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Senate

Recognizing the 1960 University of Missouri Tigers Football Team

2026-08-06 Issue 129 Showing 1–5 of 5

Official Congressional Record ↗

Cory A. Booker

Democrat

“A man died in a detention center. It's because the government gave money to a private prison company. I want to close that prison now.”

Official Congressional Record

I am grateful for your recognition, Mr. President. And I am going to try to get this order right. This is legislative session. I am going to give some remarks and then ask for a unanimous consent on a bill. But I really want to, first, talk about something really challenging, tragic, that happened in the State of New Jersey. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died. He is dead, and it is a death that did not have to be. He was detained by ICE on June 18. He was sent to Delaney Hall in my home city, in Newark, NJ--it is a detention center--and he never came out alive. Mr. President, 20 years--20 years--Edwin lived in the United States of America, 20 years of building a life here, 20 years of being connected to people and community, 20 years of making here in America a way forward. And yet, in less than 2 months of detention, the immigration system in our country led to his death. And in Delaney Hall, he is the third person in 9 months to die; the 23rd person to die in ICE custody this year--not the first warning sign, not the second, this is the third death at the same facility and yet nothing changes. Let me tell you exactly how Edwin Lopez-Cornejo died because his family deserves to have his name said on the Senate floor and his story told plainly. Edwin had diabetes. He had high blood pressure. He needed his medication to survive, and Delaney Hall denied it to him. The day before he died, he told his mother that his arm had gone numb, half his face had gone numb. And understand, this is not a minor complaint. This was a man that was having a medical emergency, telling someone exactly what was happening to his body. Did anyone come to his aid? No. Did he get his medication? No. Less than 24 hours, he was dead. Doctors have warned us, attorneys have warned us in New Jersey, families have warned us, a chorus of people in our communities--not politicians, not political activists--doctors, lawyers have been warning us, detainees who walked out of that building, with their testimony and the facts and the evidence, people have said over and over again that this facility is dangerous. It is not well run, and within it is a pattern of disregard for human decency. DHS has known that Delaney Hall is nothing short of a travesty since they reopened it over a year ago. So who runs what is, for so many, a house of horrors? Who runs the institution that I saw myself when I went there and met people? This is not for serious criminals. This is not a place for folks who have done serious crimes in our country. This is a detention facility for people, many of them have been in our country for decades, many of them have American spouses, American children. And when I went there, I saw mothers who were recently postpartum who were not getting the support. I saw a woman who lost her child while in that detention facility, had a miscarriage there, did not get the support that she needed. Story after story, people told me what is going on there, the horrors that are going on there. And who runs it? The U.S. Government does not run that center. It is a private group called the GEO Group, a private for-profit prison that has high-level Republican officials among its former employees. This group won a billion-dollar contract: no competition, no bidding, lots of campaign contributions, a phone call, a signature, and they have a billion dollars of taxpayer money. New Jersey had to sue this company just to get health inspectors through the front door of a facility operating on American soil, funded by American taxpayers, and our State couldn't even do basic health inspections. They did not get--they did not get--the permits to open that place. They did not have inspections before they did so. This is a private company taking a billion dollars of American taxpayer money. The less they provide sanitary services, the less they provide doctors and medical professionals, the more profit they make off of taxpayers. At whose expense? At the decency of American people and at the expense of the lives of the people who are there. We give them hundreds of millions of dollars. And what are the reports out of Delaney Hall? Spoiled food, contaminated water, staff who retaliate against people brave enough to speak up about the conditions. A billion dollars in inadequate accountability. A billion dollars in inadequate healthcare. A billion dollars and a man whose face is numb, whose arm is numb, who is asking for help--does not get treatment, does not get healthcare. So, here is the truth. It is clear for the GEO Group that part of their business model is this cruelty: cut medical staff, skimp on food, let the air-conditioning go out during the hottest days in New Jersey, let the roof leak, cram more bodies into less space. Every corner cut is a dollar of their profit. Every dollar of their profit is a dollar that the GEO Group's executives get to celebrate on their next earnings call. GEO Group's stock has more than doubled since February of 2026--more than doubled. You know why? Well, follow the money. Three million dollars from the GEO Group and its executives went into Donald Trump's campaign, into his PAC, into his inauguration. It is a pay-to-play that is worse than that. A pay-to-play and people get hurt. Lives are lost. Over $2 billion in Federal contracts to run facilities like Delaney Hall in our country. This is not immigration policy. This is not what we stand for. No one loses their humanity because they are incarcerated. No one should lose their basic rights because they are behind bars. Look, I am all for what this administration promised it would do. They said they would go after the ``worst of the worst.'' They said they would go after the people threatening our communities, menacing our families. We should all be supportive of that. I believe we should have strong borders. I believe we should get criminals off of our streets. But the people actually locked up in that building in Delaney Hall? We know that more than 70 percent of the people have never been convicted of a single crime. I met a high school student who had more of a Jersey accent than I do, who just wanted to walk with his class--rounded up. I have had the Catholic church reach out to me because of the sweeps they are doing around schools and churches. I have had family members beg me to get folks out in order to see their American children hit milestones like birthdays and graduations. I have been appealed to by everyone from priests to Republicans in our community. Many are following our laws. But we in the U.S. Senate, Congress, hold the purse strings the administration depends on. We should be a check and a balance. We should demand that our taxpayer dollars are being used. And when we see a body count climbing that is not normal, when we see more and more deaths, when we see a mother's son whose face went numb the night before, we should be asking for action and accountability. Edwin Lopez-Cornejo's death was not a tragedy. A tragedy is something that no one could have prevented. This is a choice. Every single day the DHS keeps Delaney Hall open is another choice to let this happen, three times already. We should not make this choice. Mr. President, I am now asking for a unanimous consent to pass the Delaney Hall Closure Act, which would close Delaney Hall within 90 days. They are out of excuses. We are out of time. How many more people should die? So as if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of my bill at the desk; that the bill be considered read three times and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Lummis). Is there an objection? The Senator from Missouri.

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Cory A. Booker

Democrat

“I want to close a prison. People have died there. It is bad. I used to be a mayor. I hired police. I worked with the FBI and ICE. I don't want to get rid of all law enforcement. But this prison is very bad. I want to close it. The company that runs it should be investigated. They have enough money. They don't need more. They are not using it well. We should close the prison now. Don't wait for more people to die. I believe in law enforcement. But this prison is very very bad. We need to close it now. People are suffering. People are dying. I have worked with Republicans before. We can work together to fix this problem.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I appreciate the good-faith words of my colleague, and I will take it to heart that he is against unnecessary deaths and that the GEO Group should be investigated thoroughly and be held accountable. I do want to make followup points. First of all, I live in North New Jersey. I used to run the police department as its mayor. There is nobody who feels more urgency for public safety in my city than I do. I hired many law enforcement officers and worked well with ICE, worked well with the FBI and with the DOJ--with all of the Federal law enforcement officers--in a coordinated effort to protect my community. This idea that Democrats want to defund ICE is wrong. I actually believe we need law enforcement in our communities to keep us safe. But I want to make sure we do it in a way that comports with our values and our decency. Let's be clear. There is no law enforcement agency in America that has more money than ICE has right now. As to this idea that the Democrats have done anything to defund it right now, ICE has more than the FBI, more than the ATF, and more than the Coast Guard combined. It is the most well-funded Agency there is. So the idea that they cannot provide for the basic needs of people who are in their facilities is a lie. This is not a money problem. ICE has all the money they need, and they are showing an inability to keep their inmates alive. Now, I like my colleague's metaphor that if a bridge is broken, you close the bridge. I know this because, again, I was a mayor. If people are falling through holes on a bridge, we close the bridge. Do the inspections, but don't leave people in a hellscape where people continue to die in that facility. Keeping that open is irresponsible. ICE has enough money to transfer to other facilities the people who are a real threat. ICE has enough money to run around my State and overspend for real estate, as they have done in one of my towns. They are throwing cash around in a way that should offend Republicans and anybody who is fiscally prudent, but we are not holding the people accountable. Yes, if something is broken, you stop using it. If people are dying because of a defect in a car, you don't use it. If people are falling through holes on a bridge, you close it. We have a responsibility to taxpayers' money, and we have shoveled this Agency more money than any law enforcement agency there is, and then we are not doing what is necessary to hold these people, like the GEO Group, accountable. I will continue to stand for law enforcement. One of the reasons I got elected by my State is that we drove crime down in the city of Newark. Everybody saw it. Investment came back, and the population came back. I believe in creating safety in my community. This is not about the accusations that somehow, Democrats don't believe we should have strong law enforcement. If anybody believes in that, I know my record here in the Senate speaks to that. How can we stand here and allow this from a facility in which multiple people have died in the most gruesome ways? How can we allow this from an organization that is supposed to be providing healthcare but is denying it? How can we allow this in accordance with our own values? Enough is enough. Delaney Hall is a nightmare. I did not come to the floor to talk about closing facilities all over the country; I am talking about one facility with a record of people dying unnecessarily, with a record of people being denied medical care, with a record of people being denied healthy food--one facility that is failing. For this body to keep it open while waiting for something to change while more people are suffering and may die is irresponsible beyond compare. I believe there is common ground on both sides of the aisle where we can achieve the highest levels of safety and also ensure that within our incarcerating facilities, people are treated with dignity. I have worked across the aisle with Senator Lindsey Graham, with Senator Chuck Grassley, and with Senator Mike Lee to improve conditions in the Bureau of Prisons. I hope that when it comes to ICE facilities and this private, for-profit company where people are dying that we can find some common ground to stop this nightmare from happening.

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Christopher A. Coons

Democrat

“Why do bad things happen to good people? ALS is a very bad disease. It makes people suffer. Many people have asked me for help. I have met many good people. They want to make their suffering meaningful. They work hard to help others. Some of my friends have died from ALS. My best friend has ALS. It is very sad. I work with a Senator from Alaska. We lead a group to fight ALS. We want to help people who have ALS.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, one of the questions we all have to wrestle with in life is, Why do the innocent suffer? Why do the righteous find, at times, the circumstances of their lives to be so painful as to be beyond imagined? And how does one make purpose out of pain? Of all the diseases that afflict mankind, ALS is one of the most cruel. It robs someone of their ability to speak, to walk, to move, to care for themselves, yet leaves them completely present and conscious. Over the 16 years that I have served here in the U.S. Senate, I have been blessed by visit after visit from families going from office to office to ask not for themselves, not to lessen their pain or their suffering or their challenges but to try and turn their experience into a positive investment for others, lots of different families with lots of different challenges--mostly medical--sometimes the parents of children taken hostage in other countries or veterans who didn't get the benefits they were entitled to but often families whose loved ones or who they themselves are suffering with cancer, with Parkinson's, or with ALS. Today, I am coming to the floor to celebrate a great and enduring friendship and partnership that has helped to make a difference in this dread disease. Through some of the visits to my office, I have gotten to know some amazing people: Craig and Kristen Colby of Delaware; Brian Wallach and Sandra Abrevaya; Dan Tate, whom I knew from college. My engagement in trying to tackle the ravages of ALS began earlier. A dear friend from Newark, DE, Alex Snyder-Mackler--his father Scott lived with and then died from ALS; my chief of staff lost his father to ALS; and my brother lost his best friend. And now today, my best friend from growing up, Dr. Jack Flynn, is bravely living through what has been a tragic and difficult diagnosis and a steadily worsening condition. When you meet someone with ALS, they are always accompanied by someone by their side who knows every detail, who helps them to eat, to talk, to live, to communicate. And they are looking for ways to make meaning out of their suffering. Through all of this, I have had an incredible partner and advocate, a dear friend--the senior Senator from the State of Alaska, my colleague Senator Lisa Murkowski. We are the cochairs of the Senate ALS Caucus, and I am blessed to have her with me on the floor today as we announce the next step forward in our work together on ALS.

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Christopher A. Coons

Democrat

“A man with ALS texted me. He said our bill helped him. We passed it 5 years ago. It gave $10 million for research. Now we give $115 million. We gave $391 million total. Many people with ALS are in a study. They are testing treatments. A neurology doctor said it's a big turning point. I want the bill to pass. I want the government to spend more money on this. I'm lucky to have friends who work on this with me. I want to celebrate today. I want to keep working until nobody has ALS.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I thank my colleague and friend from the truly great State of Alaska. Our mutual friend Dan Tate, long known here as an active lobbyist, who is living with ALS, has been texting the two of us about the impact that this research has had on him and his condition and on many others. He most recently texted me: The ACT for ALS bill that we helped get passed 5 years ago and that we are now reauthorizing--I will remind you that initially, advocates were seeking $10 million. Do you remember the Ice Bucket Challenge of 2014? They were seeking $10 million in Federal medical research. This year, it was $115 million. In total over the years since we have passed this legislation through this Chamber, $391 million has been invested. There are today 1,200 people living with ALS enrolled in a landmark genetic study, and there have been significant steps forward in experimental treatments. Dr. Sabrina Paganoni of Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute said: We are at a turning point because we have a greater awareness of ALS, more funding for research than ever before, and more treatments in development than ever before. When Lou Gehrig gave a speech announcing his retirement from baseball, he concluded by saying: I am the luckiest guy in the world. Many saw that as a bitter irony because he left an outstanding career in baseball to struggle and suffer through an ultimately terminal disease. But I have to say that I am the luckiest man in the world to have the blessing of the great, enduring friendship of a colleague and partner from Alaska; of the steady and reliable and motivating input of so many advocates and cared-for people living with this dread disease; and the lifelong partnership and friendship of an amazing man, Dr. Jack Flynn. In a determined effort to deliver hope and change, Senator Murkowski and I and all of us in this ALS Caucus are determined to get this bill to the President's desk, signed into law, and to deliver another generation of medical research to get us closer to that day when no one--no one--has to face the diagnosis or live with ALS and it will be a chapter in our history, not a threat for our future. But for today in this body, I am grateful for a chance to celebrate a significant step forward, a unanimous action by this Chamber, and the delivery of hope to so many around our Nation and our world. I yield the floor.

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Adam B. Schiff

Democrat

“I want to praise my staff member David Grannis. He is retiring. David is very experienced. He cares about people. He is a good mentor. He has helped many people in their careers. He is a very important part of our team. I want to share some stories about him. David has worked on many important things. He has helped pass laws. He has helped with oversight. He has helped people in California. I want to thank him for his work. David's wife and children have supported him. Thank you David. We will miss you.”

Official Congressional Record

Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to a remarkable member of my staff who is retiring from public service: Mr. David Grannis. I must admit I misled David into coming to the Senate floor for this speech. I told him I was coming to speak on something completely different because he is not fond of being the center of attention, particularly when he is the subject of praise, but he deserves it--both the praise and the surprise--since he has been known to play a practical joke or two himself. All I told him is I needed to discuss a very important matter on the floor of the Senate and I wanted him to hear it. By the way, everything I made up on the way over here, you can completely ignore. That was a ruse. What I wanted to come here to talk about was, in fact, David Grannis. David is no stranger to these farewell speeches. Congresswoman Jane Harman gave one about him leaving her office. Not to be outdone, Senator Feinstein has given two farewell-to-David speeches--one when he departed as staff director for the Senate Intelligence Committee and another when he left her office as chief of staff. This speech today may be the last of its kind, or may not. You never know. But let me begin by quoting my former colleague, the late, great Senator Feinstein, who said: I cannot improve on those comments, so I will not try. Instead of sharing again his long list of accomplishments--the major pieces of legislation that he has helped to pass, the critical oversight that he has delivered, or the assistance he secured for so many grateful Californians--I want to talk about David as a person and what he has meant to the many dozens of us--probably hundreds of us--who have had the privilege of working with him. When David first joined my office as a senior policy adviser, I knew we were gaining someone with a wealth of experience. I had known him from his time on SSCI and also serving with Senator Feinstein. But what I did not fully appreciate, what I could not have known was that our team was not only gaining someone with just incredible experience but also someone who cares so deeply about the people he works with and someone who is just a superlative mentor, particularly toward the junior staff, many of whom are here with us today to honor him. His impressive CV does not mention his acerbic wit, his many practical jokes, his commitment to learning the lingo of the newest generation-- seriously, he is quite committed to that; very awkward when he uses it, but he is quite committed to it--or the vigorous way he ensures that the staff keep the office refrigerator clean enough for surgical instruments. So, today, I want to do something a little different. I want to come here and laud once again his record of legislative service, yes, but more to the point, I want to share some of the stories of those who have had the privilege of working alongside him but who do not have the same privilege that I have to order him to sit here and listen to us say nice things about him--because, otherwise, he would not allow such a celebration; he would not allow us to share these stories of his mentorship and his presence, how he has uplifted our staff and colleagues, and how much he means to all of us--because his work is really the stuff of legend. One of our young staff Andrea calls David ``best friend.'' And that is not an exaggeration. He once told her that she should ``heckle every staffer on our team who was late to their meeting regardless of who they were, and yes, [including the] Chief of Staff.'' He has encouraged ``spontaneous selfies'' and participated in staff chats exclusively in all caps. Andrea, and all of us, know that he is someone who will never fail to make someone laugh during a very stressful day. To know him is to be on the watch for practical jokes, sometimes by his hand and other times played upon him. And we won't even get into the ``caps lock'' incident or the role he has played as ``Mr. Liquid.'' And I am not going to get into those things because I have no idea what they are. When Sydney on our team noted that we would ``lose a true institution'' with David's departure, she may have been thinking about this interaction she had with David: Sydney, then assistant to our legislative director, joined a staff delegation trip with a branch of our Armed Forces, and because she was one of the only Senate staffers on the trip, and perhaps because they thought Sydney was the legislative director herself, they named the trip ``STAFFDEL DUCKOR,'' Sydney's last name. And so, when Sydney returned, David had printed a floor chart version of the STAFFDEL DUCKOR documents, alongside a 30-inch-tall headshot of Sydney--a floor chart that still, on occasion, is wedged in a place that Sydney will somehow run into it when she least expects it, like in a stairwell. Sydney's giant mug or the floor chart is sure to pop up at unexpected moments, courtesy of her mentor David Grannis. As Ian, a former staffer for Senator Feinstein, noted, David had an ``extraordinarily hard job over many years, even for a chief. But he did it so well and kept his cool, protecting the boss as well as the staff with that [s]-eating grin as his shield and that . . . wit as his sword.'' Even when he is at his busiest, David has always had time for everyone from interns to LDs. As Ian put it, ``He acted as if he wasn't too busy for you, [not] at all.'' A consistent theme for David is talent spotting and uplifting staff. Megan, who was a young Feinstein staffer in her San Francisco office, found out when the Senator had a need for a new director of scheduling. David brought her out to interview. Now, Senator Feinstein wasn't convinced that Megan was the right fit, but David was not deterred. So he flew her out again, this time to staff the Senator, training her on how to do the job, and then made the case again to the Senator. And wouldn't you know it, she got the job. As Megan told us, ``It shaped my entire career trajectory, shaped me as a leader, and showed me how to lead a ship in troubled waters.'' She also noted that she eventually told David a couple of years later that ``the Senator said she wanted to kick [him] in the pants when [he] recommended [Megan].'' Alexandra, a mentee of David's, remembered that he took a chance on her and remembered the time he took to engage interns and teach them about the Senate, like in a scavenger hunt that ended in the interns needing to get the torture report recreated in the documents room and have David autograph it, which he most gamely was pleased to do. And when Brett was called by David to offer him a job, he did the sensible thing: He asked for a little bit of time to talk to his wife about it. And as Brett tells it, ``There was a long pause. Then, in a tone I would come to know very well over the next several years, David said: `Really? You seriously need to think about this?''' As Brett put it, ``That's David in one line--you never quite know if he's teasing you, testing you, or just telling you the truth. Twenty- plus years in Congress, and he remains, to everyone who's worked with him, [kind of an] enigma. The enigma is the method. He protected the staff so [they] could just do the work. That wasn't an accident. That was David, protecting people who didn't even know they were being protected.'' Even in our office, David had an eye for talent, never failing to mention when an intern or a junior staffer did a first draft or came up with an idea that was brought to him and then brought to me. He could do it with the smallest of projects. But he knew how to handle the biggest tasks, especially on the Intelligence Committee. As Mike Buchwald told us, ``David was known for approaching politically charged issues with integrity and a commitment to ensuring the Committee fulfilled its constitutional oversight responsibilities.'' That is the highest charge of the Intelligence Committee, as we saw with David's handling of the Senate CIA torture report, its creation, and its release. It was because of David, Senator Feinstein, and the many talented members of the SSCI staff, that this report ever saw the light of day, culminating in a floor speech by Senator Feinstein for the ages. David and Mike worked on draft after draft of the speech, announcing the ``painstaking process'' to chronicle each of the CIA's abuses of power. But they were never sure the speech would actually see the light of day. Finally, one morning at 9 a.m. David dropped by Mike's desk, saying simply, ``Let's go to the floor. She's giving the speech.'' She gave that speech right here, speaking truth to power, calling out abuses of power. Dan, a SSCI staffer at the time, noted David's immense work with a bipartisan group of Senators to ban the CIA's ``enhanced interrogation techniques,'' which included torture tactics such as waterboarding. As Dan put it, David ``served our country in enormously consequential ways, almost entirely out of the public view. And because of the quiet, persistent work he did, the known history of the United States is different, and more honest, than it would otherwise be.'' Now, I want to make one thing very clear. I don't want any of this praise to make you believe he is perfect. He is not. David, for example, would prefer that, today, I quote from the wisdom of Fangorn or Lothlorien, which I will not do because, for one, I have no idea who they are; and, what is more, I suspect it is some obscure reference to ``Lord of the Rings.'' He once gave a presentation to our staff at a brown bag lunch in which he said that, of the top 100 films ever made, three of the ``Lord of the Rings'' movies--three of them, mind you--were in the top 10. So you can see he is prone to occasional but glaring lapses in judgment. I am sorry, David. You are just wrong about that. And I know that I am pissing off Stephen Colbert and a lot of other people by saying that. But really? Three of the greatest movies of all time, ``Lord of the Rings'' movies? I mean, does that even require discussion? Another member of our amazing staff Sircey noted dryly that ``behind the wit, David genuinely cared about the people he worked with--even if he wasn't always going to admit it.'' She cited specifically how he brought his wonderful humor to the--well, the bowels of the basement where our office was once located--actually, twice located--which David took to calling the ``lower chamber.'' Peter, a colleague from the Senate Intelligence Committee, remembered two benches. Senator Feinstein would occupy the ``hot bench,'' peppering you with questions. David, in contrast, was a ``cold bench,'' where he would just stare at you uncomfortably with a ``resting ice face,'' kind of like I am getting right now, and allow for your own internal dialogue to wreck you. Both techniques were very effective. When Peter, a former prosecutor, was told to run a hotline, he had no idea what to do--something I can relate to after joining the Senate after so many years in the House. So Peter asked David how to hotline something. And according to Peter, he just ``stared at me for a long time. He then took a long, deep breath. And then he continued to stare.'' Classic David Grannis. Deanna noted that David is the reason ``so many of us got our start on Capitol Hill'' through his steady advocacy. Ricky noted a simple code to live by that David would repeat: That is outstanding advice for Senators and staff alike. Tonya said he was ``never afraid to poke fun and turning almost anything into a punchline, he truly cared for and mentored so many young staffers.'' Flavio said that ``despite his seniority, or more likely because of it'' through humor and pranks, David ``makes our office laugh while teaching us the importance of timeliness and delivering praise'' and always advocating for interns and junior staff, even if they didn't ``always understand the pre-2001 movie references.'' Megan said he shared important life lessons, Grannis style: Don't attend a meeting and change the agenda. And--if you think you have it bad, someone always has it worse. When Jahari first moved from our Fresno office to DC, she was nervous, but in her telling, David was the first person she chatted with and immediately felt at ease. When other staff ask who has become her mentor, as she put it, ``David is an easy answer.'' This character of David is not new. During Senator Feinstein's first farewell speech about him, she noted the same: Now, speaking of The Rock, I fear this speech would be incomplete without talking about the ``big hunk of beef'' incident, which I am told is a favorite story of David's. David and Senator Feinstein's legislative director Rachel were staffing the Senator during a late-night vote-arama--something we have had a lot of experience at lately. It is around 2 a.m., and the Senator is flipping channels between CNN and the floor and random channels when she finally lands on a movie starring none other than The Rock. After a while, she just matter-of-factly states, ``That's a big hunk of meat,'' causing David, at a safe distance, to laugh uncontrollably. When I put out the call for recollections of David and their memories of his time on the Hill, the response, as you have heard just a small sample, was overwhelming. But now I want to share my own. David has not only been a mentor to the staff, he has helped mentor me as well. We began working together almost 2 years ago when I was elected to the Senate; and in that time, I have been such an enormous beneficiary of his experience and his wisdom, his sense of humor, his poise under pressure, his intellect, and his friendship. I am so lucky. I am so lucky to have had you on my team--so lucky. On the most extensive range of issues--from foreign policy, to national security, to intelligence reform, to Senate procedure, and so much more--he has been the most extraordinary source of knowledge and expertise. I have come to rely upon him implicitly and without hesitation. The respect he is held in by Senators and staff is unrivaled on the Hill-- truly. He has dedicated himself to public service for decades now, and the Senate and the country are immeasurably better for it. He is the quintessential public servant. Thank you, David. Thank you. Finally, I want to end my comments by thanking David's wife Kerry and their wonderful children Sarah, Amelia, and Nathaniel. Senate staff make a lot of sacrifices to serve the public--financial and otherwise, late nights, weekends, missed trips--and their families are the ones who support them the most. So thank you, David. I can't wait to see what you do next, and the legions of staff that you helped and influenced and mentored and supported can't wait either. We all thank you. I yield the floor. (Mrs. MOODY assumed the Chair.) (Mr. McCORMICK assumed the Chair.)

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