[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 177 (Wednesday, November 1, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6940-S6941]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Russia Investigation

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, the magnitude of this moment should be 
apparent to all. A sitting U.S. President's campaign chief and his 
protege have been indicted for conspiring against the United States. 
Another campaign adviser has pleaded guilty for lying to the FBI about 
meetings with Russians. At those meetings, he illegally discussed 
obtaining dirt on the President's political opponent and emails that 
had been stolen.
  Two points need to be underscored for the American people. First, 
these indictments and conviction are a sober, shattering moment in 
American history. Second, all of us on both sides of the aisle should 
come together to support the work of the special counsel and assure 
that he is able to follow the facts and the law and all of the 
evidence, wherever they may lead.
  This moment will stand as a landmark in American history, just as 
many of the moments in Watergate did. This investigation has proceeded 
more quickly than Watergate did. John Mitchell was indicted in 1974 for 
conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice. He was convicted a 
year later. That indictment took a year and a half of investigation. 
These indictments have occurred just 11 months after the election and 
barely 6 months after the beginning of the investigation.
  We know that the President's campaign hired two alleged criminals and 
one admitted criminal. Two of them were foreign agents, and the 
campaign was run by a Russian agent, unregistered, now charged with 
conspiring against the United States. He was supported by another 
Russian foreign agent who was also charged with the same 12 criminal 
counts. These two individuals, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, were 
significant people in the Trump campaign.
  In the case of Gates, his influence continued through the early 
months of the new administration. Manafort ran Trump's campaign at its 
most critical point, and he organized and directed the 2016 Republican 
National Committee convention, including the critical delegate-
corralling effort against a potential ``Never Trump'' insurrection, 
securing the Republican nomination for Donald Trump.
  Under Manafort's leadership of the Trump campaign, the Republican 
Party stripped language from their platform that would have called for 
arming Ukraine against Russian aggression. Ahead of the convention, 
Manafort also offered to brief a Russian billionaire on the state of 
the 2016 race. The convention he helped organize became a venue for a 
meeting between Attorney General Sessions and the Russian ambassador, 
after which the Attorney General misled Congress, implying--indeed 
stating--that it never took place.
  The Trump campaign also worked extensively with George Papadopoulos, 
a foreign adviser whose actions constitute the most significant 
indication of possible collusion--so far the most significant--between 
the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
  Papadopoulos was named a foreign policy adviser in March 2016 and 
began communicating with Russian nationals the next month. He met with 
a professor for breakfast in London. They discussed stolen emails from 
Hillary Clinton and subsequently shuttled messages to the Kremlin and 
back for the Trump campaign.
  He worked with officials at the highest level of the Trump campaign. 
His direct boss, in fact, was Jeff Sessions, who was then the head of 
Trump's national security advisory committee, and he is now, of course, 
the Attorney General. He communicated extensively with the campaign 
manager and members of the national security team.
  President Trump tweeted today that he was a ``young, low level 
volunteer,'' but the President sang his praises at a meeting with the 
Washington Post editorial board in March 2016, calling him an ``energy 
and oil consultant, excellent guy.'' These revelations are stunning.
  Now the President is at a critical juncture. He can choose the course 
of cooperation or confrontation. He is literally teetering on the brink 
of a decision that could prove disastrous for himself and for America 
if he chooses a constitutional confrontation.
  We are at a moment very much like the one that occurred in Watergate. 
It is still memorable to many of us in this Chamber, although we were 
not here at the time. Our Nation could be careening toward a 
constitutional crisis. Some of the actions the President has already 
taken, such as firing Jim Comey as FBI Director, may be evidence of 
obstruction of justice in the investigation by the special counsel. As 
part of our oversight responsibility, the Judiciary Committee must 
continue its work in investigating that firing and other actions that 
may constitute obstruction of justice.
  Firing the special counsel himself is something only the President 
could try to do. It would be the ultimate act of contempt for the rule 
of law that is rightly seen as the actions of someone who has something 
to hide.
  At stake is more than just this President or this special counsel. It 
is literally the rule of law. To this President, the rule of law may be 
meaningless, a facade or a fiction, but that is exactly why Congress 
must give the judicial branch specific, enforceable power to stop the 
President from firing the special counsel.
  That is the purpose of legislation I have introduced, along with 
colleagues. I am here to call upon this body to support and pass the 
Special Counsel Independence Protection Act.
  I called for the special counsel to be established in February of 
this year and was joined by 10 of my colleagues in that call. It was 
based on credible allegations that the Trump team had colluded with the 
Russian Government. The Special Counsel Independence Protection Act, 
which I have cosponsored along with colleagues, seeks to forestall the 
kind of potential constitutional crisis raised by the President's 
threats not so long ago and his labeling the investigation a hoax and a 
witch hunt.
  The Washington Post reported today that advisers close to the 
President are urging that, in fact, he take more aggressive action 
against the special counsel. The specter of Presidential action against 
Robert Mueller, designed to stop or stymie a virtually unavoidable and 
necessary criminal investigation of the President himself, makes 
safeguarding the special counsel more urgent and necessary now than 
ever before.
  Rather than encouraging Presidential abuse of power by inaction, the 
Congress must move forward right away to check potential malfeasance 
and abuse before it occurs. Even the threat of such political 
interference constituting potential obstruction of justice undermines 
the special counsel's investigation. It makes witnesses less likely to 
cooperate. It discourages the agents and investigators working for the 
special counsel. It creates unnecessary confusion in the American 
public. Only judicial review can provide the check against such abuse 
and ensure confidence that the special counsel will proceed 
methodically and systematically to uphold the rule of law and follow 
the facts in evidence, wherever they may lead. That is what the 
American people want him to do. That is what we should guarantee that 
he will do. Make no mistake, this investigation will continue and 
conclude fairly and fully. The only question is how much turmoil and 
how much damage is done in the course of that investigation.
  Clearly, like any investigation and prosecution, this one is a 
mosaic, consisting of many different diverse pieces and already it is 
coming together on the Trump campaign's contacts with Russian 
officials. They include, for example, campaign adviser Papadopoulos's 
contacts with a Russian agent who claimed he had ``dirt'' on Hillary 
Clinton; Donald Trump, Jr., and the campaign aides' Trump Tower meeting 
with Russian agents to obtain information on Clinton; Jared

[[Page S6941]]

Kushner's meetings with sanctioned VEB Russian bank CEO Sergey Gorkov; 
Sessions' meetings with the Russian Ambassador; the Cambridge Analytica 
CEO's outreach to WikiLeaks to obtain Hillary Clinton's missing emails; 
and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's dining with 
President Putin in Moscow. Those pieces of the mosaic are only the 
beginning. We are at a critical stage--the end of the beginning, not 
the beginning of the end.
  As a former prosecutor, I know investigations take time. The best 
investigations are done without deadlines. In an important case like 
this one, and in a complex and challenging one, we must allow all the 
time necessary to assemble that full mosaic and put together the pieces 
of this puzzle.
  The Watergate scandal took 2 years to unravel, from Bob Woodward and 
Carl Bernstein's first piece in the Washington Post in June of 1972 to 
Nixon's resignation in August of 1974. We are less than a year into the 
Trump Presidency and fewer than 10 months into this investigation.
  The first individuals to be indicted in the Watergate scandal were 
considered to be generally outside the President's inner circle. They 
were E. Howard Hunt, G. Gordon Liddy, and the Watergate burglars in 
September of 1972. No one knew--and many denied--the conspiracy that 
involved the President and his top lieutenants at the time of those 
first indictments. In these cases, too--in these first indictments and 
conviction--a lot more is to come.
  We cannot wait until the President potentially shuts down his special 
counsel to come to his defense. Already, the rule of law is under 
threat. On Sunday--the day before the indictments were handed down--the 
President tweeted: ``DO SOMETHING!'' with regard to the Russia 
investigation. Although his reference was unclear exactly what he meant 
and whom the message was targeting, it certainly was an indication that 
some kind of action might be taken to thwart the investigation.
  Any interference in this investigation will be a red line for me and 
for others in this Chamber. Let the President hear that message loud 
and clear. There is a red line that cannot be crossed. It is political 
interference or intrusion in the special counsel's investigation, and 
it will be met with a firestorm, I hope, on both sides of the aisle. My 
conversations with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
indicate they would share our outrage and outcry if there is an effort 
to stop and stymie this investigation or if there is any other kind of 
political interference in it.
  Senators Graham, Booker, Whitehouse, Coons, and I have cosponsored 
measures that will help protect the special counsel. There are two 
measures now, but they are so closely similar that they should be 
brought together, and conversations are underway to do so. I expect we 
will have a single bill in the very near future.
  We should stand with one voice against obstruction of this 
investigation. I ask that my colleagues go on the record now to state 
that they will absolutely resist and oppose any interference by the 
executive branch into this investigation or investigations that are 
underway by our congressional committees--on the House side, the 
Intelligence Committee and, in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee 
along with our Intelligence Committee. The congressional committees 
have separate purposes. In the Judiciary Committee, we have the unique 
responsibility of oversight over the Department of Justice and the FBI. 
We have the unique responsibility to prevent the obstruction of justice 
and to uncover it, as is indicated by the firing of Jim Comey. My hope 
is that investigation will proceed and that it will be bipartisan, so 
we will have hearings and subpoena witnesses with public testimony 
under oath and eventually some report to the American people. That is 
my hope, and that will be our decision here.
  The decision we cannot and should not make is what the outcome will 
be of the special counsel investigation. We must guarantee--and we have 
this responsibility in the Congress--that there is adequate funding and 
authority for the special counsel, that there is no effort to either 
cut resources or limit the purview of the special counsel or place 
constraints on the time it may take for this probe to conclude. There 
should be no firing and no pardons, and we should speak out and stand 
up to assure that message reaches the White House loud and clear.
  This moment is one of historic magnitude. I cannot emphasize how 
strongly I feel but also how deeply my colleagues have expressed to me 
their own feelings about our responsibility in this moment.
  The grand jury that is bringing these indictments is an arm of the 
courts, which should be independent of both the executive and 
legislative branches. That independence gives the special counsel some 
new measure of permanence and protection, but the President can still 
try to fire the special counsel. He cannot fire the grand jury or the 
U.S. District Court judge who impaneled the grand jury. Judicial review 
of any firing of the special counsel, which is the core principle of 
our measure--the Special Counsel Independence Protection Act--would add 
a highly significant protection to not just deter misguided and deeply 
mistaken actions, throwing our Nation into turmoil, but also assuring 
that confidence and trust remains with the special counsel, and he can 
follow facts and the law with the full support of the American people. 
The American people can put their trust and faith in him and in our 
courts. We should assure that we uphold that faith and trust.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.