Soon, we’ll vote on the nomination of Gail Slater to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division. I support her nomination, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.

Antitrust is important to me, as it is to most senators.

I’ve long been concerned about market concentration and anti-competitive practices in industries that impact Iowans – whether it’s agriculture, healthcare or technology.

These issues don’t get the most attention around the United States Senate, but they still impact millions of Americans.

Family farmers and independent producers deserve fair prices for their products. Seniors deserve affordable prescription drugs. Children deserve to be safe from predatory behavior on dominant tech platforms.

All of these are antitrust issues.

Attorney General Pam Bondi told me during her confirmation process that she shares my interest in these issues, and that she’d work with me and the Antitrust Division to address these issues.

There’s no better person to help her with this project than Gail Slater.

Slater has the right qualifications for this job. She spent several years practicing antitrust law in private practice, before spending a decade at the Federal Trade Commission handling antitrust investigations and litigation.

In these roles, she learned the nuts and bolts of antitrust enforcement. Slater also understands antitrust and economics from a policy perspective.

You know she served in President Trump’s first administration on the National Economic Council, and she served now-Vice President Vance as his Economic Policy Advisor and a member of his Senate staff.

So, Slater has numerous accomplishments in the antitrust space. I’m not the only one who thinks Slater is the right person for the job.

She has received letters of support from nine previous heads of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

These men and women were appointed by presidents of both political parties and they wrote, “Ms. Slater has the experience, intelligence, judgement and leadership skills necessary to serve as an excellent Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division.”

Another bipartisan coalition letter commends her “unique ability to collaborate on a bipartisan basis with stakeholders across the political spectrum, building coalitions towards common goals.”

And, as it might surprise you, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters announced that they support her nomination.

In a rare sign of unity in the Judiciary Committee I chair — where we don’t get a lot of unity — Ms. Slater was advanced out of committee by 20 yes-votes to two [no]-votes.

I hope for a similarly strong bipartisan vote here on the floor.

The antitrust division will flourish under Slater’s strong leadership, and I’m proud to support her. She’s ready to serve our country, and we need to get her confirmed quickly.

Need lasting peace in Bosnia

I would also like to address my colleagues to remind them of the genocide of the 1990s. In the Western Balkan region of the world and of the Dayton Peace accords of 1995 that brought an end to that genocide.

For years, the leader of the Serb entity within the country of Bosnia, Milorad Dodik, has been threatening to have the Serb part secede.

Remember that there was a war and a genocide in the 1990s because of people like Dodik, acting like he is now. Dodik has a predecessor serving life in prison for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

Many Bosnians who suffered from that terrible ethnic violence came to Iowa for protection and have enriched our state and nation.

Many of these Iowans have friends and family still in Bosnia. I spoke to some of them last Friday about an escalating crisis with frightening echoes of the great violence of the 1990s.

Dodik was sentenced by a Bosnian court for unconstitutional actions that reject the authority of Bosnian state institutions. So, rather than stop, he chose to double down.

The Bosnian Serb assembly has now passed and implemented laws prohibiting the functioning of Bosnian state-level security and judicial institutions in that area.

Provincial institutions there have been ordered to use force to stop and prevent the lawful actions and operations of the Bosnian state.

Bosnians who are loyal to their country, or who these ethnic separatists do not consider Serbs, are at risk, including family members of my fellow Iowans. This concerns me greatly.

The United States, through Secretary Marco Rubio, is taking some action, making it clear that it is also of great concern to the Trump administration.

Western Balkan stability has been a U.S. priority across administrations: Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden, now Trump again. I am following the situation closely.

America is also watching who in the region is supporting stability and who is backing the return to ethnic separatism and the possible genocide that could once again happen. Remember, it didn’t end well for those same people in the 1990s.

I will work with the Trump administration to make sure that we keep up the pressure on Dodik and his allies to stop and respect the Dayton Peace accords that ended this violence in 1995.