[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 107 (Thursday, June 22, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3707-S3709]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Russia Investigation

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, in March, Mr. Comey briefed Ranking 
Member Feinstein and this Senator on the Russia investigation. This 
included telling us who was and who was not under investigation.
  After that meeting, I publicly called for Mr. Comey to tell the 
public what he had told us about whether President Trump was under 
investigation. I did this because the public had a right to know. Mr. 
Comey told me and other congressional leaders that the President was 
not under investigation. He even told the President himself, and I 
understand that he repeatedly told this to the President. But Mr. Comey 
didn't listen to my request for transparency. I think transparency in 
government is very important because transparency brings 
accountability, and government needs to be accountable. Mr. Comey 
didn't listen to the President's request. Only months later has the 
truth finally come out.
  Well, it ought to raise the question with anybody: What happened in 
the meantime? What happened because Mr. Comey refused to tell the 
American people that the President wasn't under investigation? The 
short answer is something you see almost hourly, particularly in this 
city: media hysteria. Countless media articles falsely claimed the 
President was under investigation for colluding with Russia. 
Unfortunately, a number of our Democrat colleagues in the House and 
Senate played right along. Over and over again, the media published 
selective leaks. They published classified half-truths. All this was 
used to make false allegations of sinister conduct by the President. 
And, of course, there were a lot of people who believed it.
  The intelligence community conducted an assessment of Russia's 
efforts to interfere in the election. That assessment said one of 
Russia's goals was to undermine public confidence in our democratic 
system.
  Because Mr. Comey refused to tell the public that the FBI was not 
investigating the President, conspiracy theories and, of course, wild 
speculation have run rampant about the election, the President, and 
Russia. These conspiracy theories and wild speculation have played 
right into Russia's aim of undermining faith in our democratic system.

[[Page S3708]]

  That doesn't come out very often in these stories, but we have to 
understand that Russia makes a career of not only undermining 
democratic systems in the United States, look at what they have done in 
Ukraine militarily, and look at what they have done in France with the 
elections and in the Netherlands with the elections. They are talking 
about upcoming elections in Germany, where the Russians will try to do 
the same thing because autocrats don't like democratic systems that 
work and whatever they can do to undermine those democratic systems is 
going to obviously make them look better in comparison.
  Those national security concerns should have taken precedence. Mr. 
Comey said he was worried about a duty to correct the record if 
evidence of collusion involving the President came to light later on. 
But that concern was merely hypothetical--in other words, pure 
speculation. In the unlikely event that it came to pass, the public 
should know if the FBI is pursuing a criminal investigation against the 
President, just as the public should know if the FBI is pursuing a 
criminal investigation against a major party's nominee for President. 
But Mr. Comey agreed with Attorney General Lynch to shade the truth in 
favor of the Clinton campaign's rhetoric and call what was an 
investigation a ``matter'' instead of using the word ``investigation.'' 
This came about because of an order by Attorney General Lynch.
  After a year of the entire might of the U.S. intelligence community 
and the FBI looking for evidence of collusion with the Russians, where 
is that evidence? But after all of this chaos and mountains of innuendo 
about the President and collusion with Russia, the truth finally came 
out: The FBI was not investigating President Trump in the Russia probe. 
The media was wrong. The Democrats were wrong. The wild speculation and 
conspiracy theories ended up harming our country. They played right 
into Russia's hands.

  How did we all learn the truth? In President Trump's letter removing 
Mr. Comey from office. At first, most didn't believe it. The media 
scoffed when they read what the President said in that letter. They 
insisted that Mr. Comey would never tell the President that he was not 
under investigation. We learned earlier this month from Mr. Comey 
himself that he had done exactly that. It wasn't a surprise to me 
because Mr. Comey had told me the same thing.
  I have to note something else here. Mr. Comey didn't just tell the 
President, Senator Feinstein, and me that the President was not under 
investigation. He had also told the Gang of 8. Of course, the Gang of 8 
includes the Senate minority leader, Mr. Schumer. But even after Mr. 
Comey told the Gang of 8 that the President was not under 
investigation, the minority leader told the media that the President 
was under investigation, and, of course, that further helped feed media 
hysteria. The minority leader even tried to say that the Senate 
shouldn't vote on the Supreme Court nomination because the President 
was under investigation, and the whole time, he knew it wasn't true.
  Media hysteria and baseless political attacks filled the vacuum left 
by Mr. Comey's failure to inform the public--to be transparent, to be 
accountable.
  The odd thing about it is none of this fiasco had to happen. If Mr. 
Comey had just been transparent with the public, as I urged him to be, 
it could have been avoided.
  Unfortunately, now it looks as if Mr. Comey and the media might be 
doing the same thing to Attorney General Sessions.
  Two weeks ago, Mr. Comey said he didn't tell the Attorney General 
about the conversation he supposedly had with the President about 
General Flynn. Mr. Comey said this was because he believed the Attorney 
General was going to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.
  Mr. Comey said the FBI was aware of the facts that he couldn't 
discuss in an open setting that could have made the Attorney General's 
continued engagement problematic. Well, that vague statement sounds 
very mysterious to people who don't know the whole truth. They will 
wonder: What were those secret facts? What did the FBI conclude about 
those secret facts? Was the Attorney General under investigation? Did 
the Attorney General collude with Russia?
  Once again, Mr. Comey is not being as transparent about senior 
government officials and the Russia investigation as he could or should 
be. Now the speculation is running rampant again, this time about the 
Attorney General instead of the President.
  CNN reported that Mr. Comey told the Intelligence Committee behind 
closed doors that the issue was a possible additional meeting between 
Sessions and the Russian Ambassador. The media has begun to speculate 
all sorts of nefarious things. So here we go again. The rumor mill is 
back in business. It is insinuating improper ties with Russians and 
undermining people's faith in another senior government official, with 
the follow-up that it also undermines people's confidence in our 
institutions of government, and maybe even in our Constitution.
  This is the same destructive pattern, and it plays right into the 
Russians' hands again. Well, this time around, we shouldn't put up with 
it. We ought to say enough is enough. There is no reason Mr. Comey 
couldn't have told the public the whole truth.
  Once again, 3 months ago, Mr. Comey specifically told Members who was 
and who was not under investigation in the Russia probe. He should also 
tell the public whether the FBI ever had an open investigation on 
Attorney General Sessions. He should tell the public whether the FBI 
checked out the times Sessions met the Russian Ambassador. He should 
tell the public whether the FBI looked into the Mayflower Hotel event 
that went on. He should tell the public if the FBI found nothing 
improper about these meetings. If there was nothing to it, he should 
say so publicly. He should not be telling Senators one thing behind 
closed doors and then making public insinuations that are different. He 
is the person who can nip this ridiculous speculation in the bud.
  Mr. Comey should have told the public earlier what he told Members 
about the President, and now he should tell the public what he told 
Members about the Attorney General. Enough of this nonsense.
  The investigations of Russian interference and of circumstances 
surrounding Mr. Comey's firing will continue. I am confident that we 
will eventually get all the facts, one way or another, and we are going 
to go where the facts take us. In the meantime, it is time to stop the 
rumor-mongering. It is time to stop the innuendoes and half-truths. It 
is time to stop leaking national security information to score 
political points. And it is time to stop playing into Russia's hands by 
intentionally sowing false doubt about your political opponents. 
Instead, it is quite obvious that it is time to get back to doing the 
people's business.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record 
a relevant supplemental article from the Washington Post.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, June 14, 2017]

     The Sessions Hearing Shows Who's Really Colluding With Russia

                         (By Marc A. Thiessen)

       According to the U.S. intelligence community, Russia's 
     objectives in meddling in the 2016 election included not only 
     hurting Hillary Clinton's chances but also undermining 
     ``public faith in the U.S. democratic process,'' ``impugning 
     the fairness of the election'' and calling into question 
     ``the U.S.-led liberal democratic order.'' If the spectacle 
     of the past few months is any indication, Russian leader 
     Vladimir Putin is certainly succeeding in these latter goals.
       And here is the great irony: Those who are falsely claiming 
     that Trump was under FBI investigation for collusion with 
     Moscow are, in fact, the ones inadvertently colluding with 
     Putin to undermine American democracy.
       Case in point is the campaign of McCarthyite character 
     assassination on display in the Senate Intelligence Committee 
     hearing Tuesday. No doubt Putin was smiling as Attorney 
     General Jeff Sessions was forced to rebut what he correctly 
     called ``appalling and detestable'' accusations that he 
     colluded with the Russians and lied to the Senate. Sessions 
     testified that the much-vaunted ``third meeting'' between 
     Sessions and the Russian ambassador at the Mayflower Hotel--
     which Sessions reportedly failed to disclose--did not happen, 
     at least not beyond possible incidental contact that he 
     doesn't even recall.
       There was a time when airing unproven allegations of 
     coordinating with the Kremlin was seen as bad form. Now it is 
     common practice in Washington. These kinds of false charges 
     and innuendo directly assist Russia

[[Page S3709]]

     in its efforts to undermine public confidence in our 
     democratic institutions. Those raising such accusations 
     without proof are, wittingly or unwittingly, doing the 
     Kremlin's bidding.
       For months, Democrats (a.k.a. ``The Resistance'') have been 
     spinning the false narrative that President Trump was under 
     FBI investigation to call into question the validity of his 
     presidency. In March, Democrats used it as a pretext to argue 
     that Trump did not have the legitimacy to fill a Supreme 
     Court vacancy. Senate Democratic leader Charles E. Schumer 
     (N.Y.) declared in a floor speech that the Senate should not 
     vote on Neil Gorsuch's nomination because Republicans 
     ``stopped a president who wasn't under investigation'' from 
     filling the seat. Two days later, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-
     Mass.) said the same thing, declaring, ``The FBI has revealed 
     that the sitting president of the United States is under 
     investigation. And it raises a really, I think, important 
     question and that is whether or not a president who is under 
     investigation by the FBI ought to be ramming through a 
     Supreme Court nominee that would have a lifetime 
     appointment.''
       The media gleefully echoed these false claims. The day 
     before Comey testified, CNN blared: ``In testimony, Comey 
     will dispute President Trump's blanket claim that he was told 
     he wasn't under investigation.'' In fact, Comey said 
     precisely the opposite. When Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) 
     asked, ``While you were director, the president of the United 
     States was not under investigation. Is that a fair 
     statement?'' Comey replied: ``That's correct.'' Even then, 
     CNN was not willing to concede its error, declaring in a so-
     called ``correction'' that ``Comey does not directly dispute 
     that Trump was told multiple times he was not under 
     investigation'' (emphasis added).
       No, Comey did not fail to ``directly dispute'' it, he 
     directly confirmed it. The CNN story--and its non-correction 
     correction--was ``fake news.''
       Not only that, Comey also testified that Trump never tried 
     to get him to stop the probe into Russia's election meddling, 
     which Comey explained was a separate matter from the FBI's 
     investigation of disgraced former national security adviser 
     Michael Flynn. Not only did Trump not ask Comey to stop the 
     probe, the former FBI director told Sen. Marco Rubio (R-
     Fla.), ``He went farther than that. He said, and if some of 
     my satellites did something wrong, it'd be good to find that 
     out.'' Rubio pressed Comey, asking whether he was testifying 
     that Trump effectively said, ``Do the Russia investigation. I 
     hope it all comes out. I have nothing to do with anything 
     Russia. It'd be great if it all came out, people around me 
     were doing things that were wrong.'' Comey replied, ``That 
     was the sentiment he was expressing. Yes, sir.''
       Given these facts, Trump has legitimate reason to be 
     frustrated. If you knew you were not under investigation by 
     the FBI, but everyone was saying you were, you'd want the 
     truth to get out. And you might be upset with an FBI director 
     who refused to lift the ``cloud'' hanging over your 
     administration by confirming that he was not investigating 
     you.
       That said, Trump has been fueling the liberal feeding 
     frenzy with his tweetstorms taking his critics to task. If 
     Trump knows he did nothing wrong--and if he really wants to 
     find out whether any of his ``satellites'' did--he should 
     stop talking and tweeting about the investigation, let 
     special counsel Robert S. Mueller III do his work and focus 
     on his job: governing. His daughter Ivanka Trump was recently 
     asked how she dealt with the media frenzy over Russia. She 
     replied, ``I'm trying to keep my head down, not listen to the 
     noise and just work really hard to make a positive impact in 
     the lives of many people.''
       That's a good strategy--and one her father ought to 
     emulate.

  Mr. GRASSLEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.