U.S. Senator Ashley Moody Casts Her First Vote in Senate Judiciary Committee

Much has been suggested this morning, and I would like to address some of the accolades of Pam the prosecutor. It has been suggested that she may not stand up to large corporations or business interests, but I would remind everyone that as Florida’s Attorney General she worked in a bipartisan fashion with Attorneys General from both parties to go after and bring recoveries to Americans, certainly to Floridians.

She was the tip of the spear on some of our largest battles. She was a trailblazer. She never compromised her integrity, prosecutorial independence, or fidelity to the rule of law. And everyone in Florida would tell you she never backed down from a challenge, no matter how large the corporation on the other side.

No matter who you were, how much money was in your bank account, how big your business was, if you were harming Floridians, she was going to go after you. She fought for homeowners in the housing market crash and held the nation’s largest lenders accountable for the housing crisis. She secured more than $50 billion in recovery. I get a lot of the credit for resolving it, but she was the one to launch Florida’s action against some of the largest manufacturers and distributors of opioids in this nation, when we started losing record numbers of Americans to opioid overdose deaths.

She fought for accountability for the oil spill in the Gulf of America. She secured $20 billion for states affected by that disaster. She locked up human traffickers with a near perfect conviction record. She recovered billions of dollars for Americans and Floridians based on her bipartisan consumer protection actions.

We’ve talked a lot about Pam the prosecutor, who never forgot a victim, personally went to crime scenes, still stays in contact with those victims, never wavered in her cause to seek justice for them. Unlike so many other of our former United States Attorneys General, she has actually been to the scenes of crimes on multiple occasions, and still fights for the victims that she sought justice for so long ago. Indeed, Pam the prosecutor, who has a stellar record, will make an incredible Attorney General.

Personally, having known Pam for decades, I’d like to switch from Pam the prosecutor to Pam the person, to assure so many, not just those sitting here today, but so many Americans that are watching these hearings, and my fellow Senate colleagues that will ultimately vote, that she has the strength to stand up against corporations, even those in her own leadership, to do what is right under the rule of law, and to protect Americans.

She is tenacious when she is seeking to bring justice to victims. She has personally led the charge to eliminate the enormous backlog of untested rape kits in Florida. Through those efforts, cold cases were solved, sexual predators were locked up, and I got to announce in my first year in office that we completed the testing of every one of those untested sexual assault kits.

When Florida was deemed the pill mill capital of the world and we had more pill mills than we had McDonalds, when 90 percent of the largest distributing pill mills in the nation were in Florida, she personally took that on, worked in a bipartisan way to shut down the pill mills in Florida, and we were glad to shed the title of the pill mill capital of the world. And it is still urban legend in Tallahassee what she was able to accomplish.

When we started losing record numbers of people to fentanyl in this nation, when fentanyl became a deadly poison ravaging our working and fighting age Americans, even our children, she took that on, even when some in leadership didn’t go along with it. She personally visited Republican and Democratic lawmakers with a vial of grains of sand and showed them how deadly that substance was. And even when leadership wasn’t anxious to go along, she fought for that and won that vote by one.

I can assure you Pam the person would never allow herself to make any decision or take any action as Attorney General through a lens of Red or Blue. She has never been persuaded by those who might hold power. She is driven by her insatiable desire to protect people and preserve justice. She loves this country. She reveres our judicial system. She safeguards it. And she knows it is there to protect persons and their inalienable rights.

Our judicial system has hit a record low in trust among the American people. We should all be fighting every day to change course. Just as she has done for countless victims, she will claw back this nation’s trust in our judicial system and the Department of Justice. She will not hide behind court filings or press releases. She will be frank and passionate for the American people and fight for them as she has done for her entire career.

Our justice system has been victimized by those who have used it and exploited it for political warfare. She will fight for this country system she loves, its people, and the integrity of that judicial system. Our judicial system must be made whole. We must restore trust in it to ensure the stability and continuity of this great nation.

Finally, in my remarks concerning our soon to be Attorney General Pam Bondi and Pam the person, when I became the Attorney General behind her, she was not interested in making sure I recognized her for her achievements. All she cared about was my continuing to protect Floridians, our state’s autonomy, and the safety of those in our state.