[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 98 (Wednesday, June 13, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3899-S3900]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            CALLING FOR THE RELEASE OF PASTOR ANDREW BRUNSON

  Mr. TILLIS. Mr. President, I am coming back to the floor, sadly, to 
make a speech that I promised to make every week that I am in the U.S. 
Senate as long as a pastor from North Carolina, who has been in mission 
in Turkey for almost 20 years--until his release from a Turkish prison.
  Before I get started with that, I want to thank Senator Donnelly for 
his comments because I think we share a common concern with respect to 
the Joint Strike Fighter Program. That is something I am going to 
suggest in my discussions.
  I also thank, in advance, Senator Shaheen, who has worked with me, on 
a bipartisan basis, to highlight the concern we have for a man who has 
been in a Turkish prison for 614 days.
  Pastor Brunson was arrested in October of 2016 for nothing more than 
being a missionary. I went to Turkey about 2 months ago and visited him 
in a Turkish prison, after almost 17 months of being in prison, without 
any charges. They brought charges against him that are some of the most 
bogus excuses for evidence you could possibly imagine. I am certain 
that if it were somebody with these charges in the United States in a 
jail system or prison system, they would be released the day the 
charges were filed.
  This is Pastor Brunson. He is a little over 50 years old. Since he 
has been in prison, he has lost 50 pounds and has spent almost 17 
months in a prison cell designed for 8 people that had 21 people in it, 
that entire time without a single formal charge levied against him.
  Pastor Brunson is a Presbyterian minister from Western North 
Carolina, an area called Black Mountain. He was swept up in the arrest 
that occurred after the illegal coup attempt that I think was 
inappropriate and that I would probably oppose because I think there is 
a peaceful way to change regimes, but Pastor Brunson wasn't one of the 
people who caused the coup. If you went to that courtroom like I did 
and spent 12 hours in that room, you would have heard absurd charges 
from over a dozen secret witnesses, many of them in prison, talking 
about the food that somebody may have eaten, which is a preferred food 
of a terrorist organization, or the fact that a light was on in a small 
church in Izmir for hours, and certainly there had to be something bad 
going on.
  That is the nature of these charges. I am not making it up. This man 
is doing everything he can to have the truth be heard, but I actually 
believe this is not about a judicial process. This is not about valid 
charges. This is about a political hostage.
  I will tell you the day I absolutely confirmed that this pastor 
became a political hostage. It is the day President Erdogan had the 
audacity to make this statement. President Erdogan believes that there 
is someone in this country who was involved in the coup attempt. We 
have reached out to Turkey and said: If you can process a valid basis 
for extradition--we have an extradition treaty with Turkey--we would be 
happy to consider that, based on the merits of the case, and we still 
would be, but the President had the audacity to say: We can just short 
circuit all of those by you trading your pastor for our pastor. 
President Erdogan clearly demonstrated that he has the authority to 
release this illegally and improperly imprisoned American, who has been 
in prison for 614 days, but he chooses not to.
  Now, on a bipartisan basis--I should tell my colleagues that one of 
the reasons I find this so insulting is because Turkey has been a NATO 
ally since 1952. We have to understand what being a NATO ally means. 
What it means is the greatest, the most powerful Nation

[[Page S3900]]

on Earth has committed to deploying men and women in American uniforms 
to Turkey to protect Turkey if they are attacked by an outside 
aggressor. We have a commitment to protect the Turkish people. We have 
a commitment to our men and women in harm's way to protect the Turkish 
people, but we have a Turkish President who is acting less like a NATO 
ally and more like an adversary.
  By the way, this is not an argument with the Turkish people who are 
great people. I have been to Turkey several times--they are wonderful 
people--but this President is taking a position that has to have a 
consequence.
  Again, we can go back and talk about what our obligations are under 
the treaty. First and foremost, it is to treat an ally that has that 
very heavy obligation to defend another Nation--to go to some other 
soil and defend that Nation--to treat them with respect, to treat their 
citizens with respect. If they are a criminal, present the evidence and 
prosecute them.
  There are Americans in Turkish prisons. They have committed murders, 
robbery, and other crimes, and there was legitimate evidence put forth 
for me to be OK with that, but I am not at all OK with the way Pastor 
Brunson has been treated by the Turkish judiciary.
  We tried everything we could for about 1\1/2\ years on a diplomatic 
basis and that has gone nowhere. After my last trip to Turkey, I 
decided we had to get Turkey's attention, and on a bipartisan basis, we 
started that by passing an amendment in the National Defense 
Authorization Act that will ask for the answers to very important 
questions. Some of those have to do with the illegal detainment of 
American persons in Turkey. The other one has to do with a very 
important--in fact, the most sophisticated tactical fighter that has 
ever flown through the air, the Joint Strike Fighter, or the F-35.
  Turkey is a very important part of the supply chain to the Joint 
Strike Fighter and Turkey has requested Joint Strike Fighters to be put 
into their arsenal. On the surface, because they are a NATO ally, I 
don't object to it, but, today, I strongly object to it.
  We passed language in the national defense authorization that we will 
be voting on fairly soon that will actually put Turkey on notice: 
Choose what you want to be. Do you want to be an ally that treats your 
other ally citizens with respect; do you want to be an ally that 
actually builds defense systems that come from allies, not from a 
would-be adversary like Russia; or do you want to actually go down the 
path and lose the support of the American people along the way?
  I thank Chairman Inhofe for his support of the amendment. I want to 
thank the members of the Senate subcommittee--the Senate full Committee 
on Armed Services who voted for this amendment. I look forward to 
getting this passed into law when we finally confer with the House and 
sending a message to Turkey: We want to be your ally. We want to be 
there in your darkest hour to defend your security. Convince Members of 
the Senate that you want to be our ally, that you want to treat our 
citizens with respect, and that you will free Pastor Brunson.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Mr. President, I am pleased to join Senator Tillis on 
the floor today as he discusses Turkey and Pastor Andrew Brunson. I 
applaud Senator Tillis for his continued commitment in seeking justice 
for Pastor Brunson. Since March, Senator Tillis, Senator Lankford, and 
I have joined together to keep pressure on Turkish President Erdogan.
  We are not driven by diaspora politics, we have no hidden agendas, 
and we are not agents for Gulen or other actors like the Turkish papers 
have claimed--quite the contrary. As cochairs of the Senate NATO 
Observer Group, Senator Tillis and I are ardent supporters of NATO. We 
value Turkey's importance as an ally. We want U.S.-Turkey relations to 
improve. Yet, supporting Turkey and the Turkish people should not mean 
appeasing the Turkish President.
  It is clear that the less we push back as a nation against Turkish 
President Erdogan, the more emboldened he becomes.
  Five years ago, if you had asked any diplomat or military official 
whether Turkey would stoop so low as to take innocent Americans hostage 
and leverage them for political gain, no one would have said that this 
was a possibility. Yet that is where we are today.
  Turkey has not only joined the ranks of Iran, Syria, North Korea, and 
Venezuela as a hostage-taker, but it has shifted its orientation away 
from NATO and toward Russia for no other reason except for Erdogan's 
financial and electoral gain.
  Even with the near-constant propaganda, however, there are things the 
Turkish Government can't hide: Turkey's rapidly falling currency, the 
faltering state of their judiciary, the inexplicable enrichment of 
President Erdogan, his family, and his inner circle. All these issues 
are well-known concerns. In fact, according to New World Wealth--the 
research outfit that tracks millionaire migrations--in 2017, the 
largest exodus of millionaires was seen in Turkey--a clear indication 
that those who can leave Turkey are choosing to do so.
  Unfortunately, the Turkish people can only do so much while living 
under a dictatorship--a dictatorship that is about to expand on June 
24, the date of Turkey's next election. For this reason, the United 
States should not stay silent about what is happening in Turkey and 
what is happening to NATO because of Turkey.
  Senator Tillis and I both serve on the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, and we successfully added a bipartisan and widely supported 
amendment to this year's Defense bill that is moving through the 
Senate. The amendment would stall the delivery or transfer of F-35 
Joint Strike Fighters to Turkey.
  I hope that both the Departments of State and Defense hear Congress 
loud and clear: We should have no signing ceremonies, no planes, and no 
moves to weaken NATO are acceptable at this time.
  Our government is well aware of the serious security concerns that 
may come if Turkey takes control of any F-35 aircraft. My colleagues 
Senator Donnelly and Senator Tillis have already spoken eloquently to 
that.
  First, the Turkish Government claims to have purchased a Russian air 
defense system designed to shoot these very planes down. NATO partners 
need these F-35s to counter Russian activity. We would be handing this 
technology over to the Kremlin if we granted Turkey these planes, and 
Congress will not stand for it.
  Second and absolutely critical to this afternoon's discussion is that 
nothing should be more important than the safety of American citizens.
  Pastor Brunson has been held in Turkey since October of 2016. The 
charges against him are clearly fabricated, and the legal proceedings 
have been a farce. His defense is not allowed to call up witnesses, and 
the identities of the secret witnesses in his indictment are known to 
be petty criminals.
  What is happening to Pastor Brunson is an absolute shame, but it has 
become a sad reality for those living in Turkey because Turkey has 
already imprisoned over 50,000 of its own people. I wish we could do 
more for all of those people, but at the very least, our government has 
a duty to act when any American anywhere is held unjustly by a foreign 
government. We must do everything we can to bring Americans home, to 
bring Pastor Brunson home.
  I encourage the administration to use every tool available in their 
diplomatic and economic toolbox to bring the pastor and all innocent 
Americans home at once. In the meantime, Senators Tillis, Lankford, and 
I will continue to push for targeted sanctions against Erdogan and all 
officials who are involved in the unlawful detention of Americans in 
Turkey. We will not cease our efforts until Turkey rejoins the 
community of democracies it once belonged to. We all hope this day 
comes sooner rather than later.

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