[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 102 (Thursday, June 15, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S3539]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                         Sanctions Legislation

  Mr. President, Senator Cardin and I were on the floor earlier today, 
along with the Presiding Officer, and we voted on legislation that 
attempts to send a message to Iran.
  By the way, it just had elections, gosh, not even a month ago, 
whereby the reformist President Rouhani was reelected by a big margin. 
Reformists-moderates were elected as the mayor of Tehran and in other 
municipalities across the country. There are a lot of young people in 
that country who want a better relationship with this country, and they 
actually had a chance to speak at the voting box. They elected a number 
of women to serve in positions of real responsibility, not just in 
their Parliament but as members, say, of Tehran's city council.
  By the way, the Iranians are basically keeping their word with 
respect to the agreement between five nations, including the United 
States, China, Russia, Britain, France, and Germany. They are actually 
keeping their word with respect to complying with the nuclear agreement 
that was entered into, oh, gosh, 2 years ago. What they are doing and 
that we disagree with is they are testing ballistic missiles, and there 
is basically the U.N.'s strong message to Iran not to do that. ``If you 
do, we will sanction you in different ways,'' but they have continued 
to test ballistic missiles. They say it is for defensive purposes, but 
you cannot be sure so we strengthened those sanctions.
  With those sanctions, we also included sanctions that basically say 
to Russia--and all 17 intelligence agencies say Russia intervened in 
our last election--no question. They intervened on behalf of one 
candidate, Mr. Trump. They wanted to elect him, and they wanted to make 
sure Hillary Clinton did not get elected. They succeeded. That is not 
just Democratic messaging. Every one of our 17 intelligence agencies 
has come to the same conclusion and has testified publicly to that 
effect.
  As a result, this legislation was initially focused just on Iran, but 
it refocused and pivoted--maybe refocused even more--on Russia in order 
to sanction them for their misdeeds, which I think are, in many ways, 
more significant than what the Iranians have done and have been 
sanctioned for again.
  Why do I go back to this legislation that we just debated and adopted 
here this morning?
  Consistent with what Senator Cardin has talked about--and he is very 
much an architect involved right in the middle of the effort to bring 
that legislation to the floor. It came out of his committee. He is the 
senior Democrat, the ranking member. Bob Corker, of Tennessee, is the 
chair. A number of members--Democratic and Republican--on that 
committee worked together to fashion that legislation, to bring 
bipartisan legislation to the floor.
  I say to my colleague Senator Cardin that I didn't know what the 
final vote count was. It was 98 to 2. That is what we can accomplish 
when we work together, and I think it is a great message as we pivot 
and talk about the Affordable Care Act.