SPEAKER_04: Good morning. Senate Judiciary Committee is called to order. Welcome to everyone. Today we welcome a panel of three nominees. Mr. Nicholas Ganji, Mr. Aaron Peterson, and Mr. David Foulkes. I want to thank each of you for your willingness to serve, and I welcome your families who are here in support. We are participating in a process with a storied history. Under the Senate's earliest rules, the Judiciary Committee stood as one of the three original
UNKNOWN: committees of the United States Senate. For more than 150 years, this committee
SPEAKER_04: has held nomination hearings, upholding a tradition that reaches far beyond any single nominee. These proceedings represent the solemn duty entrusted to this committee to safeguard the integrity of the federal judiciary, an institution that remains the backbone of our constitutional republic. For more than two centuries, our courts have served as a stabilizing force in American life. They have defended liberty in times of crisis, checked overreach in moments of political passion, and upheld the rule of law when it was least
UNKNOWN: popular to do so. And today, under President Trump, we are witnessing a welcomed return to that tradition, a return to judges who read the law, who respect the separation of powers, and who understand that the judiciary is not a political weapon, but rather a constitutional trust. We need to renew our
SPEAKER_04: constitutional heritage. Even now, some courts continue to stretch beyond their constitutional role, issuing sweeping injunctions, expanding statutes past their text, and inserting ideology into matters reserved for the elected
UNKNOWN: branches. Through the nomination of rule of law judges, we are restoring courts to
SPEAKER_04: their rightful place, interpreting the law as written, not as wished. And that return to constitutional values shows the character and caliber of the nominees
UNKNOWN: coming before this committee. We see men and women who have dedicated their lives
SPEAKER_04: to the rule of law, who have prosecuted criminals, defended communities, and shown through years of public service that fidelity to the Constitution is not an abstract promise, but rather a lived commitment. Which brings me to introduce the first nominee on today's panel, Nicholas Ganji. Nick is exactly the kind
UNKNOWN: of nominee who reflects the best of this moment. Nick has spent nearly 20 years on
SPEAKER_04: the front lines of federal law enforcement. He has prosecuted cartel traffickers, violent offenders, predators of children, human smugglers, and corrupt actors who have threatened our communities. He has tried cases, overseen offices, managed teams, and now as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of
UNKNOWN: Texas, he leads one of the busiest, most consequential U.S. Attorney offices in
SPEAKER_04: the nation. His record is enormous in scope and unmistakable in character. Under his leadership, federal prosecutors in Houston and across South Texas have dismantled transnational criminal organizations, stopped human trafficking pipelines, taken down large-scale drug rings, and protected children from predation. He has enforced immigration law faithfully in a district where more than 70% of federal sentencing matters involve immigration offenses. He has done...