3, he should be given a 2 to 4 level increase.'' Judge Paez gave him no level increase for those two acts. John Huang also was ``an officer and director of various corporate entities involved and also was a director and vice chairman of a bank.'' What does that mean when you are doing sentencing guidelines? Under the guidelines, if an individual abuses a position of public or private trust, such as using his position as a board director and vice president of a bank in a manner that significantly facilitated the commission or concealment of the offense, then he should have added two additional levels for that. Right there, we are talking about at least six, maybe eight, different additional levels. The judge found no increases for that. So when he pleaded guilty, Judge Paez found that his level was eight. That is very critical because, I am sad to say, that is the highest level you can have and still get probation and not spend a day in jail. It calls for a sentence of zero to 6 months if you have level 8. If the judge wants to be tough, he can give him 6 months if he falls under level 8. If he wants to be lenient, he can give straight probation, or zero time in jail. Judge Paez gave him probation, the lowest possible sentence. If it would have been level 9, the lowest possible sentence would have been time in the slammer, in the bastille where he belonged. I am troubled by that. I know there was a lot of pressure to move this case along, get this case out of the way and not have any embarrassment. I am sure there was a lot of tension. But a lifetime- appointed Federal judge should have a commitment to the highest standards of integrity. Even if it involved the President of the United States, the man who appointed him, he should not play with the sentencing guidelines. I assure you that 18-, 19-, and 25-year-old kids, every day, going into Federal court--and I have seen it; I presided over them--are getting 10, 15, 25 years without parole because they are significant drug dealers and they have been selling crack. They are sent off to the slammer and nobody worries about them. So how is it that John Huang raises $1.6 million that had to be returned, pleads guilty to some token offense on a contribution to the mayor of Los Angeles, and he gets to walk out without 1 day in jail? Well, the prosecutor was at fault, in my opinion. This was an unjustified disposition of this case, in light of the circumstances involved. I cannot imagine that anybody can ultimately defend the disposition of this case. They may say, well, the judge just followed the prosecutor's recommendation. The judge did follow the prosecutor's recommendation, but he was not required to do so. In that plea bargain, as I noted, it said the judge is not required to follow this plea bargain. If he, Mr. Huang, rejects it, we will withdraw the plea and we will go back to square one and start all over. The judge is not required to accept it. The judge wasn't required to accept the plea, and he should not have accepted this plea. These are the exact words from the plea agreement: This agreement is not binding on the court. The United States and you-- Meaning Mr. Huang, in the contract between the prosecutor and Mr. Huang-- understand that the court retains complete discretion to accept or reject the agreed upon disposition provided for in this agreement. If the court does not accept this agreement, it will be void, and you will be free to withdraw your plea of guilty. If you do withdraw your plea of guilty, this agreement made in connection with it and the discussions leading up to it shall not be admissible against you in any court. That is standard language. I have used it many times myself. The judge was obligated to follow the law of the United States. He was obligated to make sure justice occurred, if there was equal justice under the law. I don't know how judges who send kids to jail for 20 years without parole can sleep at night when they are talking about letting this guy off the hook for this offense.