[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 88 (Monday, May 22, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H4418-H4421]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WHAT DO WE HAVE TO LOSE: NATIONAL SECURITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands (Ms. Plaskett)
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and
include extraneous material on the subject of my Special Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands?
There was no objection.
Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today
to anchor this CBC Special Order. For the next 60 minutes, we have a
chance to speak directly to the American people on issues of great
importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, Congress, the
constituents we represent, and all Americans.
Tonight, we will highlight the President's action to undermine our
national security, including, but not limited to, abruptly firing FBI
Director Comey in order to ease pressure on the Russian investigation
just 1 day before sharing classified information with a Russian
official.
Madam Speaker, many in this country believe Congress continues to
have trouble accomplishing the basic requirements of its job. Up until
a few weeks ago, we were still scrambling yet again to complete
spending legislation to prevent a government shutdown.
If the only measure of national security success during the
President's first 100 days were avoiding catastrophe, okay, President
Trump has succeeded: no attacks on the U.S., no new wars, no nuclear
Armageddon.
These are good things, and in the moment we can breathe a sigh of
relief. However, these outcomes, arguably, owe more to the national
security machine built by the President's predecessors than any
decision of the 45th President.
President Trump's first major budget proposal will be released
tomorrow. It is reported to include massive cuts to Medicaid and will
call for drastically and unprecedented changes to antipoverty programs.
As for Medicaid, the State Federal programs that provide healthcare
to low-income Americans, Trump's draconian budget plan would follow
through on a bill passed by House Republicans to cut more than $800
billion over 10 years.
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this would cut off
Medicaid benefits for 10 million people over the next decade. That is
unacceptable.
The dysfunctional relationship between Congress and the Trump
administration has helped to bog down and complicate the fiscal 2017
budget process and has stymied the work of this Congress when it comes
to passing legislation that will help our constituents.
A recent survey found that 48 percent of Americans now prefer
increased government spending in areas like healthcare, veterans care,
education, and infrastructure--things that the people of my district,
the Virgin Islands, desperately need, with a 15 percent unemployment
rate and 33 percent of our children living in poverty.
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It is time for Congress to get back to work for the people that have
put us here.
I want to highlight three pieces of legislation that I have
introduced that will help my constituents in the Virgin Islands in
various ways.
With a special counsel now having been appointed to look into the
distractions the White House has created, it is time that Congress
focus on our job and proceed to hold hearings on these bills followed
by a vote on the House floor, and, hopefully, these commonsense bills
will be signed into law by the President.
Healthcare: President Trump and the Republican Congress are planning
to cut more than $800 billion out of Medicaid funding over 10 years
while converting the program to a cap block grant to the States and
territories and eliminating ACA's Medicaid expansion. These provisions
are in the American Health Care Act, the House GOP's ObamaCare repeal
bill.
As a Member representing the Virgin Islands, I believe we need to get
back to doing the work of the people, and that is working to pass laws
that better the lives of our constituents.
I introduced improving the treatment of the U.S. territories under
the Federal healthcare program, which would eliminate existing
inequities the territories face under Medicaid and Medicare. There are
numerous bills that my other colleagues have introduced to assist their
constituents and all Americans in areas of healthcare. We need to bring
those bills to the floor and vote them up or vote them down.
Veterans: There are few places in the United States with higher per
capita rates of military service than the United States Virgin Islands.
As a Member, I am committed to ensuring Virgin Islands veterans have
full and equal access to health, housing, education, and employment
benefits they have rightfully earned. Our constituents have deployed to
Afghanistan and Iraq more than 30,000 times since September 11, and
about 120,000 military veterans live in the territories, yet none are
allowed to cast a ballot to choose their Commander in Chief.
We need to remember that nearly 4 million Americans call Puerto Rico,
Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American
Samoa home, a combined population greater than 22 States. We represent
those Americans in the U.S. House who cannot vote for their interests
on the House floor. Our constituents are denied representation in the
U.S. Senate and are barred from the general election for President and
Vice President. When the Presidential vote was tabulated in 2016, it
was as if 4 million Americans we represent do not exist. There is a
time, however, when our people are counted--when the country goes to
war.
I have introduced H. Res. 91, which proposes an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States regarding Presidential elections,
voting rights for residents of all United States territories and
commonwealths.
Education: We have to fix the education system. We have to give our
young people better choices. We need to allow our children to be able
to be educated in a place that is hospitable to learning. That does not
occur right now in many places in the United States. The President's
budget cut would remove support to schools for infrastructure, for
afterschool programs, and for summer reading programs.
We cannot continue with this if we want to have national security.
National security is the security of our young people to be educated
and to grow safely. That is not happening in the Virgin Islands or
anyplace in the United States at this time.
I recently introduced the United States Virgin Islands College Access
Act of 2017, which will allow college students who are residents of the
Virgin Islands to receive more reasonable tuition rates at
participating 4-year institutions of higher education.
It is time for Congress to stop doing business as usual. With budget
decisions impacting everything from national security to infrastructure
investment, Congress needs to focus on doing its job and doing it with
more than the next few months or current fiscal year in mind. Moving
forward, we as Members of Congress need to make sure that we deal with
our legislative and budgetary responsibilities with more thoughtfulness
and foresight.
Congressman Dwight Evans represents the wonderful city of
Philadelphia and the people of Pennsylvania. He is a legislator of many
years. Although he comes here as a freshman,
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none of us consider him as a freshman having served in the legislature
in Pennsylvania for more than 20 years. I would ask him to speak on the
topic that the Congressional Black Caucus' Special Order hour has
introduced: What Do We Have to Lose: National Security.
Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Evans).
Mr. EVANS. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from the
great Virgin Islands, and I really appreciate her leadership.
I would like to thank my colleagues for bringing forward such an
important topic for tonight's Special Order hour. National security is
an issue of utmost importance to all of us.
The bottom line is this: If the President thinks it is okay to share
classified information with our adversaries, we have a big problem. I
will be reemphasizing that point: If the President of the United States
of America shared classified information with our enemies, then the
lives of the American people are at risk.
Regardless of political party, if, in fact, President Trump did
willingly share classified information with Russia, then this further
proves that the President does not understand the consequences of his
actions. It proves that he doesn't understand how much we stand to lose
as a result of these actions.
The bigger question now that people are asking is: Do you think the
President is in so much trouble?
It is clear from the news that the Russian investigation is the gift
that keeps giving. But I want to be really, really clear with you. I
did not vote for President Trump. I did not support him when he was
running, and I fought hard to stop President Trump from becoming
elected.
If you want to know, I think the President is in trouble. I will tell
you this. President Trump and his administration are not ready for
prime time. The campaign is over. The President needs to focus on
governing, and we have not seen him do that yet. He needs to learn how
to govern.
We know that the Comey firing has sent a potential signal of the
President's collusion with Russia. For this reason, I called for the
special prosecutor and the independent commission so that the American
people truly can know the Trump-Russia connection.
I am glad to see former FBI Director Bob Mueller named as special
counsel to oversee the investigation, but we still need to make sure
that Congress is able to conduct an independent investigation into the
Trump administration's ties to Russia and interference in the 2016
election. The American people deserve to know the facts. The American
people deserve to know the facts.
I was in my district over the weekend in Lower Merion, and all anyone
asked to talk about was Comey and Russia. They want answers, and they
want to get to the bottom line of this.
I want to, but what I want to do is to raise the dialogue on the
issues that really matter here, the issues that we really have a lot to
lose on. For example, last week, I hosted a briefing on middle
neighborhoods. Middle neighborhoods are neighborhoods caught between
bust and boom. They are communities doing just well enough that our
cities aren't focusing our resources or attention on them.
Of course, we need to get to the bottom line of collusion between
Russia and the President. I want to, and we will get to the bottom line
of this as the American people deserve the facts. At the same time, I
want to make sure we are fighting for dialogue on the ways we can make
a difference and make an impact on our communities in need.
We need to find ways to tackle food insecurity, help our public
schools, and expand access to capital and credit on every corner to
build stronger neighborhoods block by block. This will not be easy. We
need to work together. It is in our collective interest to ensure
national security is not a partisan issue. It should be a bipartisan
issue.
So I stand here in the well of this House, Madam Speaker, to indicate
that I want to ensure that national security is important. I hope,
Madam Speaker, that the President also understands that it is
important.
Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, I thank the Congressman so much for his
comments.
I think it was very interesting that the gentleman was saying that
the American people and people that he spoke with over the weekend want
the truth. I think that is what we all here in Congress want. We want
the facts. We want to hear specifically what has happened so that the
people of the United States can make a decision about what happens
next.
I am not here to ask for impeachment or ask for any rash decision,
but I am asking that the American people be able to see a transparent
Congress and a transparent process that allows them to then speak to us
as Members of Congress as to what they would like.
Several months ago, almost 2 months now, several colleagues of mine
and I wrote a letter to the Department of Justice, to the Acting
Attorney General, requesting that he institute a special counsel, a
special prosecutor, in this matter. We are grateful that that has
happened. But a special counsel cannot replace an independent, outside
commission and vigorous congressional investigation.
The appointment of a special counsel speaks to the urgency of
investigating the Trump connection to Russia's interference in our
election and the gravity of the President's abuse of power in trying to
shut down the FBI Director; but the American people need to understand
that, while a special counsel could bring charges against those
individuals who were, in fact, if the facts prove to be so, in
collusion with the Russians, it cannot do anything to the President
except bring a report to this Congress for this Congress to act on.
This Congress needs to remember that we are a separate branch of
government than the White House. This Congress seems to be acting as if
it is part of the White House, an extension of 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue, when, in fact, this Congress stands alone.
We have a separate set of rules, a separate power, and a separate
responsibility than the President of the United States. As such, Madam
Speaker, it is important that we demonstrate to the American people
that we are acting that way. A special counsel within the Trump-
controlled Justice Department cannot replace a truly independent,
outside commission, because it is the commission which would then be
able to make a decision about our President.
I say it is our President because we all respect the Office of the
President, and we want the world to know that we respect and hold in
reverence the individual who holds that and hold him accountable for
that position that he holds. An independent, outside commission, as
special counsel, Director Muller's actions will still be subject to
review and approval by the President Trump-appointed leadership of the
Justice Department.
Congress must act to create an independent, outside commission that
is completely free of the Trump administration's meddling. A special
counsel cannot be used as a pretext for Republicans to shut down
investigations by Congress or hide the facts of the President's
wrongdoing from the American people.
Now, I have heard the Justice Department and others talk about this
being a criminal investigation, that the special counsel is using it as
a special criminal investigation. As a lawyer, as someone who has been
a prosecutor, I understand that the burden of proof for criminal
charges are much different than this Congress would hold for a
President if it were to ask for impeachment.
So this Congress must not abdicate its responsibility because the
work needs to be done. Jobs need to be created and infrastructure needs
to be put in place so that commerce can be done in this country.
Healthcare needs to be put in place for Americans. We cannot lose more
Americans' healthcare. We need to gain more Americans having
healthcare. We need to settle the issues of immigration.
Madam Speaker, never mind criminal justice reform. It seems that this
Congress has completely forgotten that, in the last Congress, we
agreed, both Republicans and Democrats, to reform criminal justice. We
are seeing our young people die not from the Justice Department and not
just from what is happening on the streets, and never mind what is
happening in our criminal
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justice system. I understand that a bill is going to be coming on the
floor asking for minimum mandatory sentencing for a slew of charges
which will again increase the school-to-prison, cradle-to-death
pipeline of prisons in this country.
So these are the things that we as Congress need to be concerned
with. The national security issues that our President has are things
that we need to continue to look at.
There is an old Washington cliche: personnel is policy. The same
reflects the wisdom that any President's agenda depends on his
political appointees to refine and implement that vision. Trump's White
House has failed first and most spectacularly in this requirement. That
failure may not even be the President's failure at this time but the
people he has put in place by both building a dysfunctional White House
and National Security Council and by failing to staff his national
security agencies with the appointees necessary to oversee and direct
foreign policy.
For now, the failures of Trump's political favorites with his new
establishment professionals likely mean incoherence on the national
security front for some time, with the White House lurching from one
crisis to the next, its actions and words disconnected from any broader
doctrine.
Bad personnel decisions have also dogged the Trump administration
during its first 100 days. Michael Flynn and K.T. McFarland hardly did
well in leading the NSC during their brief sojourns there. Low-level
hires have also continued poor performance.
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The most obvious foreign policy failures are that there is no policy,
no doctrine, no strategy that knits together Trump's desired ends with
the government's ways and means. That should be of concern to my
Republican colleagues who want this Republican President to succeed. If
you want him to succeed, you need to help him. The help needs to come
in terms of the personnel that he has put in place, in terms of the
transparency, and as they said, cleaning the swamp, getting rid of the
swamp, so that there can be those professionals and those above
reproach in the White House carrying out the mission of this President.
At the agency level, the Trump's White House political appointments
machine has been incredibly dysfunctional, reportedly because of fights
between the White House factions over personnel picks.
This has starved the Pentagon, State Department, Justice Department,
and other agencies of under secretaries, assistant secretaries, deputy
assistant secretaries, special assistants who actually are carrying out
the President's agenda.
In the absence of an entire team, the uniformed military leadership
and career civil servants of these agencies have carried on, but with
significant friction given the personal disdain for these people during
the campaign and afterwards.
The personnel failures have worsened the second category of the
failures, those of process. If there was personnel, we also have
process failures going on right now.
The NSC was codified in 1947, along with the modern Defense
Department, CIA, and Joint Chiefs of Staff to correct perceived process
failures during World War II. The big idea behind the National Security
Act was to create a process that could withstand poor personnel by
ensuring the institution of the presidency was well served by its
national security agencies and could, therefore, make better informed
decisions.
Despite its aspirations to run the White House like a fine-tuned
machine, the administration has uniformly failed to implement processes
to serve its agenda. Indeed, at times--an example being the 63-hour
rush to strike Syria with cruise missiles or its announcement of a tax
plan before the details were ironed out--the White House seems at war
with the very idea of process, as if budgets, planning, and
coordination were toxic features of the Washington swamp, to be
rejected at all costs.
The biggest process failures have been those that affected the entire
government. Trump's failure to develop detailed budgets, let alone to
agree with Congress on the funding levels and priorities, nearly led
the country to the brink of a government shutdown. All indications
point to the impasse being settled, but the outcome will likely be a
continuing resolution once again that punts all the major budget
decisions and keeps agencies in limbo on major programs, including, if
we are talking about national security, major weapons systems,
acquisitions, spending on important training and exercises, and outlays
for servicemembers and military families. This is something that is
going to cause all Americans to suffer, spectacularly in some cases.
One of the President's biggest campaign promises, the pledge to build
a wall on America's border with Mexico, has stalled for lack of
funding, and proposals will likely remain stuck in the government
contracts process for months, if not years.
His immigration orders have been held unconstitutional because of
errors that his Justice Department or Department of Homeland Security
lawyers would have caught and corrected had they been there or had a
chance.
In some cases, the process failures have had deadlier consequences.
President Trump ordered a risky special operations raid on Yemen over a
dinner meeting with his senior staff with scant process or
coordination. The raid went badly, as military operations sometimes do.
Instead of taking responsibility, the White House blamed the military,
both for the substantive failure on the ground and the faulty decision
process that put the SEALS there. Disconnects between the White House,
Department of Defense, and the U.S. Pacific Command resulted in a
confusing saga regarding the movements of a U.S. aircraft carrier,
resulting in the dilution of any deterrent value that President Trump's
words might hold in Moscow or Beijing.
The personnel and process failures contribute to policy failures
across the national security chessboard. The most obvious Trump foreign
policy failure is that there is no policy, no doctrine at this time. We
deserve better in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in China, in North
Korea, but most importantly, here on the home front. We as Americans
deserve a coherent, comprehensive process oriented as well as personnel
driven with career intelligence individuals at the helm and within the
ranks of each one of these agencies because we have a lot to lose.
We have our young people to lose if we go into wars that have not
been thought out and have not been process driven. Our young people
deserve better. Our world deserves better because the world is looking
to America to still be the ones--although we seem to be abdicating our
responsibility, whether it be in war or in the other forms of diplomacy
that we engage in--to keep this a safe place. Famines that are going on
in Sudan, in Yemen, and in other places, it is the American might, the
might of our aid and our support to them, that keeps democracy alive,
not just on the ground and in fact, but in the hearts and minds of
those who yearn for it in other places.
That is the national security that this America needs to be engaged
in, and it is that kind of national security that this Congress needs
to be concerned with. We need to get back. We have a week of bills that
are dysfunctional in themselves that do not serve the best interests of
the American people. This Congress needs to stop scuttling legislation,
scuttling bills that their colleagues are trying to put forward. Vote
them up or vote them down. Let the American people know where you stand
on every issue. We need to stop the voice votes that are going on in
committees that allow Members to hide behind what their positions are
with their constituents. I know it is not easy, but that is why we are
all adults here. We want to put on our big girl pants and be the kind
of people who can stand for what we believe.
So let's bring those bills forward. Let's support the infrastructure
jobs activity, as well as national security and support for the world
abroad. That is what we have to lose if we do not hold this President,
this White House, and all of his agencies and his Cabinet accountable
for the work that they are doing.
Madam Speaker, it appears that I do not have additional Members who
would like to speak in this Special Order hour.
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Madam Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman has 35 minutes remaining.
Ms. PLASKETT. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to refrain from
engaging in personalities toward the President.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, protecting our
national security should be among one of the top concerns of any
administration--Republican or Democrat. Yet, President Trump has
demonstrated an alarming disregard for the national security interests
of the United States.
There have been a number of incidents that I believe warrant
additional scrutiny by Congress and the American people. Just last
week, it was reported that President Trump revealed highly classified
information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a
White House meeting. In direct contravention of standing diplomatic
agreements with our closest allies, President Trump also reportedly
divulged the source of that highly classified information. Not only did
this blatant disregard for protocol damage our credibility among the
international community, but President Trump may have very well also
exposed extremely sensitive information about U.S. and allied
intelligence operations abroad.
Earlier this month, President Trump also took a bold step in firing
former FBI Director James Comey in the midst of an investigation into
his administration and alleged ties to Russian officials. Shortly after
Director Comey was fired, an unnamed White House source revealed that
President Trump told Russian officials during the same meeting that he
did so in order to ease some of the pressure from the Russia
investigation. This is deeply alarming, if not simply just ironic.
During the Presidential election, House Speaker Paul Ryan criticized
Hillary Clinton over her mishandling of classified emails on a private
email server. He stated, ``individuals who are `extremely careless'
with classified information should be denied further access to such
info.'' Today, I have yet to hear Speaker Ryan--or other key House
Republicans--speak out against this blatant mishandling of classified
information. It is hypocrisy in its purest form.
Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford the unauthorized divulging of
classified information and national security secrets, especially to
hostile nations such as Russia. I find it deeply troubling that a
sitting president would display such a blatant disregard for the
safeguarding of U.S. national security interests. I continue to join my
colleagues in calling for an independent commission to investigate any
possible collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Kremlin.
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