Quotes from Patrick Leahy

Benjamin Franklin once said, 'A people who would trade liberty for security deserve neither.' I think we can have both. We can keep our liberties. We can have our security.

Our alliances and our credibility are crucial elements of our working capital in advancing America's interests in the world, and they have been eroded over the last four years.

Trump would either be the Scarecrow or the Joker.

I'm an old trial lawyer.

Judiciary is where my passion is.

That the Islamic State is guilty of horrific atrocities is common knowledge. But most Americans seem unaware of the human toll of our own actions, the consequences this has for our national security and our reputation, and that, too often, the civilian casualties we cause are the result of avoidable mistakes. This must change.

I remember George W. Bush, who spoke about bringing the country together. Here's a man who knew that he lost the popular vote but ended up with the Electoral College vote. He had lost that, and he spoke in a very inclusive way of bringing Republicans and Democrats together. It reflected what a president should do.

Maher Arar's case stands as a sad example of how we have been too willing to sacrifice our core principles to overarching government power in the name of security, when doing so only undermines the principles we stand for and makes us less safe.

It is common sense that in our immigration courts, where children fleeing devastating violence abroad often find themselves, kids need lawyers to advocate on their behalf. After all, lawyers go to school for years to understand the nuances of our legal system.

A lot of people in my state of Vermont are gun owners.

About the only gun law we have in Vermont is during deer season. If you have a semi-automatic, you can't have more than six rounds in it.

Why do the President and Vice-President constantly change the subject when asked to explain why things are going so badly in Iraq? The answer is simple. They have been consistently wrong about Iraq, and the results speak for themselves.

A victim is a victim is a victim. We should stop setting up standards that say we will have one standard of law enforcement for one group of victims but not for another.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the number of violent extremist groups has grown across multiple continents. From Syria to Somalia to Pakistan, the United States is combating many of these groups - usually with bombs and missiles. Large numbers of innocent people are invariably caught in the middle.

If we harm civilians when it could reasonably have been avoided, and if we fail to fairly and promptly help the innocent victims, the local population will turn against us - and make the fight against violent extremists even more difficult.

You get fifteen Democrats in a room, and you get twenty opinions