[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 84 (Tuesday, May 22, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2805-S2806]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Russia Investigation

  Mr. President, over the past few days, the White House has put 
extraordinary, unusual, and inappropriate pressure on the Department of 
Justice and the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 
election.
  On Sunday the President demanded a counterinvestigation of the Russia 
investigation, breaking longstanding and critical norms against 
political interference in law enforcement matters. Then, yesterday the 
President summoned the leaders of the Russia probe to the White House 
to pressure them into releasing sensitive and classified documents 
pertaining to the investigation by congressional Republicans. The White 
House planned to arrange a meeting where ``highly classified and other 
information'' will be shared with Members of Congress. It is highly 
irregular, inappropriate, and unprecedented. The President and his 
staff should not be involved in the reviewing or the dissemination of 
sensitive investigatory information involving any open investigation, 
let alone one about the activities of his own campaign. It is amazing. 
It is what you hear happening in third world countries. The leader 
says: No, I am above the law, and interferes with the process of law.
  Congress has a right to oversight and to know what is going on after 
an investigation is complete. While an investigation is open and 
active, demands for oversight are tantamount to interference, 
especially when the folks demanding the information are the most 
biased, irresponsible actors. A man like Devin Nunes--I hear privately 
from my Republican colleagues that they think he is off the deep end--
is going to get hold of this? We think that is fair, unbiased 
oversight?
  Give me a break. If such a meeting occurs--and I don't believe it 
should, but if it occurs--it must be bipartisan to serve as a check on 
the disturbing tendency of the President's allies to distort facts and 
undermine the investigation and people conducting them.
  Democratic Members of the House and Senate, the analogs of the 
Republicans selected to be in the room, should be in the room as well. 
So if Devin Nunes is there, Adam Schiff should be there. To me, it is 
just amazing that it is happening.
  One further point on this, again, the contradictory statements and 
opinions--the virtual hypocrisy of President Trump on these issues--are 
just mind-boggling.
  President Trump, for instance, has been peddling the myth that a 
deep-state bias against his Presidency has animated the Russia probe. 
Of course, the idea is ridiculous. If there was such a deep state 
aligned against President Trump, why then was the active investigation 
into his campaign communications with Russian intelligence kept secret 
during the campaign? The deep state could have killed him in the 
election. If there was such a conspiracy against Donald Trump, why was 
the FBI investigation of his campaign under wraps, while at the same 
time, the FBI investigation into his opponent was in full view of the 
public eye? Whether or not you agree, Secretary of State and 
Presidential nominee Clinton believes that those comments by

[[Page S2806]]

the FBI about that investigation hurt her chances to win the 
Presidency. You may agree or you may disagree, but one fact is 
incontrovertible: The FBI talked publicly about the Clinton 
investigation and was silent about the Trump investigation. Yet the 
President says the deep state is out to kill him. It is not fair. It is 
not right. It is contradictory.

  The truth is that the President and his allies only concoct these 
conspiracies--totally contradicted by well-known facts--to kick up 
dust, to obscure and obfuscate, to distort and distract, and when that 
is not enough, the President and his team directly interfere with the 
Russia investigation by asking its leaders to turn over documents to 
the most irresponsible actors in Congress--his ardent political allies. 
It ought to stop. It ought to stop.
  The Justice Department doesn't take demands from the President. The 
special counsel's investigation must continue in search of the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.