[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 154 (Tuesday, September 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5638-S5639]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Election Security

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, there are certain elements of this 
responsibility of serving in the Senate that have been tested from time 
to time in our history.
  As Members of the Senate, each of us stands in the well right over in 
that corner, raises our right hand, and swears to uphold and defend the 
Constitution of the United States. Those words are almost a cliche 
because they are used so often. Yet here today we are being called on 
to really reflect on that responsibility. We are called on to reflect 
on it because of things that have happened that have come to light in 
the last several days that raise serious constitutional questions.
  I will say that in the 2\1/2\ to 3 years that Donald Trump has been 
President of the United States, I think our Nation has been rocked by 
this President's approach to the highest office in the land. He has 
said things and done things no other President has ever done.
  Members of his own political party have been uncharacteristically 
silent when it comes to criticizing this President for his wrongdoing. 
The litany of things he has done is long and troubling. But there is 
one thing that we, as both political parties, need to maintain as the 
bedrock of this democracy, the bedrock of our commitment to this 
Constitution; that is, that in this Nation of the United States, the 
people govern.
  Ultimately, the people of the United States have the last word--in 
our elections. In those elections, they make their choices, whether you 
like them or not. I wasn't particularly enamored with the Presidential 
choice in 2016, but I accepted it as the constitutional verdict of the 
American people. It really is the bedrock of who we are and what we 
are. That is why the notion that some other nation would interfere in 
our election is so repugnant.
  The thought that the American people would not have the last word, 
that there would be other factors and other people, other countries 
engaged in our election, is as reprehensible under our Constitution as 
any concept I can think of.
  We are sworn to defend the Constitution of the United States against 
all enemies, foreign and domestic--another group of words we have heard 
over and over again. But reflecting on those for a moment--sworn to 
defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, 
foreign and domestic--is a nation that tries to interfere in our 
political process an enemy of the United States? Of course. That is 
obvious on its face. Those who would encourage a nation to be engaged 
in our political process, to try to tip the scales one way or the 
other, are they enemies of the United States? Well, they are certainly 
not acting consistent with that constitutional principle.
  This seems like a pretty straightforward constitutional 
interpretation. You don't need a Ph.D. or a law degree to understand, 
if a foreign country tries to interfere in the U.S. election process, 
that foreign country is an enemy in that action. Those who would 
encourage a foreign country or foreign agents to engage in our 
election, they, too, have crossed the line.
  As I consider the revelations that President Trump is using his 
office to extort Ukraine to support his political reelection campaign, 
I wonder why there is so much silence on the other side of the aisle. 
This is an outrageous development.
  Months before the 2016 election, our Nation's top intelligence 
officials told key congressional leaders about the efforts of Russia to 
interfere in the 2016 election, the election where the American people 
were choosing the President. Our top intelligence officials were 
understandably concerned. At that time, President Obama asked our 
congressional leaders for a bipartisan message condemning Vladimir 
Putin's efforts on behalf of Russia. President Obama wanted to make 
sure it was bipartisan before that 2016 election and showed a unified 
resistance to the interference by any foreign country in America's 
election process.
  What was the response of the Republican majority leader, Senator 
McConnell, after hearing this bombshell, this threat from a former 
Communist KGB official, Vladimir Putin, against America's democratic 
process of election? He answered that he didn't want to get involved, 
and he didn't.
  Then, for months after the election, not a single Republican Senator 
spoke on the Senate floor about the mounting and devastating evidence 
of Russia's attack on our election in 2016. I know that, personally, 
because the first casualty in that attack was the voter file of my 
State of Illinois. The Russians found a way, through their trolls, to 
get into the voter file of my home State, into the voting records of 
70,000 or more Americans who live in Illinois. What did they do with 
that information? It appears little or nothing, but they could have 
changed it, and they could have had a dramatic impact on the right of 
these American citizens to make their legitimate constitutional choice 
in the election.
  For months, the silence was deafening as well, as President Trump 
defended Vladimir Putin's brazen denials of these attacks. President 
Trump took the word of Vladimir Putin over that of his own American 
intelligence professionals. Senate Republicans blocked election 
security measure after election security measure, and despite finally 
relenting last week when Senator McConnell said we could come up with 
$250 million for election security grants, they still continue to block 
substantive legislation, despite ongoing attacks and U.S. 
vulnerability.
  The country spent much of the Trump Presidency asking serious, 
necessary questions about Candidate

[[Page S5639]]

Trump's open solicitation of Russian help in his Presidential campaign 
and if such cooperation actually ran deeper. While unable to establish 
a formal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians, in 
nearly 200 pages, the Mueller report described ``numerous links between 
the Russian government and the Trump Campaign.''
  The Mueller report also laid out, in detail, how the Russians 
brazenly and systematically interfered in our election in 2016 and 
tried to shape the outcome. You would think that after such a sobering 
set of findings, any American President would take the matter seriously 
and reassure the Nation that he really does put America, not a foreign 
power, first when it comes to our electoral process, but, no, shortly 
after the Mueller report was released, President Trump told ABC's 
George Stephanopoulos he would still accept a foreign government's 
offer to share damaging information about a political rival, echoing 
similar remarks he made in his original Presidential campaign.
  In short, President Trump learned nothing from the experience of the 
2016 election. The silence of my colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle seems to indicate the same.
  Now we have reports that President Trump is at it again, trying to 
strong-arm the leader of Ukraine to join him in attacking one of 
President Trump's political rivals, Joe Biden. It is not to advance 
American interests, not to serve the American people, not to help an 
ally in Ukraine, not to uphold American values but to serve the 
President's own reelection campaign interest.
  Last week, I offered an amendment in the Appropriations Committee to 
address $250 million which had been appropriated by Congress to help 
protect Ukraine from Russian aggression and was never released. Last 
Thursday, I had this amendment coming before the committee, and it 
basically said to the administration: If you don't release the money we 
have appropriated, you are going to pay a price for it.
  Occasionally, that is all you can do as a Member of Congress to get 
money spent that was appropriated and approved by the President. It was 
a curiosity. Why in the world were we holding back $250 million that 
was supposed to help the Ukrainian people stop the aggression of 
Vladimir Putin?
  I went to the committee hearing on Thursday morning. Before it 
started, one of my staff members said: Oh, the Trump administration 
released the money last night.
  Last night? Why did they wait until 2 weeks before the end of the 
fiscal year to release the money?
  Oh, they were reviewing this to determine whether there was any 
problem with releasing the money to Ukraine.
  It was a curious answer. It didn't make much sense. The President had 
signed this appropriations bill.
  For months, as President Trump, through his personal attorney Rudy 
Giuliani, tried to pressure Ukrainian President Zelensky to further his 
political agenda, the money that was supposed to go to Ukraine was 
withheld.
  We learned in this morning's Washington Post the President had 
instructed his Chief of Staff to notify the appropriate agencies to 
withhold the money while he bargained with Zelensky over salacious, 
negative information about Joseph Biden and his family.

  Now we are learning there was a whistleblower complaint, reportedly 
about the same issue. Apparently, someone in the administration who 
learned what President Trump was trying to do in strong-arming 
Ukrainian President Zelensky decided it overstepped the bounds and 
needed to be reported on officially. The congressional Intelligence 
Committees that get access to the information provided by this 
whistleblower are still waiting for that information--information the 
Trump-appointed inspector general for the intelligence community, 
Michael Atkinson, a Trump appointee, has determined to be credible and 
urgent. In other words, something happened at the highest levels of our 
government which led a professional in the intelligence agency, the 
inspector general, to make a whistleblower complaint for the record.
  The law requires that complaint to be shared with committees of 
Congress. It wasn't. It turns out that the Attorney General of the 
United States, William Barr, may have played some role in diverting 
that from its ordinary statutory course. The President may not want 
anyone to see it, but the law is clear and must be respected: This 
information in the whistleblower complaint must be transmitted to 
Congress.
  Is there anyone in the Senate, anyone who took the oath to protect 
the Nation against enemies foreign and domestic, who thinks any of us, 
regardless of political party, should solicit help from a foreign power 
to make sure we get elected or reelected?
  This abdication of responsibility by the other party is remarkable. I 
want to salute one Senator, and I hesitate to mention any direct 
reference to him, but one Senator on the Republican side who has spoken 
out. He understands the gravity of the situation, the constitutional 
issues at stake in this debate, and the fact that, ultimately, history 
must stand in judgment of all of us of whether we have spoken up.
  If this President of the United States can attempt to extort a 
foreign leader to withhold security funds that would have been given by 
the United States to his country in order to pursue and promote his own 
political agenda, we have reached a new low in the United States. If 
this whistleblower's claim goes into detail, it is only right and 
appropriate, under the statute, that this information be shared with 
the appropriate committees of the U.S. Senate and House. The 
whistleblower's claim needs to be released to the appropriate 
congressional committees and evaluated according to the law, and 
congressional Republicans--House and Senate--need to make it clear once 
and for all that no President--not this President, no President--can 
solicit or strong-arm a foreign country to further his own campaign. 
That is unacceptable under the Constitution of the United States, which 
I remind my colleagues we are sworn to uphold and defend.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Scott of Florida). The Senator from 
Hawaii.