Prepared Opening Statement by Senator Chuck Grassley
Chairman, Senate Judiciary Committee
Nominations Hearing
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Good morning.
I’d like to welcome everyone to this hearing to consider the nominations of John Eisenberg to serve as the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, Brett Shumate to serve as the Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division and Patrick Davis to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legislative Affairs.
Each of the nominees before us today has impressive qualifications, and we’re looking forward to hearing from you.
I’d like to thank your family and friends for coming today. I’m sure they’re all very proud of you.
Mr. Eisenberg, you have impressive academic qualifications.
You have a degree from Stanford in mathematics, graduated from Yale Law School and then clerked on the Fourth Circuit and later for Justice Thomas.
Your academic pedigree is coupled with extensive experience in national security roles. From 2004 to 2009, you served with distinction at the Justice Department, focusing on national security, intelligence and counterterrorism.
For your service, you received the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence, and two Intelligence Community Legal Awards.
You then spent time as a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, before leaving your successful practice to serve your country again in the White House.
You served with distinction and received awards for your service as Legal Advisor to the National Security Council, Assistant to the President and Deputy Counsel to the President for National Security Affairs.
There is little doubt that you would bring great expertise and experience to the National Security Division.
Your nomination has been praised by a bipartisan group of former Assistant Attorneys General of the National Security Division, including by Matthew Olsen, who served in the Biden administration.
Mr. Shumate, you’re well suited to serve as the head of the Civil Division.
You started your legal career clerking for Judge Edith Jones on the Fifth Circuit, and then entered private practice, focusing on civil litigation and administrative law.
In 2017, you were appointed Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division’s Federal Programs Branch.
In that role, you vigorously defended the rule of law and litigated issues involving federal agencies and the administration.
After your time at the Justice Department, you returned to private practice for the better part of a decade, before returning to the Justice Department earlier this year as the acting head of the Civil Division.
I have no doubt that your service in government has uniquely prepared you for the role you’ve been nominated for.
Mr. Davis, it is good to see you again.
I’d like to go ahead and introduce you to the Committee.
You’re no stranger to the role you’ve been nominated to. As I well know, you’re extremely qualified to serve as the head of the Office of Legislative Affairs.
You started your career in private practice, but you soon joined the Department of Justice to litigate complex cases in the Federal Programs Branch for most of the Obama administration.
While there, you gained an understanding of how the Justice Department works from the litigator’s perspective. And of course, you met your wife there.
A little over six years later, you joined my staff as an investigative counsel, and we worked on a lot together in our search for the truth for the American people.
You worked tirelessly to combat the weaponization of justice and to defend our nation’s laws.
You were instrumental in my investigation showing that Planned Parenthood was violating federal law.
Because of your work, the public could see these shocking discoveries for what they actually are, rather than a false narrative.
You also worked with me to show that Crossfire Hurricane was based on fraudulent, discredited information paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign.
As reward for your efforts to uncover the truth, the DOJ secretly subpoenaed your records.
You’ve been personally targeted for doing the right thing.
When you left my office, you went on to serve in the first Trump administration – where you worked on Congressional Oversight and the Religious Liberty Task Forces.
Since then, you’ve gained valuable perspective in the House of Representatives working hard to uncover the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic’s origins and the private sector.
But the thread that ties your service together is the courage of your convictions.
You stand up for liberty and equal application of the law – values that I know you’ll bring to your new role.
I’m happy to see you go back to the Department, and I know that you’re ready for whatever it throws at you.
Indeed, I’m going to throw a thing or two at you as well.
As you’re well aware, I’m a rather frequent correspondent with the Department, and I look forward to working with you again in service to our country.
The three nominees before us have impressive careers and I look forward to hearing from them today.
With that, I’ll turn to Ranking Member Durbin for his opening remarks.
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