[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 116 (Wednesday, July 11, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4885-S4886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                  Immigration and Customs Enforcement

  Mr. President, I wish to very quickly bring attention to something 
about which I think people need to speak up on the other side of the 
issue; that is, this movement now called End ICE, or Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement.
  We have a gubernatorial candidate in New York who said ICE is a 
terrorist organization--not ISIS, which is a terrorist organization, 
but ICE. These men and women in uniform go out every day and put their 
lives on the line to protect the American people.
  Let me tell my colleagues what people who are part of the End ICE 
movement are for. This chart represents what they are for if they are 
for ending ICE. These are 2017 numbers. They are for ending the arrest 
of some 143,000 people who have broken our laws. They are for ending 
the seizure of tons of fentanyl.
  I will give you an idea of what that means in terms of potential risk 
of human life. You are talking about gangs--some 5,000 gang members who 
were arrested last year because they were clearly related to gang 
activity, with MS-13 being one of the first among them. They are for 
ending all of our protections and having all of these activities go 
unchallenged on American soil.
  If you are for ending ICE, you are for ending almost 7,000 pounds of 
heroin seized, and that is only a fraction of what these criminal 
elements are bringing to this country.
  If Members come to this floor and talk about fighting the opioid 
epidemic, I can't imagine anyone who is sincere about fighting the 
opioid epidemic saying that they want more poison on the streets. You 
can't have it both ways. You are either for solving the problem of the 
opioid epidemic, which means that we have to have law enforcement to 
specialize in seizing it, or you are against it. You are for poisoning 
our youth. You are for poisoning people who are addicted to opioids. 
You can't have it both ways. If you want to end ICE, you are for this.
  If you want to end ICE, you are for people who have tattoos that 
clearly indicate that they are part of a gang on the streets. We have 
gangs that, actually, as a part of getting initiated, want you to kill 
or harm somebody to prove that you will when you are asked to. If you 
want to end ICE, you are for more of these folks on the streets--some 
4,800 of them.
  Again, if you want to end ICE, then you want to end the careers of 
people who have such a dangerous job that, oftentimes, when they do 
drug seizures, they have to wear HAZMAT suits because if they touch the 
fentanyl, they could die or go into an overdose. If you want to end 
ICE, you want that poison to be in the hands of a child or someone else 
who, if they touch it, is going to die or have a profound overdose.
  That is what ending ICE means. Just to sum up, if you want to end 
ICE, you want that seizure of a ton of fentanyl coming across our 
border, mainly from Mexico, that has enough potency to kill 500 million 
people.
  Now, I honestly believe that nobody in this body really means that 
they want to end ICE, that they want to cause human traffickers, gun 
traffickers, drug traffickers--more of them. But you can't have it both 
ways. If you want to go on the stump and say you want to end ICE, then 
add this to your stump speech. Add this to the logical consequence of 
what happens when you insult the men and women in uniform in ICE and 
you say you want to end what they are doing, because if you do, the 
negative consequences are clear. All you have to do is look at what ICE 
has done over the last year, and what they would not do this year, if 
you really believe what they say about ending ICE.
  So I think they need to ice the ``end ICE'' narrative and start 
getting smart about making sure that we maybe make changes that we need 
to in any organization. But for people to go to such an extreme, to say 
that they want to end one of the most important law enforcement 
agencies combating illegal immigration and illegal trafficking across 
our border, you had better be honest on the stump. You had better let 
them know what you mean because that is what they mean.
  I think it is important for our Members to step up and let people 
know the consequences of this ridiculous rhetoric and to show the men 
and women in uniform--police officers, ICE agents, and everybody else--
that people like me care about them. People like me respect them for 
what they do.
  We know that their assaults were up by three times last year. It is a 
dangerous job. Many of them don't even know if they are going to come 
home when they leave in the morning.
  It is an insult for anybody in this body to come into this Chamber 
and say that they need to be ended. They

[[Page S4886]]

need to be thanked. They need to be revered. Agencies always need to be 
improved, but if you believe we should end ICE, you had better own the 
consequences.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Sullivan). The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, today the Senate is considering one of the 
most troubling executive branch nominations that this President has 
made to date--the nomination of Brian Benczkowski to lead the Criminal 
Division of the Justice Department.
  For years, I have studied and have been aware of the Criminal 
Division. This is an amazing nomination. I think it is enough to oppose 
Mr. Benczkowski's nomination because he is objectively unqualified for 
this important position, but there are also compelling reasons to 
believe that it would be uniquely reckless to confirm him to this 
position.
  Now, speaking about Mr. Benczkowski's lack of qualifications for this 
role is not meant to denigrate. Many of us know him, as I did, from his 
service in the Judiciary Committee as the staff director for the then 
Ranking Member Jeff Sessions. The fact is, this nominee to head the 
Criminal Division has virtually no criminal law experience. Even at 
this age, he has never tried a case. He has never served as a 
prosecutor. He has almost zero courtroom experience. Instead, his 
experience has been to serve as a political aide to various officials.

  As a former prosecutor, I know there is no substitute for actual 
courtroom experience, actually going into a courtroom and trying a 
criminal case, arguing criminal cases on appeal, determining whether 
you bring a charge or don't bring a charge. These are things an 
experienced prosecutor has to do. For the last several decades, under 
Republican and Democratic administrations, every head of a criminal 
division--which is probably the most important litigating arm of the 
Justice Department--has had substantial prosecutorial experience, with 
the exception of one individual whose nomination I simply could not 
support. This shouldn't be a partisan issue. I voted for nominees in 
Republican administrations and in Democratic administrations because 
they were qualified, and there are countless qualified prosecutors the 
President could select.
  For this reason alone, the Senate should not consent to Mr. 
Benczkowski's nomination. But there are two other reasons, aside from 
the fact that he has absolutely zero qualifications for this important 
position. It is sort of like sending somebody in to do brain surgery 
when their main experience has been clipping hedges. You have to have 
some experience in there, but aside from the fact that he has no 
experience, there are two other reasons he shouldn't be confirmed.
  First, he has demonstrated, at a minimum, exceptionally poor judgment 
when it comes to perhaps our Nation's most critical ongoing national 
security investigation--the Russian Government's attack on our 
democracy. We all know, if we have read the intelligence reports, 
Russia attacked the U.S. democracy and vote in the last election.
  After serving on Mr. Trump's transition team, Mr. Benczkowski 
represented a Putin-connected Russian bank, Alfa-Bank, regarding its 
bizarre server communications with the Trump organization during the 
height of the Presidential campaign. Alfa-Bank was at the very center 
of scrutiny into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, even 
making an appearance in the Steele dossier. Yet Mr. Benczkowski took on 
Alfa-Bank as a client on an issue related to the Russia investigation 
at the same time he was being considered for a senior position in the 
Trump Justice Department, totally blinded to the obvious conflict of 
interest. In fact, he continued to represent Vladimir Putin's connected 
bank until the day he was formally nominated to lead the criminal 
division.
  Now, some have said we should give Mr. Benczkowski the benefit of the 
doubt. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, you have to admit, at least 
demonstrates an embarrassingly poor sense of judgment for someone who 
is nominated to lead the Criminal Division to look into the criminal 
activities of places like Alfa-Bank. Now, we find Mr. Benczkowski has 
refused to recuse himself from matters related to the Russia 
investigation or the Steele dossier.
  You can't make these things up. It is just conflict of interest 101. 
As Senator Durbin and Senator Whitehouse have warned, as head of the 
Criminal Division, Mr. Benczkowski would therefore have visibility and 
be able to look into investigations of individuals related to the Trump 
campaign. He could serve as a conduit of information to the Attorney 
General about these sensitive matters.
  According to the Department of Justice, it is possible Special 
Counsel Mueller's office ``will seek approvals from the Criminal 
Division as required . . . or may simply want to consult with subject-
matter experts in the Criminal Division as appropriate in the normal 
course of department investigations,'' and who would have availability 
to that? Mr. Benczkowski. He could even be in a position to share 
secret grand jury information directly with the President.
  What is also concerning is that if Mr. Benczkowski were to be 
confirmed and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein were then to be 
removed, the President, under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, could 
simply install Mr. Benczkowski as the Acting Attorney General, with 
respect to the Russia investigation.
  So what do we have? We have Mr. Benczkowski, under those 
circumstances, gaining direct control over the special counsel's 
investigation. He would even have the power to stop the special 
counsel's probe. Gosh, we wonder, could that ever occur to someone at 
the White House; that he could suddenly stop Mr. Mueller from his 
investigations?
  On qualifications, the man who is going to be head of the Criminal 
Division has never tried a case, never handled any criminal matter, 
never had anything to do with criminal matters. He is really 
unqualified for this role by any objective measure. The only apparent 
qualification that Mr. Benczkowski has is his close relationship with, 
and political loyalty to, the Attorney General and the President. In 
fact, that is likely the very reason he was nominated to this critical 
position. That is all the more troubling given his terrible judgment 
with respect to the Russia investigation. We are putting someone in who 
has been involved as an attorney for a bank involved in this Russia 
investigation.
  Many of my fellow Republican Senators, to their credit, have stated 
their commitment to ensuring that Special Counsel Mueller be allowed to 
carry out his investigation independently and without political 
interference. I hope they keep this commitment in mind when considering 
Mr. Benczkowski's nomination. I hope they join me in voting no. 
Apparently, his only qualification is he is going to be put in a 
position where he could stymie Mueller's investigation of Russia.
  I have voted for a lot of nominees, both Republicans and Democrats, 
in this position because of their qualifications--not because of their 
ideology but their qualifications. No President of either party has 
ever nominated somebody for this critical position who is less 
qualified. In fact, it is pretty hard to find anybody in this country 
less qualified.
  Mr. President, I see other Senators on the floor, so I yield to them.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Georgia.