[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 120 (Tuesday, July 17, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4999-S5000]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                             Cyber Security

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. President, I wish to make a few comments about the 
topic in the news today and yesterday and, hopefully, will result in 
some action by Congress; that is, the threats we face as a Nation 
regarding our electoral system.
  First I would like to recognize the Presiding Officer of the Senate, 
Senator Rubio, for working with Senator Van Hollen to come up with a 
piece of legislation called the DETER Act, which I think will serve us 
well. If the Director of National Intelligence certifies that a foreign 
power--Russia or anyone else--is trying to attack our electoral 
infrastructure, they will pay a heavy price.
  Today is July 17, 2018. On Friday, last week, I think it was July--I 
don't know the dates; I just got back from traveling. So on Friday of 
last week, a few days ago, the Director of National Intelligence said 
the following: ``The warning lights are blinking red again. Today, the 
digital infrastructure that serves this country is literally under 
attack.''
  How much more do we need as a body and as a nation to rally ourselves 
to act while there is still time?
  He indicated that our cyber space strategies emphasize only defense, 
not offense as well, evoking President Reagan's Cold War approach to 
the Soviet Union. Mr. Coats suggested that if Russia continues to try 
to take on the United States in the cyber arena, then the 
administration should throw everything we have into that exercise.
  Every Member of Congress, every Member of the Senate, as well as the 
President, has an obligation to defend the Nation against all enemies, 
foreign and domestic. I am 1,000 percent convinced that the Russians 
meddled in our election in 2016. They did not change the outcome, but 
they did disrupt our election. The bottom line is they are still up to 
it.
  If you don't believe me, just ask Director of National Intelligence 
Dan Coats, who is a former Member of this body.
  In August of 2001, the 9/11 Commission found statements from the CIA 
that indicated there was something afoot, that ``the lights are 
blinking red,'' but they couldn't point to bin Laden specifically. As 
we look back, how much accountability should the Bush administration 
have had and how much accountability should Congress have had back 
then? Did we miss the warning signs regarding the September 11 attack? 
I would suggest that the chatter was strong and the threat was real, 
but nobody could really pinpoint it.
  Here is what I am suggesting: The chatter is strong, the threat is 
real, and we know exactly where it is coming from. The question is, 
Will the House and Senate, working with the President, do anything 
about it? Senator Rubio and Senator Van Hollen have chosen to try to do 
something about it.
  We are all eventually going to be in the history books. President 
Trump said today that he believed our electoral infrastructure needs to 
be made more secure--not just electoral infrastructure; energy and 
financial services are under threat, and not just from Russia.
  So I want to look forward. I heard Senator McConnell say today that 
he would like to find some bipartisan legislation that could come 
forward sooner rather than later to try to harden the infrastructure 
before the 2018 election. The bottom line here is that we all owe it to 
every voter in the country and all of those who are serving in the 
intelligence community and in the military to secure our election the 
best we can.
  I am hoping that we will become ``Team America'' just for a few 
minutes. I am not asking my Democrat friends to give President Trump a 
pass, and I am not asking my Republican colleagues to stop fighting for 
our agenda. I am asking both parties to calm down and focus on the 
common enemy. The common enemy is Russia, and countries like Russia, 
that want to undermine our democracy, pit us one against the other, and 
they did it in 2016. If you believe Dan Coats, they are going to do it 
again. This meeting recently with President Trump and Putin--in my 
view, we missed an opportunity to really put the Russians on notice. 
But rather than look back, let's look forward.
  Today, President Trump expressed confidence in our intelligence 
community. I am glad to hear that. I trust them far more than I trust 
Putin. It is not just America that Putin has been trying to interfere 
with; it is in France and Germany and everywhere else there is a 
democracy. President Putin is trying to destroy alliances like the 
European Union, which, I think, has value to the United States. He is 
trying to break NATO. He is attacking us here at home: fake news--truly 
fake news--made-up news article to try to pit one American against the 
other and trying to steal emails from party officials and dump them 
into the public domain at critical times in the election.
  What do I say to my Republican colleagues? It was the Democrats last 
time; it could be us next time. It was Russia last time, and they are 
still up to it this time, but Iran, North Korea, China--fill in the 
blank--we are all exposed.
  Article 5 of the NATO Charter says that an attack against one is an 
attack against all. So I would ask my colleagues tonight to think about 
that in terms of our democracy. An attack on one party should be an 
attack on all parties.
  The Republican Party should take no comfort or glee in the fact that 
our Democratic friends were compromised in a very embarrassing way that 
hurt them. Nobody changed vote totals. But can you imagine how we would 
feel if the inner circle of the President was hacked and, at a crucial 
time in the election, the information was exposed?
  To my friends in the media, you have to make a hard decision: How 
much do you empower this? How much do you aid a foreign government by 
publishing this information?
  I believe we are at war in many ways. We are not at war in a direct 
way with Russia, but these cyber attacks are, to me, a hostile act 
against our country just as much as if they had launched a conventional 
attack. They are going to continue to do this until they pay a price.
  I would like for us to come together to not only harden our 
infrastructure to make sure that 2018 cannot be compromised by a 
foreign power but also to make countries like Russia pay a price.
  Senator Van Hollen and Senator Rubio have a very good piece of 
legislation which basically says that if the Director of National 
Intelligence certifies that a foreign power like Russia is continuing 
to interfere in our election, then we will up sanctions. We will make 
it harder, not easier, on that foreign power. It is Russia today; it 
could be somebody else tomorrow, and it probably already is.
  So rather than taking the moment and dividing us about what President 
Trump said or didn't say, why don't we use this as an opportunity to 
listen to the professionals, not the politicians.
  Senator Rubio is on the Intelligence Committee. I am very proud of 
the work they have accomplished. They made a bipartisan finding that 
Russia did meddle in the 2016 election with the view of trying to help 
Trump over Clinton, but there is no evidence it changed the outcome.
  The bottom line for me is that if we don't come together now--this is 
the end of July, July 17--we have precious days left to take action 
that could protect the 2018 election cycle.
  The worst thing that could happen in a democracy is if somebody's 
vote could be stolen or the information provided to the public could be 
tainted in a fashion by some foreign entity to pit

[[Page S5000]]

one American against another. We do enough of that ourselves; we don't 
need anybody else's help. And the record is clear, in terms of 2016, 
that Russia was all over the place spreading disinformation, trying to 
create conflict within the Democratic primary, within the Republican 
primary, and during the general election.
  November will be here before we know it. Here is what we have to ask 
ourselves as a body--and eventually be held accountable by the public 
and history. What did we do in July to answer the alarm raised by 
Director Dan Coats about the warning lights blinking red? I see attacks 
on critical infrastructure going on today, and I will expect them to 
continue. We need to up our game as a nation.
  I don't know how any of us can go to our constituents in November and 
say that we answered Dan Coats' call if we do nothing. So I hope that 
Senator McConnell and Senator Schumer can find a way to come up with a 
common agenda--maybe starting with the Rubio-Van Hollen bill--to see if 
there is common ground to deal with a common problem.
  I would ask President Trump not to look backward, but to look 
forward. I have no doubt that you won the election, Mr. President, in 
2016. The Russians didn't beat Ms. Clinton; you did. But what they are 
up to now can jeopardize our democracy.
  We are just a stone's throw away from their changing vote totals. 
Senator Rubio knows this better than I because he is on the 
Intelligence Committee. They are already infiltrating voter 
registration files. It would not be much of a leap to have some votes 
flipped through cyber attacks. So we have a chance in the coming days--
working together, not against each other--to find solutions to this 
problem. I am sure whatever we come up with will not be perfect, but at 
least we tried. The one thing I cannot live with is not trying.

  I have known Dan Coats for well over a decade, Secretary Pompeo, the 
entire national security team, Senator Burr, Senator Warner, Senator 
Rubio--they all tell us the same thing: Our critical infrastructure is 
under attack by foreign powers, Russia being the leader. The question 
for us is, What do we do about it?
  I am hoping that next week the President will call the Congress 
together, in a bipartisan fashion, to come up with some preventive 
measures to protect our infrastructure, when it comes to the November 
election, and that we, as a nation, try to figure out what the rules of 
engagement are going to be, not to just defend ourselves from 
aggression but punish the aggressor.
  I don't have all the answers. I am not suggesting this is my area of 
expertise, because it is not, but I am smart enough to know Russia is 
going to continue what they did in 2016, until somebody makes them pay 
a heavy price, and it is just not Russia; be it Iran, China, North 
Korea, or other bad actors.
  I don't know how, as a body, we can live with ourselves if we don't 
try to heed Dan Coats' warnings. They are not just given by him but by 
those who work for him, who are nonpolitical, who have made it their 
life's work to find ways to protect this Nation.
  So, Mr. President, we have a chance to bring the Congress together. 
Challenge us to work with you to find solutions to this looming threat, 
better ways to defend America's critical infrastructure when it comes 
to our 2018 election, and challenge us to work with you. I hope we will 
be smart enough to meet that challenge, and I hope you will issue that 
challenge. You are the most special person in our constitutional 
democracy when it comes to national security. You are the Commander in 
Chief. You rightly criticized President Obama for being slow when it 
came to reacting to Russian interference in 2016. I am sure that was a 
hard call for President Obama, but there is no doubt in my mind that 
you, the Senate, and the House are now on notice--by your own 
intelligence services--that Russia is interfering now and will continue 
to do so up to 2018 and beyond unless somebody stops them. At a 
minimum, we should come up with defensive measures available to us. As 
a nation, we need to deal with this threat.
  I am not worried about a foreign power taking over our country in a 
conventional military fashion. I am worried about foreign powers and 
terrorist organizations using cyber attacks to cripple our country, our 
economy, our finances, and our energy, but, most importantly, the heart 
and soul of democracy, which is free and fair elections. Putin wants no 
part of free and fair elections. All of us should very much want to 
have a free and fair election in 2018. We are not going to have one 
unless we push back together and push back now.
  I yield the floor.

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