[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S95-S100]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Safeguarding OUr Elections
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, 2018 is going to be an election year.
In just 10 months, Americans will go to the polls to exercise their
franchise, believing in the integrity of our democratic process. I am
here today to discuss a threat to the integrity of that process, which
is getting little attention here in Congress--nothing near what it
deserves. We really ought to be acting with some expedition to
safeguard our elections this November. Yet, instead, the effort is one
of chasing down partisan investigative rabbit holes.
What ought to be our job? Well, national security, intelligence,
election, and law enforcement officials, many of them testifying before
us here in Congress, have made what our job is very clear. We must
counter Russia's well-established election interference playbook.
Russia will hack. Russia will bully. Russia will propagandize. Perhaps
more insidiously, Russia will seek to corrupt, particularly by
exploiting cracks in our incorporation and campaign finance laws. We
are warned: Russia will seek to interfere in 2018's election.
I ask unanimous consent that an article entitled ``CIA's Pompeo says
Russia and others trying to undermine U.S. elections'' be printed in
the Record at the conclusion of my remarks.
To quote the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Heather
Conley, testifying before Congress last spring, corruption is the
``lubricant'' for Moscow's election interference, so ``the battle of
Western democracies to defeat corruption'' must be seen as ``a matter
of national security.''
Testifying before our Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee, former
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, agreed, saying of
Russia's 2016 election meddling:
I believe [the Russians] are now emboldened to continue
such activities in the future, both here and around world,
and to do so even more intensely. If there has ever been a
clarion call for vigilance and action against a threat to the
very foundation of our democratic political system, this
episode is it. I hope the American people recognize the
severity of this threat and that we collectively counter it
before it further erodes the fabric of our democracy.
How to counter it? Well, there are two important solutions that
witnesses have identified in recent testimony before the Judiciary and
other committees here in the Senate.
First, guard against the use of phony shell corporations as
facilitators of corruption. Ms. Conley, as I said, wrote that
corruption is the ``lubricant'' with which the Russians operate their
interference schemes. She and her colleagues warn that to fight the
corruption that gives Russia this channel of influence--and I quote her
here--``enhancing transparency and the effectiveness of the Western
democratic tools, instruments, and institutions is critical.'' One
central way to cut off this channel of improper influence would be to
require companies to disclose who their real owner is so that Russian
influence can no longer hide behind anonymous American shell companies.
Another would be to crack down on the dark money that is flooding
into American elections. It is illegal for foreign nationals to spend
money or participate at all in American elections. Yet, post-Citizens
United, the same dark money avenues that allow domestic election
interference--for instance, that the Koch brothers use to manipulate
American elections--are right out there to be used by Vladimir Putin.
If they can hide their identity behind 501(c)(4)s and other dark money
channels, so can operatives for the Russians.
Instead of taking up these important measures or even ensuring a
thorough investigation into the 2016 election meddling, we are--to
paraphrase the legendary Senator Sam Ervin of Watergate fame--chasing
rabbits when we should be on a bear hunt.
Let's look at a few rabbits that have distracted us from the task at
hand. Remember, when Michael Flynn, the President's former National
Security Adviser, illicitly communicated with the Russian Ambassador
about sanctions during the transition. Then in the White House, he lied
to the FBI about it, which concerned the Justice Department so badly
that the Acting Attorney General warned the White House Counsel
personally, after which she was fired, but the President then
[[Page S96]]
waited 18 days until all of this had become public in the media to ask
for Michael Flynn's resignation. Out of all of that, the topic for many
Republicans was the alleged leaks of classified information that
allowed the story to come to light--not the story itself of problems at
the highest level of our national security establishment. Off people
went after the ``leaks'' rabbit.
Republicans then pivoted to talking about the ``unmasking''--remember
that word; we heard a lot of it around here--of identities in
intelligence reporting and the purported misconduct of Obama
administration officials. Trump even publicly suggested that former
National Security Adviser Susan Rice may have committed a crime. So off
people went after the ``unmasking'' rabbit.
Next, the President accused President Obama of wiretapping Trump
Tower, an allegation so outrageous that even congressional Republicans
have refused to stand by it, but my, what a bright and shiny rabbit it
was for the weeks that it was still a distraction.
By the spring and summer, Republicans were railing against purported
conflicts of interest by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a
distinguished career public servant.
I ask unanimous consent that this article, ``FBI ruled McCabe had no
conflict of interest in Clinton probe,'' be printed in the Record at
the conclusion of my remarks.
So off everybody went after the ``McCabe's wife'' rabbit.
After President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey to impede the
Russia investigation and then told the Russian Foreign Minister and NBC
that was why he had done it, the President launched another leak
rabbit: a coordinated effort with his lawyers, congressional
Republicans, and the rightwing media to suggest that Comey had leaked
classified information by sharing with a friend his own contemporaneous
notes of conversations with Trump.
Just last week, the President again suggested on Twitter that Comey
should be charged with a crime--another bite at the ``leaks'' rabbit.
In early July, we learned of the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower
between Russian lawyer and operative Natalia Veselnitskaya and senior
Trump campaign leaders seeking dirt on Hillary Clinton. Republicans
tried to distract attention from that mess by suggesting that
Veselnitskaya was in the country on a visa issued by Obama
administration officials, with some rightwing media--aided by some
congressional Republicans--even whipping on the ``visa'' rabbit by
suggesting there was a setup orchestrated by the Obama administration
against the Trump campaign.
Then came the ``Fusion'' rabbit. Because Fusion GPS had worked on
separate projects--one with Christopher Steele and a separate one with
Natalia Veselnitskaya--some Republicans began suggesting either that
Russia had been Fusion's client for the Steele dossier or that Steele
was the unwitting victim of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Then there is the ``Uranium One'' rabbit, which began when a
rightwing author suggested, without evidence, that Hillary Clinton may
have been responsible for a Russian state company acquiring uranium
mines in the United States. This rabbit remains a topic of
investigation in Congress and in rightwing media.
Then there are the attacks on Bob Mueller, which, like rabbits,
multiply by the hour. As the special counsel's investigation started
heating up over the late summer and fall, the rightwing began
investigating the investigation--alleged conflicts of interest, history
of campaign donations, inappropriate text messages, questions about
spouses' employment. But the big one was that the FBI was corruptly
involved in the procurement of the Steele dossier and that this had
launched the ``witch hunt.'' This, of course, is a very shiny rabbit.
However, a week ago, reporting by the New York Times confirmed that
the FBI did not begin its investigation into Donald Trump's connections
to Russia because of the so-called Steele dossier. This should not come
as a surprise. We have already been told that U.S. allies warned
American national security officials about Russian interference in our
2016 elections.
In response to a question from Ranking Member Feinstein at our Crime
and Terrorism Subcommittee hearing on May 8, former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper confirmed that ``Britain's
intelligence service''--Britain's intelligence service--``first became
aware in late 2015 of suspicious interactions between Trump advisers
and Russian intelligence agents,'' and the Brits passed that
information on to U.S. intelligence agencies. Clapper confirmed that in
``the spring of 2016, multiple European allies passed on additional
information to the United States about contacts between the Trump
campaign and Russians.'' Clapper said that these reports were accurate
and that ``the specifics are quite sensitive.''
Now we have learned that Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George
Papadopoulos, who pled guilty last year to lying to the FBI, apparently
told a senior Australian official in the spring of 2016 that Russia had
dirt on Hillary Clinton. This is something he said he had been told by
an intermediary for the Russians. When hacked emails started showing up
that summer, Australia's Government became sufficiently concerned to
let U.S. officials know about what they had learned from Papadopoulos.
So you have the British intelligence community warnings, the European
intelligence community warnings, the Australian warnings, and Carter
Page's travels to Russia. You have the attribution of the DNC hack, the
intrusion into those emails, to Russian hackers. You have the leaking
of the stolen emails. You have abundant evidence out of all of that for
the FBI that the Trump campaign's links to Russia required further
investigation. It would have been a complete failure of their duty to
not have looked further based on all of that evidence.
That is not to say that Christopher Steele and his work are not taken
seriously by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials. U.S.
security agencies have relied on Steele's analysis long before any
dossier appeared. Steele is a leading Russia expert. Beginning in 1990,
as an undercover officer in Moscow, he watched the Soviet Union
unravel. He observed Russia's current leaders ascend through the
Russian security services during the 1990s and 2000s. He rose to a
senior position on MI6's Russia desk in London. Since leaving MI6, his
reports on Russia and Ukraine have been shared widely within the U.S.
Government as credible reporting. A U.S. official told the Guardian
that Steele's reports were ``consistently reliable, meticulous, and
well-informed.''
But you would never know this from listening to congressional
Republicans. They have been repeating, in chorus with the White House
and conservative media, the disproven claim that the Russians somehow
commissioned the Steele dossier or that Steele somehow got suckered by
the Russians or that some deep-state FBI set up the whole thing to
pressure Trump. They have pushed to discredit Steele. They have pushed
to discredit Fusion.
As one example, rewind to the Judiciary Committee's hearing on the
Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, last July. On the morning of
the second day of that hearing, the President tweeted: ``One of the
things that has been lost in the politics of this situation is that the
Russians collected and spread negative information about then candidate
Trump.'' This is Trump tweeting about himself. His tweet came shortly
after a segment on FOX News centered on the same question. Other
rightwing outlets parroted the same message.
That same day, Republicans in Congress spun out the same premise that
Russians paid for the dossier and that the dossier was, to use their
word, the ``genesis'' of the FBI's inquiry. I hope we have made it
clear that this was not the genesis.
While the FARA hearing was still going on, that same day, the gop.gov
website published this post:
[W]e now know a Russian backed, Democrat connected research
firm, with a history of smearing individuals and pitching
fake information to reporters, was hired by opponents of
President Trump to compile a ``dossier'' of supposed Trump
ties to Russia.
The information that was compiled was taken seriously by
the highest level of our intelligence community along with
our media, despite obvious signs that the firm behind it was
tied to Russia.
[[Page S97]]
As a reminder, this phony ``dossier'' helped spark the
investigation now led by Special Counsel Mueller.
That is the rabbit we are chasing now.
The uniformity of the rightwing message that day with the White House
was telling, but the message--the content of it--is simply not true. In
fact, at that hearing, the witness denied any knowledge of any link
between Russians and the clients of the Steele dossier.
In the months that followed, Fusion GPS's founder, Glenn Simpson,
spent over 20 hours speaking with congressional investigators,
including investigators from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I ask unanimous consent that his op-ed be printed in the Record as a
third and final item at the conclusion of my remarks.
During these interviews, he specifically told Democratic and
Republican staff alike that the dossier was taken seriously by the FBI
because it corroborated reports the Bureau had already received from
other sources--remember the British, the European, the Australian we
have talked about--and a source inside the Trump campaign. From the
Time's recent reporting, we can conclude that that source was George
Papadopoulos. This has all been known for months, but the narrative
about Fusion GPS and the FBI grinds on, unhinged from fact.
The revelation about George Papadopoulos and the Australian
Government should serve as a clarifying moment about the rightwing
effort to undermine Bob Mueller's investigation of the ties of the
Trump campaign and his Presidency to Russia. The FBI investigation did
not begin because of opposition research. It did not begin because
researchers or journalists or American national security officials fell
victim to Russian disinformation. It did not begin because of fake news
or because Democrats needed an explanation for losing an election. It
began when multiple allies, friends of the United States, warned us
that the Russian Government was interfering in our democratic process--
something many of them knew about from Russia's interference in their
own democratic process.
We still do not know to what extent that interference may have been
facilitated or even simply known to members of the Trump campaign or
other Trump associates. We still have done nothing to prevent further
interference in our elections in 2018. The special counsel's
investigation and the investigations going on in Congress must be
allowed to continue until all of the facts are known.
Here in the Senate, we should stop looking for new distractions, stop
chasing rabbits, and start thinking about how we are going to protect
our future elections--our 2018 election--against a repeat performance,
which we have been warned about, by the Russians or another foreign
adversary, for that matter.
As the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns in its
report, ``The Kremlin Playbook,'' we must fight the avenues for
corruption that give Russia influence. We must ``enhanc[e]
transparency'' in government and build ``resilience against Russian
influence'' in our elections and elsewhere in American society.
I will conclude by saying that the best measure of our success in
Congress will be an America defended against foreign election
interference in time to protect our 2018 elections. If we have not
achieved that, we have failed at our duty. I do not see us presently on
a path to meet that goal. We are less than a year out from election
day. We have work to do. Enough with the rabbits.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
CIA's Pompeo Says Russia and Others Trying To Undermine U.S. Elections
(By Susan Cornwell)
Washington (Reuters).--The head of the Central Intelligence
Agency said on Sunday that Russia and others are trying to
undermine elections in the United States, the next major one
being in November when Republicans will try to keep control
of Congress.
U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia
interfered in the 2016 presidential election to try to help
President Donald Trump win, in part by hacking and releasing
emails embarrassing to Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton, and spreading social media propaganda.
CIA Director Mike Pompeo told CBS that the Russian
interference is longstanding, and continues. Asked on ``Face
the Nation'' if Moscow is currently trying to undermine U.S.
elections, Pompeo responded: ``Yes sir, have been for
decades.''
``Yes, I continue to be concerned, not only about the
Russians, but about others' efforts as well,'' Pompeo said,
without giving details. ``We have many foes who want to
undermine Western democracy.''
Moscow denies any meddling in the 2016 elections to help
Republican Trump win. U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is
investigating whether any crimes were committed. Two Trump
associates, former national security adviser Michael Flynn
and campaign aide George Papadopoulos have pleaded guilty to
lying to FBI agents in the probe. Trump denies any campaign
collusion with Russia.
Trump has at times suggested that he accepts the U.S.
intelligence agencies' assessment that Russia sought to
interfere in the election but at other times has said he
accepts Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials that
Moscow meddled.
Trump has frequently spoken of wanting to improve relations
with Putin, even though Russia has frustrated U.S. policy in
Syria and Ukraine and done little to help Washington in its
standoff with North Korea.
Pompeo told CBS that the CIA had an important function as a
part of the national security team to keep U.S. elections
secure and democratic. ``We are working diligently to do
that. So we're going to work against the Russians or any
others who threaten that very outcome,'' he said.
Trump said on Saturday that he planned an active year on
the campaign trail on behalf of Republican candidates running
in the mid-term elections, in which all of the House of
Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for
election. Republicans hold majorities in both.
____
[From The Hill, Jan. 5, 2018]
FBI Ruled McCabe Had No Conflict of Interest in Clinton Probe: Docs
(By Julia Manchester)
The FBI said in documents released Friday that Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe did not have any role in the probe
into Hillary Clinton's private email server while his wife
ran as a Democrat for state office in Virginia.
The documents note that Jill McCabe announced her candidacy
for state Senate in Virginia in March 2015, while Andrew
McCabe's role as deputy director started in February 2016,
three months after his wife lost her electoral bid.
Andrew McCabe had asked ethics officials if his wife's
candidacy would lead to a potential conflict of interest
while he was working as an assistant director at the FBI
Field Office in Washington, D.C., the documents show.
``From the first contemplation that his wife would run for
office in Virginia, [McCabe] sought out and consulted with
ethics officers, which included briefings on the Hatch Act,''
the records state.
A ``system of recusal'' was also put in place to prevent
any potential conflicts of interests, according to the
documents.
The release of the documents comes after President Trump
and other Republicans have claimed McCabe had a conflict of
interest due to his wife's electoral bid, noting that her
campaign was supported by a super-PAC associated to Virginia
Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a Clinton ally.
``How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in
charge, along with leakin' James Comey, of the Phony Hillary
Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted
emails) be given $700,000 for wife's campaign by Clinton
Puppets during investigation?'' Trump tweeted last month:
``How can FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, the man in
charge, along with leakin' James Comey of the Phony Hillary
Clinton investigation (including her 33,000 illegally deleted
emails) be given $700,000 for wife's campaign by Clinton
Puppets during investigation?'' 3:27 PM-Dec. 23, 2017
Trump's tweet and others he sent targeting the No. 2 FBI
official amid the federal Russia probe came after it was
revealed McCabe would be retiring from his post in the coming
months.
Trump interviewed McCabe to be FBI director in May after he
fired James Comey from the top post. The president ultimately
tapped Christopher Wray for the bureau's top spot.
____
[From the New York Times, Jan. 2, 2018]
The Republicans' Fake Investigations
(By Glenn R. Simpson and Peter Fritsch)
A generation ago, Republicans sought to protect President
Richard Nixon by urging the Senate Watergate committee to
look at supposed wrongdoing by Democrats in previous
elections. The committee chairman, Sam Ervin, a Democrat,
said that would be ``as foolish as the man who went bear
hunting and stopped to chase rabbits.''
Today, amid a growing criminal inquiry into Russian
meddling in the 2016 election, congressional Republicans are
again chasing rabbits. We know because we're their favorite
quarry.
In the year since the publication of the so-called Steele
dossier--the collection of intelligence reports we
commissioned about Donald Trump's ties to Russia--the
president
[[Page S98]]
has repeatedly attacked us on Twitter. His allies in Congress
have dug through our bank records and sought to tarnish our
firm to punish us for highlighting his links to Russia.
Conservative news outlets and even our former employer, The
Wall Street Journal, have spun a succession of mendacious
conspiracy theories about our motives and backers.
We are happy to correct the record. In fact, we already
have.
Three congressional committees have heard over 21 hours of
testimony from our firm, Fusion GPS. In those sessions, we
toppled the far right's conspiracy theories and explained how
The Washington Free Beacon and the Clinton campaign--the
Republican and Democratic funders of our Trump research--
separately came to hire us in the first place.
We walked investigators through our yearlong effort to
decipher Mr. Trump's complex business past, of which the
Steele dossier is but one chapter. And we handed over our
relevant bank records--while drawing the line at a fishing
expedition for the records of companies we work for that have
nothing to do with the Trump case.
Republicans have refused to release full transcripts of our
firm's testimony, even as they selectively leak details to
media outlets on the far right. It's time to share what our
company told investigators.
We don't believe the Steele dossier was the trigger for the
F.B.I.'s investigation into Russian meddling. As we told the
Senate Judiciary Committee in August, our sources said the
dossier was taken so seriously because it corroborated
reports the bureau had received from other sources, including
one inside the Trump camp.
The intelligence committees have known for months that
credible allegations of collusion between the Trump camp and
Russia were pouring in from independent sources during the
campaign. Yet lawmakers in the thrall of the president
continue to wage a cynical campaign to portray us as the
unwitting victims of Kremlin disinformation.
We suggested investigators look into the bank records of
Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump's
businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip:
Reportedly, ours are the only bank records the House
Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed.
We told Congress that from Manhattan to Sunny Isles Beach,
Fla., and from Toronto to Panama, we found widespread
evidence that Mr. Trump and his organization had worked with
a wide array of dubious Russians in arrangements that often
raised questions about money laundering. Likewise, those
deals don't seem to interest Congress.
We explained how, from our past journalistic work in
Europe, we were deeply familiar with the political operative
Paul Manafort's coziness with Moscow and his financial ties
to Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin.
Finally, we debunked the biggest canard being pushed by the
president's men--the notion that we somehow knew of the June
9, 2016, meeting in Trump Tower between some Russians and the
Trump brain trust. We first learned of that meeting from news
reports last year--and the committees know it. They also know
that these Russians were unaware of the former British
intelligence officer Christopher Steele's work for us and
were not sources for his reports.
Yes, we hired Mr. Steele, a highly respected Russia expert.
But we did so without informing him whom we were working for
and gave him no specific marching orders beyond this basic
question: Why did Mr. Trump repeatedly seek to do deals in a
notoriously corrupt police state that most serious investors
shun?
What came back shocked us. Mr. Steele's sources in Russia
(who were not paid) reported on an extensive--and now
confirmed--effort by the Kremlin to help elect Mr. Trump
president. Mr. Steele saw this as a crime in progress and
decided he needed to report it to the F.B.I.
We did not discuss that decision with our clients, or
anyone else. Instead, we deferred to Mr. Steele, a trusted
friend and intelligence professional with a long history of
working with law enforcement. We did not speak to the F.B.I.
and haven't since.
After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his
intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary. We
helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States
national security community to an attack on our country by a
hostile foreign power. We did not, however, share the dossier
with BuzzFeed, which to our dismay published it last January.
We're extremely proud of our work to highlight Mr. Trump's
Russia ties. To have done so is our right under the First
Amendment.
In is time to stop chasing rabbits. The public still has
much to learn about a man with the most troubling business
past of any United States president. Congress should release
transcripts of our firm's testimony, so that the American
people can learn the truth about our work and most important,
what happened to our democracy.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I now yield, per the pending agreement, to my
distinguished friend from Connecticut.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Thank you, Mr. President.
I thank my colleague Senator Whitehouse for his very erudite and
insightful summary of the bright, shiny toys and rabbits and rabbit
holes that a number of our colleagues have attempted to use to distract
the Judiciary Committee and this body from what should be its quest for
the truth; that is, the truth about the Russian attack on our democracy
during the last election and potential collusion in that attack--
specifically, collusion by the Trump campaign--and obstruction of
justice. Indeed, obstruction of justice is within the direct purview of
the Judiciary Committee.
I want to thank my colleague Senator Whitehouse for joining me in a
letter that we wrote to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee,
Senator Grassley, asking that he very simply make public the transcript
of the interview with Glenn Simpson conducted by our staff. Senator
Grassley declined. But, earlier today, Senator Feinstein released the
interview, advancing the American people's right and need to know the
full truth.
I want to applaud Senator Feinstein's leadership in using her proper
authority as the ranking member to serve this vital public interest. I
am grateful to her for her courage and strength in moving forward and
disclosing the transcript to prevent its use as a dangerous distraction
from the critical work of our committee. I want to thank at least one
of our colleagues across the aisle, Senator Cornyn, for apparently
supporting that step.
The toys and rabbits and rabbit holes are hardly new to efforts by
defenders of an administration against an investigation, and perhaps
for some amusement as well as enlightenment, I want to cite a satiric
column done by Art Buchwald in 1973.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the column be printed in
the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
Here Are Handy Excuses for Nixon Backers
(By Art Buchwald)
Washington.--These are difficult times for people who are
defending the Nixon administration. No matter where they go
they are attacked by pseudo-liberals, McGovern lovers,
heterosexual constitutionalists and paranoid John Dean
believers.
As a public service, I am printing instant responses for
loyal Nixonites when they are attacked at a party. Please cut
it out and carry it in your pocket.
1--Everyone does it.
2--What about Chappaquiddick?
3--A President can't keep track of everything his staff
does.
4--The press is blowing the whole thing up.
5--Whatever Nixon did was for national security.
6--The Democrats are sore because they lost the election.
7--Are you going to believe a rat like John Dean or the
President of the United States?
8--Wait till all the facts come out.
9--What about Chappaquiddick?
10--If you impeach Nixon, you get Agnew.
11--The only thing wrong with Watergate is they got caught.
12--What about Daniel Ellsberg stealing the Pentagon
Papers?
13--It happens in Europe all the time.
14--People would be against Nixon no matter what he did.
15--I'd rather have a crook in the White House than a fool.
16--L.B.J. used to read FBI reports every night.
17--What's the big deal about finding out what your
opposition is up to?
18--The President was too busy running the country to know
what was going on.
19--What about Chappaquiddick?
20--People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
21--McGovern would have lost anyway.
22--Maybe the Committee for the Re-Election of the
President went a little too far, but they were just a bunch
of eager kids.
23--I'm not for breaking the law, but sometimes you have to
do it to save the country.
24--Nixon made a mistake. He's only human.
25--Do you realize what Watergate is doing to the dollar
abroad?
26--What about Harry Truman and the deep freeze scandal?
27--Franklin D. Roosevelt did a lot worse things.
28--I'm sick and tired of hearing about Watergate and so is
everybody else.
29--This thing should be tried in the courts and not on
television.
30--When Nixon gives his explanation of what happened there
are going to be a lot of people in this country with egg on
their faces.
31--My country right or wrong.
32--What about Chappaquiddick?
33--I think the people who make all this fuss about
Watergate should be shot.
34--If the Democrats had the money they would have done the
same thing.
35--I never trusted Haldeman and Ehrlichman to start with.
[[Page S99]]
36--If you say one more word about Watergate I'll punch you
in the nose.
A--If the person is bigger than you: ``If you say one more
word about Watergate I'm leaving this house.''
B--If it's your own house and the person is bigger than
you: ``What about Chappaquiddick?
Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. Buchwald wrote a satirical list of tactics
Republicans were using to keep Americans from focusing on the Watergate
scandal. The list is eerily familiar. The tactics being employed by the
Trump supporters today ring of those same tactics used in Watergate.
Buchwald suggests focusing on accusations made against prominent
Democrats or individuals who had accused Richard Nixon of wrongdoing.
He suggests attacking the media. He suggests saying: ``The Democrats
are sore because they lost.'' He suggests deflecting blame to a ``bunch
of eager kids''--perhaps sounding like the reference to ``coffee boys''
today--and saying that this investigation is ``bad for the dollar,''
much like bad for America abroad.
I am very confident--and I want to emphasize this point very
emphatically--that the special counsel will be in no way distracted
from his investigation and his team will be undeterred by these
tactics. But the American people should not be distracted or deterred
either and, equally important, the Judiciary Committee, the U.S.
Senate, and the Congress as a whole has a duty here that is, in fact,
vulnerable to that same distraction. We must persevere.
What our Republican colleagues are doing at this point is indicated
by a recent New York Times article. The article describes President
Trump's efforts to persuade congressional allies to drop their
investigations, and it says:
Another Republican Senator said Mr. Trump had not urged him
to help bring the Russia inquiry to a halt. Instead, the
Senator said, the President nudged him to begin an
investigation into Hillary Clinton's connection with the
intelligence-gathering firm Fusion GPS, which produced a
dossier of allegations about Mr. Trump's ties to Moscow.
The goal was to stop the investigation of Russian meddling, but the
implication in the article is that the President knew he could achieve
that goal as effectively, or at least more practically, by distracting
from those investigations, diverting resources to other issues, and
muddying the waters for the American people. That is the playbook from
1973 that is referenced by Art Buchwald in his 1973 column.
Here is the danger: Distractions are dangerous, and efforts to
discredit law enforcement are equally perilous. Those efforts have
included not only the urging for an investigation of Uranium One and
Fusion GPS but also attacks on the integrity of some members of the FBI
and the FBI as a whole and attacks on individual members of the special
counsel's team, on the team as a whole, and on Robert Mueller himself.
The effort plainly is to discredit the investigation before it reaches
a potentially incriminating conclusion and to stop the investigation,
but if not stop it, at least to demean its credibility before charges
are brought.
It is standard operating procedure. We know as prosecutors. The
distinguished Senator from Rhode Island and I served as U.S. attorneys
and then attorneys general for our States. We know going into the
courtroom that we can expect to be attacked and that our teams can be
expected to be attacked. That is what defense lawyers do. That is what
they do because they hope to demean and discredit and dismantle the
credibility of prosecutors before the jury in the courtroom. Here, the
courtroom is not a court of law but the court of public opinion. Our
Republican friends have launched that preemptive strike, methodically
and meticulously, just as the special counsel is engaging in his
investigation methodically and meticulously.
Now, I referred to Republican colleagues, and I believe strongly and
passionately that many, if not most, of our Republican colleagues share
our zeal for the rule of law and for a just outcome to this
investigation. The reason is very simple. The Russian attack on our
democracy imperils not just this administration and not just one
election. It imperils our democracy as a whole. The meddling in our
elections was perhaps done to advance the Trump candidacy in 2016, but
it can be used against the Trump candidacy in 2020. It can be used
against another Republican candidate in that year. It could be used in
2018 against other candidates for Congress or for State election.
My Republican colleagues have been as eloquent as any of us in
defining that threat because there is no doubt in the intelligence
community that it is a threat, that the Russians did interfere, and
that they sought to advance the Trump candidacy. Whether there was an
impact and what the impact was may never be known, but the effort is
clear. It involved a massive campaign of disinformation, propaganda,
cyber attack, and other means. That is what the FBI learned was
happening, not as a result of Christopher Steele but from sources
within the Trump campaign, including George Papadopoulos, and from
other intelligence sources, and that is what we must make sure is known
to the American public. We must make sure that anyone who aided the
Russians pays a price and that the Russians themselves pay a price,
because if there is no price, it will be done with impunity again.
So there should be--and I believe there is--bipartisan apprehension
about that threat to our Nation's security. That is the reason that the
Judiciary Committee's investigation, along with the special counsel, is
so important, because our purview includes obstruction of justice and
the integrity of the Department of Justice. Any interference
politically with the FBI's investigation into Russian meddling must be
prevented in the future as well. Only the Judiciary Committee can frame
and craft legislation that will help to protect the FBI.
Senator Whitehouse and I, and Senator Feinstein and others on the
committee, will be proposing such legislation based on what we know so
far. It is legislation that essentially protects the rule of law
against such efforts to obstruct justice and politically interfere.
The intelligence community's conclusions about Russian meddling did
not rely on the credibility of Glenn Simpson or Christopher Steele. The
two guilty pleas and convictions that the special counsel has already
secured do not rely on the credibility of Simpson or Steele. Without
fear of contradiction, I can predict that additional convictions and
indictments will be based on fact and law, not on the credibility of
Simpson and Steele. The conclusions reached by Simpson, Steele, or
anybody else are relevant only insofar as they are supported and backed
and proved by facts and consistent with relevant law.
Now, in fact, as we know, Christopher Steele tried to blow the
whistle on the Russians. He brought to the FBI's attention information
that he thought was relevant to protecting the United States of America
against Russian interference. As my colleague Senator Whitehouse has
outlined in detail, the FBI already knew of it and courteously heard
from Christopher Steele and later interviewed him.
The effort to undermine the credibility of the FBI by pointing to
Christopher Steele completely misses the mark. In fact, I am deeply
disappointed that the first major action by our Republican colleagues
on the Judiciary Committee was aimed at someone who reported
wrongdoing, not committed it, and it was done without any cooperation
or even consultation with Democratic colleagues. It is really a
betrayal of the spirit that I think should characterize this very
serious investigation, because it should be bipartisan.
My hope is that these distractions, dangerous as they are, will, in
fact, not divert either our committee or the special counsel. The pace
of our committee's investigation--again, to be very blunt--has been
shamefully slow. I hope that its pace will quicken and that it will
intensify and that there will be hearings in public with witnesses
under oath and subpoenas of documents. I have said it repeatedly. I
hope we will use those tools because only by relying on our powers to
investigate effectively and comprehensively will we protect the goals
of upholding integrity and justice.
As for the special counsel and our law enforcement community, I think
they should know that we support them and that we will protect the
special counsel against political interference. That is why there is
legislation I have proposed, along with my
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colleague Senator Whitehouse and others. It is bipartisan legislation.
I thank Senators Tillis and Graham, as well as Senators Coons and
Booker, for joining in this legislation. That legislation has already
had a hearing. It should be voted to the floor and passed by the
Congress so that there is no question that the special counsel will be
protected against interference or firing.
As that investigation moves closer to the Oval Office, as it tightens
its grip on members of the administration, there will be increasing
threats and efforts to intimidate. The FBI and the Department of
Justice, as well as the special counsel, have a well-earned reputation
for integrity and zeal. It is part of our rule of law that a law is
enforced. Enforcement of a law depends on thorough and independent
investigations that are pursued without fear or favor, without efforts
to distract or demean. This body, the U.S. Congress, has an obligation
to support those kinds of values. They are uniquely American values.
They are the underpinning of all of our laws, all that we hold dear,
and all that we celebrate in this body and in this country.
My hope is that we will be part of the effort to avoid politicizing
the pursuit of justice. Politicization of the pursuit of justice
diverts energy and attention away from credible criminal
investigations. It sends a message to this President and future
Presidents--and everybody who occupies any office--that there are no
repercussions for diverting and distracting and for the ploys and
rabbit holes that may be used to squander resources or undermine
credibility.
Republicans and Democrats alike should join in the effort to preserve
the rule of law. My hope is that we will and will do so without delay
because every day that passes when these kinds of false, baseless, and
biased innuendos and rumors are raised and given credence is a day that
undermines those values that we hold dear.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I thank Senators Whitehouse and Blumenthal
for their remarks.