[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 140 (Wednesday, August 22, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5815-S5818]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2019--Continued
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Honoring Journalists
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, the work that reporters do as members of a
free and independent press is vital to our country and to our
communities.
It is why, last week, in an unprecedented action, nearly 300
newspapers all over the country--a dozen or so in my State--came
together to stand up for the free press and defend the First Amendment.
There were 300 newspapers that wrote editorials--all independently
written, of course, with all different takes on this--to advocate for a
free press and to defend the First Amendment.
The Chagrin Valley Times, which is not far from where I live in
Northeast Ohio, wrote:
We are indeed your lens into your community. We are not
your enemy.
Clearly, this was a takeoff on the President's comments that the
media are the enemies of the people.
The Athens NEWS, from Southeast Ohio, wrote: ``Good reporting often
succeeds in righting wrongs and making things better for people.''
The Akron Beacon Journal, one of the great newspapers in this State,
wrote:
Power . . . belongs to the people. The press thus received
extraordinary protection because of its capacity to inform
readers and check the powerful.
It is shameful that journalists have to defend their First Amendment
rights, our First Amendment rights, our Nation's First Amendment rights
just so they can do their jobs. As these community papers show us,
nothing could be further from the truth. That is why I want to
highlight yet another story by an Ohio paper, informing the public,
that has been reported by a journalist who serves her community.
CityBeat Cincinnati describes itself as having been ``a voice in
Greater Cincinnati for nearly a quarter of a century now, publishing a
print edition weekly, and producing regular content throughout the week
online to try to help keep you informed of what is happening in your
city.''
A great example of that content was in a story last week that was
reported by Maija Zummo on the Black Family Reunion that took place in
Cincinnati and its celebrating its 30th year. The event was founded in
1989 by the iconic Dr. Dorothy Height, who served as President of the
National Council of Negro Women for more than 50 years.
As Ms. Zummo reported, the festival brings together community groups,
performers, and small businesses to ``celebrate the values and
strengths of the black family.'' Ms. Zummo's reporting informed
Cincinnati readers about the events they could attend that weekend,
including a parade, festival, church service, and other community
activities.
That kind of reporting is what journalists do every day, every week,
every month across Ohio and around the country. They serve their
readers, their viewers, and their communities. They deserve our
respect. They don't deserve a President who calls reporters,
journalists, and all kinds of people in this business the enemies of
the people. Again, reporters serve their viewers, their readers, and
their communities. They serve all of us. They deserve our respect.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Remembering Mollie Tibbetts
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I come to the floor to speak about a
recent tragedy that has deeply impacted my home State of Iowa and I
think all of the country because cable television is well aware of
this.
Yesterday, authorities announced they found the remains of a 24-year-
old University of Iowa sophomore, Mollie Tibbets, of Brooklyn, IA.
After searching tirelessly for months, State and local law enforcements
announced the unthinkable, Mollie was murdered in cold blood.
I would like to commend the efforts of all who were involved in
searching for this remarkable young woman, including the Iowa Division
of Criminal Investigation, the FBI, Homeland Security, and the
individual members of the community who volunteered tirelessly to find
Mollie.
Americans watched the news every night, all of us, holding out hope
that Mollie would soon be found and returned to her family. I extend my
sincerest condolences and sympathies to Rob Tibbetts, Mollie's father,
and Laura Calderwood, Mollie's mother. They spent the last month and a
half searching the State for their missing daughter. Rob and Laura
traveled across the State, raised awareness on TV, and handed out
buttons, T-shirts, and missing person fliers at the Iowa State Fair.
Both Rob and Laura showed remarkable bravery in the face of tragedy.
Know that our thoughts and prayers are with you and your family
during this difficult time.
For those of us in Washington, we ought to try to learn something
from Mollie's character and the example she set. As Mollie's boyfriend
Dalton Jack said, ``She's not just a missing person flyer.'' Mollie was
an avid reader who enjoyed the choir, theater, and writing.
Mollie loved her friends and had a natural ability working with
children. Her friends say she had a gift for making everyone feel like
the most important person in the room. There is no doubt her nurturing
character and her ability to be everyone's counselor--as a friend put
it--led her to the University of Iowa to study psychology. While there,
Mollie spent her summers taking classes and working at a day camp with
the Grinnell Regional Medical Center, where she mentored children. It
is no surprise that when Mollie went missing, over 200 people showed up
for a vigil in her honor.
While we mourn the loss of Mollie Tibbetts, it is the duty of this
Senator and every other Senator to act to prevent further tragedies
such as this one from devastating a family and an entire community.
We now know that Mollie was murdered by a 24-year-old, undocumented
immigrant who has been in the United States illegally for 4 to 7 years.
That is right. For 4 to 7 years, this man was here undetected and
unaccounted for. This raises questions about his immigration,
employment, and criminal history, and we must receive answers.
So, today, I sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security
seeking any immigration history on this man and a briefing to better
understand how he was able to get to and stay in Iowa. This isn't too
different from what I have done in many cases with some undocumented
person, particularly those who had been deported and returned, asking
for answers when there was a tragedy such as what happened to Mollie. I
think of recent cases, maybe within the last 2 years, of murders in
Northern Virginia and in Maryland. The Tibbetts family, the people of
Iowa as well, and I hope all of the American public feel they deserve
answers.
[[Page S5816]]
Based on the information I do have, it seems this murder was
preventable. Stricter border security measures, including increased
personnel, enhanced technology, and modernized infrastructure could
have prevented this man from crossing the border--in other words,
secure the border.
Stronger interior enforcement and addressing weaknesses in E-Verify
could have prevented this individual from working and would have
allowed immigration enforcement authority to initiate removal
proceedings years ago.
Earlier this week, President Trump invited officers and agents of
Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement
to the White House to thank them and the people under them for all they
do on a daily basis to protect Americans. Recent events are a stark
reminder as to how much we need these hard-working men and women.
Amidst cries from the radical far left to abolish law enforcement
agencies, such as ICE, I am proud to stand in support of the brave men
and women of that agency. Customs and Border Protection and Immigration
and Customs Enforcement are tasked with protecting the homeland, a duty
they willingly accepted on behalf of all Americans and, of course, the
No. 1 responsibility, the Federal Government.
Every day, men and women of the Border Patrol and ICE, or Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, put themselves in harm's way because Congress
tasked them with this great responsibility.
So to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who call for
abolishing immigration enforcement, I urge caution. We have heard a lot
of that lately about abolishing immigration enforcement.
Scapegoating our uniformed officers, who are simply executing the
law, to launch future Presidential campaigns only moves us further away
from one another and further away from a lasting solution.
To put their efforts into perspective, let's take a look at some
data. During fiscal year 2017, ICE arrested more than 127,000 aliens
with criminal convictions or charges. ICE made 5,225 administrative
arrests of suspected gang members. Last year, the criminal aliens
arrested by ICE were responsible for more than 76,000 dangerous drug
offenses, 48,000 assault offenses, 11,000 weapon offenses, 5,000 sexual
offenses, 2,000 kidnapping offenses, and 1,800 homicide offenses. Those
statistics are just for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations.
Last year, ICE Homeland Security Investigations made over 4,800 gang-
related arrests. ICE also targets illicit drug flows, human trafficking
operations, and transnational criminal and terrorist organizations.
ICE is part of our broader national security apparatus and often
works hand in hand with their partners at the Department of Justice,
including the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, and hundreds of
Federal prosecutors.
In 2017, ICE identified or rescued 904 sexually exploited children
and 518 victims of human trafficking. ICE seized more than 980,000
pounds of narcotics just last year, including 2,370 pounds of fentanyl
and almost 7,000 pounds of heroin.
To my colleagues who have spoken strongly about combating the moral
stain of human trafficking or about ending the opioid epidemic gripping
our country, I ask: How is ICE anything but an indispensable partner in
this fight? How can we expect to combat the flow of lethal narcotics
without the brave men and women of the Border Patrol and ICE?
Just last week, I sent a letter to Secretaries Nielsen and Pompeo
about an Iraqi national who lied about his active membership in ISIS
and al-Qaida in Iraq so he could claim refugee status and settle safely
in Sacramento, CA. ICE played a very vital role in his arrest.
This weekend, ICE deported a Nazi prison guard who was living in
Queens, NY, and yesterday ICE was immediately there on the scene in
Brooklyn, IA, when State and local authorities determined the suspect
was a foreign national.
Congress has been dancing around the issue of securing our borders
and strengthening interior enforcement for far too long. We have told
voters we will fix the problem, but we don't seem to get the bills
passed. Stories like those of Kate Steinle, Sarah Root, Kayla Cuevas,
and now Mollie Tibbetts continue to appear in the news, and we ought to
come to the conclusion that enough is enough.
Sarah's Law
Mr. President, I urge the Senate to put partisanship aside and
support Sarah's Law. That is a bill that some of us from the Midwest
have introduced, but we also would like to see justice for Kate
Steinle's murder because people who have been deported, coming back to
the United States to do this killing--just for coming back and
violating our law over and over and over by crossing into the country
without papers, they should have mandatory sentences.
Sarah's Law is a bill I introduced with Senator Ernst in honor of a
fellow Iowan, Sarah Root, who was killed by an undocumented immigrant
driving drunk and was three times over the legal limit.
Sarah's Law is a commonsense bill that requires the Federal
Government to take custody of anyone who entered the country illegally,
violated the terms of their immigration status, and had their visas
revoked and is thereafter charged with killing or seriously harming
another person. It also requires ICE to make reasonable efforts to
identify and provide relevant information to crime victims and their
families.
I end thinking about Mollie's death, but you can continue to think
about Sarah Root, Kate Steinle, and others. We haven't responded to it
very well. We can and we must do better.
Nomination of Brett Kavanaugh
Mr. President, if I may, I want to continue to speak but on another
subject.
Over the past day, several of my colleagues issued statements calling
for Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing to be delayed. A lot of
these colleagues have written me very personal letters calling for
Judge Kavanaugh's hearing to be delayed. Some of them have written me
very personal letters about coverups or hiding or handling documents in
ways they perceive to be different from what other committee chairmen
have done. In regard to the delay of the hearing, they claim that it is
because President Trump's former lawyer recently pleaded guilty to
criminal violations of campaign finance law, allegedly at President
Trump's direction.
I am not going to delay Judge Kavanaugh's nomination hearing. There
is no precedent for delaying a hearing in these circumstances. In fact,
it is just the opposite. There is clear precedent pointing in the other
direction. I will give my colleagues at least one.
In 1994, President Clinton nominated Justice Breyer to the Supreme
Court. At that time, President Clinton was under investigation by
Independent Counsel Robert Fiske in connection with the Whitewater land
deal. Indeed, President Clinton's own records were under grand jury
subpoena. Yet the Senate confirmed Justice Breyer by a vote of 87 to 9
during all of that.
In fact, President Clinton was under investigation for much of his
Presidency and was even impeached for committing perjury. Obviously, he
wasn't convicted. But through all of this, the Senate didn't stop
confirming his lifetime appointments to the bench. President Trump is
not even close to being in the same legal situation as President
Clinton, but obviously some people around here think he is.
So my colleagues' plea to delay the hearing rings very false
considering the precedent I just gave, and maybe historians can give us
more precedents.
So I want to tell my colleagues why liberal outside groups and Senate
Democratic leaders decided to oppose the President's Supreme Court
nominee by any means necessary. They even said so. Some even announced
their opposition before Judge Kavanaugh was nominated. The minority
leader said he would fight Judge Kavanaugh with everything he has.
Members of the Judiciary Committee announced their opposition before
giving Judge Kavanaugh any consideration whatsoever. One Member said
that voting for Judge Kavanaugh is ``complicit in evil.'' Another
Member said that Judge Kavanaugh threatens ``destruction of the
Constitution of the United States.''
[[Page S5817]]
The goal has always been the same: to delay the confirmation process
as much as possible and hope that the Democrats take over the U.S.
Senate in the midterm elections.
The Ranking Member's hometown newspaper reported on this strategy
recently, and the headline called it an attempt to stall. The
strategies may change, but the goal to obstruct the confirmation
process remains unchanged. First, Democratic leaders tried to apply the
Biden rule, which bars confirmations in Presidential elections and
which many Democrats previously said doesn't even exist. They tried to
apply it even to midterm elections. When they used it, it was applied
just to Presidential elections.
Now, when this strategy failed, because it was completely and flatly
false, they changed strategies. They tried pushing for an unprecedented
disclosure of Judge Kavanaugh's executive branch documents, even though
we have already received more pages of such documents than any previous
Supreme Court nominee. This is on top of Judge Kavanaugh's 12-year
judicial track record and other more relevant publicly available
materials.
Now they are trying to latch on to the legal troubles of President
Trump's former associates, but, as I just explained, there is no
precedent or logical reason for the Senate to decline to proceed on
Judge Kavanaugh's nomination in these circumstances. It is just another
attempt to block Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation by any means necessary.
On a related note, we are working to make available as many of the
documents relevant to Judge Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court
when we receive them--to make them publicly available as soon as
possible.
It is common practice--I hope everyone knows--to receive documents
with a restriction called ``Committee Confidential'' until we can
assure ourselves that we will not disclose sensitive, confidential
information to the public in violation of the Presidential Records Act.
Chairman Leahy, who is here on the floor with me, did so during Justice
Kagan's confirmation process, and I am doing the same. This gives
Judiciary Committee members a jump start on reviewing documents
because, otherwise, if you had to wait until they were all cleared, you
wouldn't even be reading them yet.
The goal is to make as many publicly available as possible as soon as
possible.
I have promised to work with President Bush and President Trump to
waive committee confidentiality, when the law requires it, for specific
documents that my colleagues would like to use at the confirmation
hearings. This is also consistent with how the Judiciary Committee has
handled this issue in the past. And, of course, all of my Senate
colleagues are welcome to review committee-confidential documents at
their convenience. Simply get in touch with my staff. The staff there
will make sure that they have full access to the range of committee-
confidential documents.
One of my colleagues tweeted, and I am not going to name this
colleague because there is no point in embarrassing anybody to make a
very strong point here about how ridiculous some of this argument has
become. This is the tweet:
Chairman Grassley unilaterally deemed Kavanaugh records
Committee Confidential. Penalty for release could include
`expulsion' from the Senate, which hasn't happened since the
Civil War, for disloyalty to the Union. GOP is going that far
to keep them secret.
I hope all of my colleagues see the absurdity of that tweet.
Now, that person is kind of acting like the Senate has never received
committee-confidential documents before. It is common practice, and it
has happened in previous Supreme Court nominations, even under
Democratic chairmen.
So to sum up, it is so regrettable that some of my colleagues on the
other side of the aisle have politicized this process so much, but
also, at the same time, they have short memories.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Lee). The Senator from Colorado.
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the Defense
appropriations bill that we are now debating. I congratulate Senator
Shelby and Senator Leahy, and other Senators for working together in a
cooperative manner to fashion and advance this important legislation.
For my home State of Colorado, this legislation means critical
funding for our men and women in uniform at installations such as
Peterson, Buckley, and Schriever Air Force Bases, the Air Force
Academy, and Fort Carson in Colorado Springs, and beyond.
This bill provides the first significant pay raise--the first
significant pay raise--for soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines for
close to 10 years, and it is well deserved and long overdue.
As the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East
Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy, I want to
highlight several provisions related to these areas. The bill provides
$356 million in additional funding to expand and accelerate cyber
research across the Department of Defense, including $117 million for
Army cyber security research efforts and $116 million in Missile
Defense Agency cyber security enhancements.
This legislation will support critical cyber security programs,
including CyberWorx at the Air Force Academy, DIUx in Silicon Valley,
and the Army Futures Command in Austin, TX.
The bill focuses on our ability to modernize not only what we might
use in conflict but also to understand how conflict might be waged
through technology.
Through a fully funded and equipped Cyber Command, we will be armed
not only with new funded capability and technology but with new titles
and authorities to be able to downgrade, disrupt, and destroy cyber
attacks on our infrastructure and economy.
As our force evolves and changes, the Cyber Command will continue to
be a vital stakeholder in our defense communities.
I am also pleased that the legislation supports the administration's
concept of a ``free and open Indo-Pacific'' by fully funding our
military activities in the Indo-Pacific region, including U.S. Pacific
Command theater cooperation activities with partner nations.
I am also pleased that the bill specifically includes funds to
support activity with the Pacific Island nations, including Palau.
These nations are at risk of falling under more and more Chinese
influence, and it is important for the United States to exert an active
leadership role to keep these allies engaged.
Countering China's rise represents a grave challenge for U.S.
national security, but it is a challenge that we must absolutely rise
to meet. According to the ``National Security Strategy,'' released in
December of just last year, ``for decades, U.S. policy was rooted in
the belief that support for China's rise and for its integration into
the post-war international order would liberalize China. Contrary to
our hopes, China expanded its power at the expense of the sovereignty
of others.''
According to the 2018 ``National Defense Strategy,'' ``it is
increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world
consistent with their authoritarian model--gaining veto authority over
other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.''
According to the annual ``Department of Defense Report on Chinese
Military Power,'' released just last week, ``China's military
modernization targets capabilities with the potential to degrade core
U.S. operational and technological advantages. To support this
modernization, China uses a variety of methods to acquire foreign
military and dual-use technologies, including targeted foreign direct
investment, cyber theft, and exploitation of private China nationals'
access to these technologies.''
I am pleased that both the administration and Congress are now
recognizing this reality and taking steps to rebuild our military to
stand up to China.
I am leading a bipartisan effort in the Senate called the Asia
Reassurance Initiative Act, or ARIA, which will set a generational
policy toward the Indo-Pacific. I expect that the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee will mark up ARIA in September, and I urge my
colleagues to cosponsor this very important effort.
We know that China will continue to bully its neighbors and to test
U.S. resolve, and we must respond accordingly.
On Monday, we heard the disturbing news that the nation of El
Salvador,
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under Chinese pressure, has decided to sever diplomatic ties with
Taiwan in favor of Beijing. This is an outrageous and unwarranted move
for El Salvador, which has enjoyed official relations with the Republic
of China since 1933.
In response, I have introduced an amendment with Senator Rubio to
this legislation that will restrict U.S. funds to the government of El
Salvador.
It is our sincere hope that this amendment will send a direct message
to Taiwan's allies that the United States will use every tool to
support Taiwan's standing on the international stage and will stand up
to China's bullying tactics across the world.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
____________________