On Patrick Leahy’s Agenda: Pie

What Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy Has the Time to Announce in Committee

There are two things I should note. One, I was a couple of minutes late coming in here. It was Senator Franken’s fault, because Mrs. Franken makes some of the greatest pies in the world, and I was coming by and one was sitting on the table in the back. And it’s saying “Hi!” as I walked by. Thank Franni; it made no sense for the diet but it was well worth the stop. It was great pie.

And also want to, I sometimes can be horrible talking about grandchildren, but I want to congratulate a grandfather here [patting ranking Republican Senator Jeff Sessions on the shoulder to applause]. Alexa was born yesterday afternoon, 8 pounds and something? I yield to the senator from Alabama for anything he wants to do….

Have you registered her to vote yet? Brian was so kind to let me know about the surgery and now the delivery is OK. I’ve said before that if I knew the grandkids would be such a joy I’d have skipped the kids and gone straight to the grandkids, but they are a joy. I’d heard for years and years and years. I came to the Senate at the age of 34, so I heard from my colleagues talk about that and I never thought that was real, but when about 12 years ago they arrived and I had four more since, wonderful time. Now when Senator Hatch, he told me… how many grandchildren, Orrin, do you have? Thirty-seven!

I was at a dinner with Justice Scalia the other evening, and I was bragging about grandchildren, and he says, “Patrick, how many do you have?” And I said, “Five.” And he said, “I got thirty!” Anyways, so, anyhow.

What Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy Does Not Have the Time to Announce in Committee

Next week we’ll be holding an oversight hearing at which leadership from the Justice Department and the FBI will be asked to explain how the FBI program of lying about terrorist plots in order to spy on innocent Americans came to be, how those responsible will be held to account, and what changes the FBI has made to ensure that such abuses of Americans’ constitutional rights will not be repeated.