[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 86 (Thursday, May 24, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2890-S2891]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Russia Investigation

  Second, Madam President, on the Russia probe, today on Capitol Hill, 
Department of Justice, FBI, and intelligence community officials are 
scheduled to brief the Members of Congress on a few issues related to 
Special Counsel Mueller's investigation into Putin's meddling in the 
2016 election.
  There will be two briefings--one for a House Republican partisan who 
has relentlessly harassed the Justice Department to reveal sources and 
methods to him for the sole purpose of interfering with and denigrating 
the special counsel's investigation. After several requests, the 
Department of Justice will also brief the bipartisan Gang of 8 on the 
same information separately later in the day.
  While we believe no briefing should occur, it is a good thing that 
the Gang of 8 will be briefed. The overwhelming fact remains that a 
separate meeting with a known partisan whose only intent is to 
undermine the Mueller investigation makes no sense and should be called 
off. What is the point of a separate briefing if not to cause partisan 
trouble and create a he said, she said scenario? It is so damaging to 
the way our officials in the Justice Department have always worked.
  Representative Nunes, the architect of this sham briefing, no longer 
deserves the benefit of the doubt. He lost all claims to objectivity 
long ago with his ridiculous, late-night charade at the White House and 
his conduct on the House Intelligence Committee, culminating in a 
document of innuendo and whitewashing that has recently come to be 
called the Nunes memo.
  The reason Leader Pelosi and I requested a Gang of 8 briefing was 
because that is the process for Congress to review sensitive and 
potentially classified information--it has been the process for 
decades--the reason being, the Gang of 8 is already read into sensitive 
national security information and because the Gang of 8 is bipartisan. 
When one party--Representative Nunes, who so clearly wants to distort 
national security information for partisan purposes--asks for a 
solitary briefing, there shouldn't be a briefing at all.
  Our preference would still be for the Justice Department to cancel 
the briefing today, but if it goes forward, there should be one 
briefing and one briefing only: bipartisan, Gang of 8.
  It is also wholly inappropriate that General Kelly is at all involved 
in these briefings. The White House should never be allowed to 
interfere in an ongoing DOJ investigation, but it is absolutely beyond 
the pale that they are interfering in an investigation involving the 
President and his campaign. The person and people being investigated 
are being briefed on their investigation before it concludes. That 
doesn't happen in our justice system no matter who you are. Americans 
will rightly wonder why General Kelly was present. To erase their 
doubts, he should skip the meeting.

[[Page S2891]]

  Alongside all the action on Capitol Hill today, President Trump 
continues to fabricate a false narrative about deep-state bias against 
his Presidency. This is what a child does. You look at them like they 
are doing something wrong, and they blame something else. They try to 
divert your attention. That is how the President is acting.
  Yesterday, he tweeted: ``Look at how things have turned around on the 
Criminal Deep State.'' Well, Mr. President, I direct you to your own 
Secretary of State. You just appointed him, promoted him. Here is what 
he said yesterday:

       I don't believe there's a deep state at the State 
     Department. . . . The employees . . . at the CIA nearly 
     uniformly were aimed at achieving . . . America's objectives.

  That is the President's own Secretary of State, his own former CIA 
Director, dispensing with this fantastical notion of a deep state.
  The President says there were spies in his campaign. It is all in the 
same vein of his other conspiracy theories. Remember, President Trump 
said that Obama tapped his phones. That was false. He said before that 
Russia did not interfere in our elections. That was false. Why should 
we think the claim that there were spies in his campaign is any 
different? He makes it up as he goes along to divert attention from the 
real issue: that Russia tried to influence our election; did influence 
our election; and there may, may, may--we don't know for sure, but we 
have to find out--have been collusion with members of President Trump's 
campaign and even President Trump in that regard. That is serious 
stuff. We have already had 13 indictments. It is beyond any doubt that 
Russia did try to influence our election. We need to find out who 
participated. That is imperative to the future of this country.
  The President, acting like he has something to hide, keeps trying to 
subvert the investigation by simply inventing enemies out of shadows 
and sowing division in our country. If it were anyone else, we would 
call it paranoia.
  Meanwhile, the President continues to risk our national security by 
using an unsecured cell phone for some of his communications. When the 
Washington Post asked a national security expert the odds of a foreign 
adversary having gained access to the President's unsecured cell phone, 
the expert responded: ``100 percent, the question is how many foreign 
powers.''
  So while President Trump points the finger of blame in every 
direction and was relentless that Hillary Clinton broke security 
protocols, he is guilty of creating a real national security threat 
every time he picks up his cell phone to call Sean Hannity or Rudy 
Giuliani. It is amazing. It is utterly amazing, the times we are living 
in, and it amazes me so that our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle still remain silent--still remain silent. Who would have thought.