[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 17, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3001-S3002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                               Venezuela

  Mr. RUBIO. Mr. President, I come to the floor today to speak about an 
emerging crisis in our hemisphere in the nation of Venezuela. It has 
been covered extensively in the press. I wanted to come today with an 
update and a suggestion, a request of the administration about a step 
we can take.
  First of all, I am very pleased that today our Ambassador to the 
United Nations, Nikki Haley, scheduled a discussion at the U.N. 
Security Council with regard to Venezuela. It was not an open press 
discussion. Again, it showed extraordinary leadership, and I thank her 
for her work and for doing so. This deserves attention.
  By the way, Venezuela is a country that is blessed with natural 
resources. It was once Latin America's richest country, but today the 
people of Venezuela are literally starving, its financial system has 
collapsed, and there are, as you have seen from the press reports, 
massive protests in the streets. Its once proud democracy is now in the 
hands of a dictator, Nicolas Maduro, and his cronies and thugs, who 
have plunged that nation into a constitutional crisis. They are using 
violence and bloodshed to suppress and silence citizens speaking out 
against the regime's corruption and its abuse of political prisoners.
  What the people of Venezuela are calling for is pretty 
straightforward: free and fair elections as called for under the 
Constitution of that country, a return to representative democracy--the 
democracy they once had. They are paying for these requests with their 
blood and even their lives. According to the most recent reports, 
dozens of people have been killed, including teenagers. The Washington 
Post reported yesterday the recent deaths of 18-year-old Luis Alviarez, 
who was killed by a bullet to the chest, and 17-year-old Yeison Mora 
Cordero, who died from a bullet to the head.
  There were two reports today in the press of great interest, one from 
the New York Times and one from the Washington Post. Both documented 
the plight of members of the national guard who have been tasked with 
the job of suppressing the protests in the street. The gist of the 
articles was this: These people who are putting on these uniforms--they 
didn't sign up for this. They signed up for security. They signed up to 
protect the people of Venezuela, not to oppress them.
  They, too, are suffering from poor food. There was one article that 
said that basically breakfast in the morning for the national guard in 
Venezuela consists of a boiled carrot or a potato, and then they are 
sent to the streets for hours. Then they come back and maybe have an 
arepa, which is a corn cake, and, if they are lucky, some butter. They, 
too, are suffering from this.
  Here is the most enlightening part of this: A lot of their family 
members--their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, loved ones, 
husbands, wives, girlfriends, and boyfriends--are on the other side of 
the protest lines. Their fellow Venezuelans are on the other side, and 
they are being tasked to do this.
  I just say to them: Remember what your oath was. To the members of 
the national guard in Venezuela, remember that your job is to protect 
the people of Venezuela, not to oppress them.
  Beyond what we see there--the innocent people dying because of the 
dictatorship trampling the will of the people and destroying their 
democratic institutions--one of the specific things that Maduro has 
done to become a dictator is he has undercut and frankly tried to wipe 
out the authority of their National Assembly, which is their unicameral 
legislative body. The way he has done that is by highjacking the 
supreme court of the country, and they call it the Supreme Tribunal of 
Justice. It is packed with puppets who do his bidding. As an example, 
these puppets recently ruled that they would rescind the democratic 
powers vested to the elected members of the National Assembly by the 
constitution of that country. In essence, they ruled that the National 
Assembly no longer had legislative authority. The protests were so 
massive, even within the government, that they had to backtrack from 
that ruling.
  Here is what is interesting. This is a recent opinion piece written 
by Francis Toro and Pedro Rosas in the Washington Post which said it 
best: ``Beware Maikel Moreno, the hatchet man who runs Venezuela's 
supreme court.''
  Here is what they wrote:

       Moreno, a former intelligence agent, was tried and 
     convicted of murder in 1987, though the corroborating 
     documents from the court system are no longer available. . . 
     . He spent just two years in jail before being released. He 
     was then immediately implicated in a second killing, in 1989, 
     for which he was charged but never tried.

  He was a loyalist of Hugo Chavez, and he became a judge in the early 
2000s. His ``career as a judge hit a snag in 2007,'' Toro and Rosas 
note, ``when he was removed from the bench for `grave and inexcusable' 
errors after releasing two murder suspects against orders from the 
Supreme Tribunal. The government handed him a new job as a diplomat 
abroad. After a few years out of sight, he was appointed a supreme 
court justice in 2014.''
  Then in 2017, Moreno--not once but twice a killer--was appointed the 
chief justice of Venezuela's supreme court. The Venezuelan supreme 
court is run by a murderer. Think about that. A convicted criminal is 
presiding over Venezuela's supreme court. So it is no wonder that the 
court's members have acted as a rubberstamp for Maduro's illegitimate 
power grab, and they have created a political and a humanitarian 
crisis.
  Venezuelans, as I said, are struggling to get basic goods, like food 
and medicine, and access to basic services. The Wall Street Journal 
reported that Venezuelans have lost, on average, 19

[[Page S3002]]

pounds in the last year--not due to some incredible new diet, but due 
to the country's food crisis. This is staggering. It is appalling. It 
is unconscionable. It cannot be tolerated.
  The Venezuelan people deserve a return to democracy. They deserve a 
government that respects the rule of law and the constitution.
  I believe it is the responsibility and the duty of the nations of the 
Western Hemisphere, including our Nation, to help the Venezuelan 
people. Article 20 of the Inter-American Democratic Charter states:

       In the event of an unconstitutional alteration of the 
     constitutional regime that seriously impairs the democratic 
     order in a member state, any member state or the Secretary 
     General may request the immediate convocation of the 
     Permanent Council to undertake a collective assessment of the 
     situation and to take such decisions as it deems appropriate.

  This is what must be done because if we fail to help the Venezuelan 
people in their time of need and if the worst comes to pass, what will 
follow will not be confined to the Venezuelan borders.
  The United States as a result, I hope, should impose sanctions 
against corrupt individuals--not the government, not the people; 
individuals--responsible for human rights violations, narcotics 
trafficking, money laundering, undermining the country's democratic 
process. President Obama began that process. President Trump actually 
sanctioned some additional people earlier this year, including the 
kingpin drug dealer who is now the Vice President of Venezuela, Tareck 
El Aissami.
  Here are some people who should be sanctioned by the current 
President. He should target for sanctions Chavista officials within the 
judiciary--all of these magistrates who have enabled Maduro's takeover. 
That includes the murderer who is the chief justice of their supreme 
court, Maikel Jose Moreno Perez, and others like him who are part of 
that so-called constitutional group within the supreme court of 
Venezuela, many of whom have access to money and use visas to travel 
freely within the United States. Among these names are Calixto Ortega, 
Arcadio Delgado, Federico Fuenmayor, Carmen Zuleta, Lourdes Suarez 
Anderson, and Juan Jose Mendoza. These are the people who have helped 
in this coup d'etat that has canceled the democratic order in 
Venezuela, and they should be punished for what they have done.
  I will close by pointing to two things that are of deep concern. The 
first is this report today in El Nuevo Herald in Miami, which basically 
cites that Maduro has now ordered the militarization of a border region 
with Colombia. We are concerned about that because we have always 
feared he would create some sort of a military pretext to distract 
people from the crisis within the country.
  Then there is this unusual behavior on the part of Maduro. For 
example, yesterday he said that the Chavistas--the followers of Hugo 
Chavez--are the new Jews of the 21st century. Basically he is comparing 
the Chavistas with the Jews who were exterminated during the Holocaust 
in World War II. These comments were broadcast on state television last 
night. It is incredible.
  By the way, this is the same man who about a week ago was caught on 
camera, with a straight face, asking a cow to vote for a constitutional 
referendum he is seeking to pass. I don't even think the cow would 
support him at this point in Venezuela.
  Mr. President, I hope President Trump in the next few days or weeks 
will act against these individuals who have carried out this coup 
d'etat against democracy in Venezuela and have plunged this proud 
nation and proud people into a constitutional, humanitarian, and 
economic crisis.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. PETERS. Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of 
Rachel Brand to be the Associate Attorney General.
  The Associate Attorney General is the third-most senior position at 
the Department of Justice. During these troubling times, I cannot in 
good conscience support Ms. Brand's nomination.
  The American public must have faith in its institutions, and 
unfortunately that trust is eroding more and more each and every day. 
For the first time in recent history, we are facing questions about a 
significant interference from a foreign government in an American 
Presidential election. Even more troubling, there have been serious 
questions about a Presidential campaign's potential collusion with 
Russia, a foreign adversary.
  We have an idea of the potential problem here, and the Justice 
Department is supposed to be a part of the solution. Unfortunately, the 
recent conduct of the President's appointees to the Department of 
Justice have only added fuel to the fire.
  First, Attorney General Jeff Sessions failed to reveal his 
communication with the Russians during his confirmation hearings. This 
omission led him to publicly pledge to recuse himself from Russia-
related investigations.
  Then, in an inexplicable turn of events, the Deputy Attorney General 
and the Attorney General advised the President to fire former FBI 
Director Jim Comey, who we know was in the midst of investigating the 
Trump campaign's relationship with Russia. Let me be clear: That was a 
firing that the President himself admitted was related to ``the Russia 
thing.''
  Then the day after firing Director Comey, the President revealed 
highly classified information to Russian officials during a meeting in 
the Oval Office--a meeting that, I may add, was closed to the American 
press but oddly included only the Russian press.
  You simply can't make this stuff up. The level of turmoil and the 
questionable behavior on the part of this administration are deeply 
disturbing, not just for Americans but for our allies all across the 
globe.
  We are currently lurching from crisis to crisis, and we must pause 
for a moment and consider what is at stake; namely, the security and 
the future of our democracy.
  My Democratic colleagues and I have repeatedly called for a special 
prosecutor to take over all of the Russia-related investigations, and 
recent events show that the need for a special prosecutor is greater 
now more than ever. It is time to put country over politics, and it is 
time for a transparent and thorough investigation into these concerns. 
If there is no wrongdoing, then the President should not be concerned 
about getting the American people the truth they deserve. Our 
constituents need to have their faith restored in our institutions and 
that will require transparency, integrity, and professionalism from 
officials at the Department of Justice.
  I joined the vast majority of my colleagues in supporting the 
confirmation of Rod Rosenstein to serve as Deputy Attorney General with 
the belief that he would bring a voice of reason to the Department of 
Justice. The results have been, needless to say, disappointing. With 
the current state of this Justice Department, I have no reason to 
believe Ms. Brand will fare much better.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to consider the very 
real challenges we face. This is not an issue of partisan politics or 
the outcome of a past election; this is about protecting the sanctity 
of our democracy from outside threats.
  I believe we absolutely must work together to restore the credibility 
and the independence of the Justice Department. Until we have an 
independent special prosecutor and until we are confident that the 
Attorney General is truly honoring his recusal on the Russia 
investigation, I cannot support another senior political nomination to 
this Justice Department.
  I urge my colleagues to vote no.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.