[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 24 (Thursday, February 14, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S723-S725]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


     NOMINATION OF CHARLES TIMOTHY HAGEL TO BE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will proceed to executive session to consider the following 
nomination, which the clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Department of Defense. Nomination of Charles Timothy Hagel, 
     of Nebraska, to be Secretary.

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, it has been suggested that the Senate 
should not move forward with Senator Hagel's nomination, alleging he 
has not complied with requests that he produce speeches. In fact, the 
standard committee questionnaire requires nominees to provide a copy of 
``any formal speeches you have delivered during the last 5 years of 
which you have copies.'' Senator Hagel complied with this requirement 
before his hearing 2 weeks ago.
  Before the hearing, a number of requests were received from 
Republican Members that Senator Hagel seek and obtain and provide to 
the committee some transcripts of additional speeches. In fact, 
hundreds of pages of transcripts were, in fact, supplied to the 
committee before the hearing, in addition to those he had submitted in 
response to the committee questionnaire.
  Since then, we have received two additional requests for specific 
speeches, and in each case we forwarded to Senator Hagel the requests. 
He sought and provided transcripts of speeches for which he had no 
prepared remarks and of which he had no copies. So he has responded to 
those requests, and where he was able to obtain a transcript or a video 
of the speech from the organization he addressed, he provided a copy. 
Where no such materials existed, he told us that was the case.
  Senator Hagel was informed that a video of his remarks existed in one 
of those cases but that the organization had been unable to find it. 
The organization has now located the video, and it will be provided to 
the majority and minority staffs of the committee today.
  In the last few days there has been some finding of transcripts or 
videos that have surfaced on the Internet--a handful of 2008 and 2009 
speeches that Senator Hagel did not recollect. So I ask unanimous 
consent that a list of links to the Web transcripts or Web videos and a 
list of Senator Hagel's potentially relevant Senate speeches that are a 
part of the Congressional Record from 2008 be printed in the Record 
immediately following my remarks.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, Senator Hagel stated in his financial 
disclosure that he received $200,000 from Corsair Capital, which is a 
private equity firm, and he was a member of its advisory board. It has 
been alleged that Senator Hagel failed to provide complete financial 
disclosure, despite the admitted lack of evidence of any kind, and a 
highly negative innuendo was dropped by one of our colleagues which 
said that, and I quote, ``it is, at a minimum, relevant to know if that 
$200,000''--referring to those fees from Corsair Capital--``that 
[Senator Hagel] deposited in his bank account came directly from Saudi 
Arabia, [or] . . . from North Korea. . . .'' Without any evidence of 
any kind, that kind of innuendo has been dropped here. It is 
inappropriate, unfair, untrue.
  Senator Hagel has provided the same financial disclosure and met the 
same conflict of interest standards that the committee requires of all 
previous nominees. As I explained in a February 8, 2013, letter to my 
ranking member, Senator Inhofe:

       Our committee has a well-defined set of financial 
     disclosure and ethics requirements which apply to all 
     nominees for civilian positions in the Department of Defense. 
     . . . We have applied these disclosure requirements and 
     followed this process for all nominees of both parties 
     throughout the 16 years that I have served as Chairman or 
     Ranking Minority Member of the [Armed Services] committee. I 
     understand that the same financial disclosure requirements 
     and processes were followed for at least the previous 10 
     years, during which Senator Sam Nunn served as Chairman or 
     Ranking Minority Member.

  And I added:

       During this period, the committee has confirmed eight 
     Secretaries of Defense (Secretaries Carlucci, Cheney, Aspin, 
     Perry, Cohen, Rumsfeld, Gates, and Panetta), as well as 
     hundreds of nominees for other senior civilian positions in 
     the Department. . . . The committee cannot have two different 
     sets of financial disclosure standards for nominees--one for 
     Senator Hagel and one for other nominees.

  As required by the Senate Armed Services Committee and by the Ethics 
in Government Act, Senator Hagel has disclosed all compensation over 
$5,000 that he has received in the last 2 years. As required by the 
Armed Services Committee, he has received letters from the Director of 
the Office of Government Ethics and the Acting Department of Defense 
General Counsel certifying that he has met all applicable financial 
disclosure and conflict of interest requirements.
  As required by the Armed Services Committee, he has answered a series 
of questions about possible foreign affiliations. Among other 
questions, the committee asks whether during the last 10 years the 
nominee or his spouse has ``received any compensation from, or been 
involved in any financial or business transactions with, a foreign 
government or an entity controlled by a foreign government.'' And 
Senator Hagel's answer was ``No.''
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, will the distinguished chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee yield for a question?
  Mr. LEVIN. I will be happy to.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have listened to the recitation. 
Basically what the Senator is saying is that all the rules that were in 
place for nominees to the Department of Defense under Republican 
Presidents are being followed for Senator Hagel. But there are some who 
want to go beyond those and create new rules beyond those for Vice 
President Cheney when he was Secretary or Donald Rumsfeld or Gates or 
any of the other Secretaries of Defense. The Senator is saying some now 
want to do something different for this nominee of President Obama's 
than the practices they found totally acceptable for the nominees of 
President Bush?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct. A number of our colleagues have 
made that demand, and it is simply not something on which we are going 
to set a precedent. It is not the way to proceed in this body.
  Mr. LEAHY. I stand with the Senator from Michigan. In the Judiciary 
Committee, we follow the same procedure for our judicial nominees 
regardless of the party of the President who nominates them. If we 
begin switching the rules depending upon who is President--well, if we 
think the American public holds Congress in low esteem right now, it is 
going to get even

[[Page S724]]

worse. So I compliment the Senator for sticking to the rules.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my good friend from Vermont.
  Just to complete my statement on the financial part, this is relative 
to the fees he received when he was on the advisory board of Corsair 
Capital.
  This is a company he does not control. He is not in a position to 
require that it disclose anything. The other members of the advisory 
board--all of whom are identified, by the way, on the company's Web 
site--include the chairman of JPMorgan Chase International, who is a 
laureate of the 2002 Israel Prize in Economics and a recipient of the 
Scopus Award from Hebrew University. Other members of the advisory 
board: the former director of investments for Yale University and the 
former chairman of the Financial Services Authority, which is 
responsible for regulating the insurance industry in the United 
Kingdom. So the innuendo that Corsair Capital is somehow a puppet 
entity that is funneling tainted money to members of its advisory board 
is unfair. It is totally inappropriate.

  Senator Inhofe said yesterday that he is not filibustering this 
nomination. He is just insisting on a 60-vote requirement for Senate 
approval. And he said it is not unusual to insist on 60 votes for the 
approval of a nominee and this was done during the Bush administration 
for the nomination of Stephen Johnson to be EPA Administrator and the 
nomination of Dirk Kempthorne to be Secretary of the Interior.
  Well, the Senate rules do not provide for 60-vote approval of 
nominations or any other matter. These rules establish a 60-vote 
requirement to invoke cloture and end debate. If 60 votes are required 
here, it is because there is filibuster. There is no 60-vote 
requirement for the approval of a nomination, and the two examples 
cited by Senator Inhofe actually prove this point. On the nomination of 
Stephen Johnson, cloture was invoked by a 61-to-37 vote on April 29, 
2005. On the nomination of Dirk Kempthorne, cloture was invoked by an 
85-to-8 vote on May 26, 2006. But--and this is the point--after the 
debate was ended by those votes on cloture, the nominations were 
confirmed by regular votes of this body. And those regular votes are 
either a voice vote or a majority vote on a rollcall vote.
  So that history is, again, an example of how the Senate operates. 
Sixty votes is not required to approve a bill or approve a nomination. 
If a matter is being filibustered, 60 votes is required to end the 
debate, and then, if the debate is ended, there is a vote on a 
nomination or a bill.
  No nomination for the position of Secretary of Defense has ever 
before been filibustered. This filibuster breaks new ground. The 
filibuster of a nomination for Secretary of Defense is the first one 
under any circumstances, and it is unwise. The Department is facing a 
budget crisis that was described as a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 by the 
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So a filibuster at this time of 
a budget crisis is exceptionally ill-advised. Leaving the Department of 
Defense leaderless at a time when we are in an Afghan conflict, when 
North Korea has just exploded a nuclear device is exceptionally ill-
advised. And perhaps most important, having a Department of Defense 
that does not have a new Secretary confirmed is unfair to the men and 
women in uniform. It sends them exactly the wrong message, as it does 
to our friends and our adversaries around the world.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

 ADDITIONAL SPEECHES AND EVENTS BY CHUCK HAGEL THAT ARE AVAILABLE ON THE
                                INTERNET
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
December 4, 2008............  Israeli Policy Forum  http://
 Annual Event: ``In    mycatbirdseat.com/
                               His Own Words: Sen.   2012/12/35795-
                               Chuck Hagel on the    senator-chuck-hagel-
                               Middle East''.        keynote-speech-
                                                     israel-policy-forum-
                                                     annual-event/
May 16, 2009................  Georgetown            http://
 University            commencement09.geor
                               Commencement Speech.  getown.edu?p=620
September 23, 2009..........  2009 McCarthy         http://
 Lecture--College of   www.csbsju.edu/
 Saint Benedict/       McCarthy-Center/
                               Saint John's          McCarthy-Lecture/
                               University.           McCarthy-Lecture-
                                                     Archieve/2009-
                                                     Lecture-htm
October 2009................  Gerald R. Ford        http://
 School of Public      www.fordschool.umic
                               Policy--University    h.edu/events/
                               of MIchigan.          calendar/148/
May 28, 2012................  50th Anniversary of   http://
 the Vietnam War       www.vietnamwar50th.
 Commemoration.        com/media_center/
                                                     the_honorable_chuck
                                                     _hagel_memorial_day-
                                                     2012_speech/
------------------------------------------------------------------------


  SPEECHES THAT SENATOR GAVE ON THE SENATE FLOOR IN 2008 THAT COULD BE
                       RELEVANT TO HIS NOMINATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
February 28, 2008.................  Senate Floor Speech re: GI Bill
May 8, 2008.......................  Senate Floor Statement re. Chief
                                     Master Sergeant Glenn Freeman
May 20, 2008......................  Senate Floor Speech--Feingold-Hagel
                                     bill establishing an independent
                                     Foreign Intelligence and
                                     Information Commission
May 20, 2008......................  Senate Floor Speech re. GI Bill
June 12, 2008.....................  Senate Floor Speech--233rd Birthday
                                     of the United States Army
October 2, 2008...................  Senate Floor Speech--Farewell to the
                                     Senate
------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Mr. LEVIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I applaud what Senator Levin has said about 
Senator Hagel. If you made a list of the qualifications of the perfect 
Secretary of Defense, it would look like the resume of Chuck Hagel. If 
you look past the partisan posturing of some, I think the American 
public supports his confirmation as Secretary of Defense.
  I worry that this partisan posturing adds to the low opinion 
Americans have of both the House and Senate. This is not the way we 
should be doing the country's business.
  I strongly support the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of 
Defense and urge all Senators to support him. We are at a time of 
fiscal austerity. We all understand that. But we need a leader at the 
Pentagon, one who understands what it takes to maintain the strongest 
military force in the world.
  Senator Hagel is a former enlisted soldier. He understands defense 
policy and practice from the ground up. He is the leader we need as 
Secretary of Defense. He is experienced by any measure. Like thousands 
of people he will lead at the Pentagon, he has earned a combat 
infantryman's badge. These qualifications are not abstract. He has two 
Purple Hearts from combat service in Vietnam. He still carries shrapnel 
in his body from those injuries.
  On any issue having to do with the U.S. military, I have long valued 
the firsthand experience of Chuck Hagel. But this service alone is not 
what makes him qualified. He has been a leader in the public and 
private sectors. He cofounded Vanguard Cellular Systems, a successful 
cellular carrier in the 1980s and 1990s. He was president and CEO of 
the USO and the chief operating officer of the 1990 G7 Summit. He 
served as president of an investment bank, on the boards of some of the 
world's largest companies, and as a two-term U.S. Senator. He is 
clearly a qualified nominee.
  Since his nomination was announced last month, some have questioned 
Senators Hagel's position on a number of issues--notably, his support 
for Israel. Well, as recently as his confirmation hearings, he has 
reaffirmed his long record of support for Israel. In January, Danny 
Ayalon, the Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister and former Israeli 
Ambassador to the United States, affirmed what he sees as Senator 
Hagel's commitment to the unique U.S.-Israeli relationship. As a member 
of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Hagel supported the 
authorization of almost $40 billion in aid to Israel. In a 2008 book, 
Senator Hagel wrote that, ``there will always be a special and historic 
bond with Israel exemplified by our continued commitment to Israel's

[[Page S725]]

defense.'' He also wrote that that there can be no compromise on 
Israel's identity as a Jewish state. He has affirmed the U.S. 
commitment to Israel's security and Israel's right to defend itself 
against aggression. These are just a few examples, but by any objective 
measure, Senator Hagel is committed to the mutual interests of the 
United States and Israel.
  Attacks suggesting that Senator Hagel is soft on Iran are also 
baseless. Through all my conversations with Senator Hagel, I have never 
once doubted his belief in the President's responsibility to build 
alliances and exhaust all available means to achieve our foreign policy 
goals through diplomacy. But he also believes that aggressive actions 
by us against a foreign government should be strategic. There is not a 
shred of evidence to support claims that he supports a nuclear Iran, or 
that he does not support the President's efforts--unilateral or 
multilateral--to bring Iran to the negotiating table over its nuclear 
program. He has reaffirmed that he believes in keeping all options on 
the table, including force if necessary, to prevent Iran from obtaining 
a nuclear weapon. Senator Hagel supports the sanctions against Iran 
already in place. He has affirmed the need to keep military action on 
the table. He supported the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act of 
1997, the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, and the Iran Freedom 
Support Act of 2006. Any assertion that Senator Hagel accepts Iran's 
nuclear program is false.
  Then there are the bogus, inflammatory claims that Senator Hagel is 
soft on terrorism. Nothing could be further from the truth. He has not 
hesitated to call Hezbollah and Hamas what they are--terrorist 
organizations. He condemned Iran's support of Hezbollah and cosponsored 
the Senate resolution demanding that Hamas recognize Israel's right to 
exist. He also supported the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006, a 
multilateral effort to force Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce 
violence, disarm itself, and accept prior agreements with Israel.
  I have traveled with Senator Hagel to different parts of the world, 
combat areas and areas of great security concern to the United States. 
I have sat in meetings with him as he spoke with our military and 
intelligence officials. Please excuse me if I am somewhat vague, since 
most of these meetings were of a highly classified nature, but I can 
say this: he asked tough questions and always kept the security 
interests of the United States foremost at hand with both U.S. security 
officials and also with the leaders of other countries. Senators who 
were with us of both parties commented to me afterward how impressed 
they were with the way Senator Hagel conducted these meetings.
  In this time of talk of across the board budget cuts, some have 
suggested that Senator Hagel would recklessly weaken the defense 
budget. Nothing in Chuck Hagel's record supports that. He resigned as 
Deputy Administrator of the Veterans Administration over what he 
considered to be inappropriate budget cuts.
  He opposes cuts that would weaken our security. He vigorously opposes 
sequestration, which has been rightly compared to cutting with a meat 
cleaver. Like Secretary Panetta and Secretary Gates, Chuck Hagel 
believes the Pentagon has a role to play in deficit reduction but not 
at the expense of keeping our military the preeminent fighting force in 
the world. He says that reductions must be smart and strategic. I 
agree. I am confident that our men and women in uniform will have no 
stronger advocate and that our Nation will have a solid defender in 
Chuck Hagel.
  Senator Hagel, who has seen combat from the perspective of an 
enlisted member of our Armed Forces, sees our military as the last 
resort, not the first resort in international relations. Those who have 
been in combat, from President Eisenhower on until today, have taken 
that same position. No matter what any detractor may say, his is sound 
policy.
  Matters of war and peace are matters of life and death. Those who sit 
in boardrooms or in easy chairs and say: Let's commit our soldiers here 
and our soldiers there--they are not the ones going. By and large, it 
is not their family members risking their lives. We need a Secretary of 
Defense who knows what it is like to go and to face combat and to be 
wounded. Should we commit our troops when it is necessary for our 
defense? Of course. That is why we have troops. But let's recognize 
that such decisions come at great human cost.
  Senator Hagel, a decorated veteran who still walks with the shrapnel 
from his wounds in Vietnam, understands that a decision to go to war is 
a decision to send our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers 
and mothers into harm's way. It is his deep, visceral understanding of 
this fact, his record of experience, his patriotism, and his dedication 
to this Nation that qualify him to be the next Secretary of Defense.
  We should have the vote and confirm this patriotic American hero. 
Let's not hide behind a filibuster. Let's have the courage to vote yes 
or vote no. Do not hide behind parliamentary tricks. Do not vote maybe. 
The American people elected us to vote yes or vote no. When you want to 
set up a filibuster rule on something, you are basically saying: Let's 
vote maybe. That is hardly a profile in courage and certainly not the 
kind of courage we would expect from a Secretary of Defense. So vote 
yes or vote no. But however you vote, let's do it without delay. I will 
vote yes.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Indiana.
  Mr. COATS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.