[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 167 (Tuesday, October 22, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5952-S5960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5, 
   UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE INTERNAL REVENUE 
  SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, RELATING TO ``CONTRIBUTIONS IN 
               EXCHANGE FOR STATE OR LOCAL TAX CREDITS''

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I move to proceed to Calendar No. 258, 
S.J. Res. 50.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the motion.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       Motion to proceed to Calendar No. 258, S.J. Res. 50, 
     providing for Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of 
     Title 5, United States Code, of the Rule Submitted by the 
     Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, 
     Relating to ``Contributions in Exchange for State Or Local 
     Tax Credits''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the motion.
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. DURBIN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the joint resolution.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (S.J. Res. 50) providing for 
     Congressional Disapproval Under Chapter 8 of Title 5, United 
     States Code, of the Rule Submitted by the Internal Revenue 
     Service, Department of the Treasury, Relating to 
     ``Contributions in Exchange for State Or Local Tax Credits''.

  Thereupon, the Senate proceeded to consider the joint resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Pursuant to the provisions of the 
Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 802, there will now be up to 10 
hours of debate, equally divided between those favoring and those 
opposing the joint resolution.
  The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise today in support of H.R. 3055, which 
includes the fiscal year 2020 Transportation, Housing and Urban 
Development, and Related Agencies, or the T-HUD, Appropriations bill. I 
have worked closely with Chairman Collins, and I want to salute her for 
her excellent work and her leadership. This is a bipartisan bill, which 
includes key investments in transportation and housing infrastructure.
  It has not been an easy job, but Senator Collins' leadership and her 
thoughtful approach and our collaboration, I think, have helped us 
present a bill to the U.S. Senate which is more than worthy of support.
  While the budget agreement provided a 4 percent increase to our 
allocation, we actually have $1 billion less in spending power compared 
to 2019 due to declines in offsetting collections and increased costs 
for renewals in HUD's rental assistance program.
  Working together and with the input of most Senators, we were able to 
put together a solid bill that earned unanimous support in the 
committee. While we were challenged in developing this bipartisan bill, 
other subcommittees have faced an impossible task as the majority 
caters to the President's demands for a border wall and places no 
guardrails to prevent the diversion of defense funds to pay for it.
  This is the same issue that resulted in the President's 35-day 
shutdown of the Federal Government between December and January. I hope 
the President will heed the majority leader's axiom that ``there is no 
education in the second kick of a mule'' and avoid a rerun of this 
brinkmanship.
  The minibus package before us is a good start to a process that will 
hopefully deliver final bills to the President's desk before 
Thanksgiving. The T-HUD bill included in this package provides critical 
funding to repair our bridges, roads, and transit systems in order to 
improve the safety, reliability, and efficiency of our transportation 
networks. These investments will support economic growth, create jobs, 
and help to address our deferred maintenance backlog across all 
transportation sectors.
  It rejects the President's proposal to cut Amtrak funding in half and 
phase out long-distance passenger service. Instead, we provide $2 
billion for Amtrak, which will allow it to initiate the Northeast 
corridor fleet replacement, deploy additional safety technology, and 
invest in bridge and tunnel replacement projects.
  The T-HUD bill also prioritizes funding for aviation safety in order 
to strengthen the safety inspector workforce and enable the Department 
of Transportation and the FAA to address identified weaknesses in 
aircraft certification process. Chairman Collins and I have 
consistently worked to support FAA's safety mission, often exceeding 
the budget request each year to accomplish that.
  We have been disturbed by many of the official findings and 
unofficial reports concerning the 737 MAX certification and the culture 
at the FAA. As the FAA reassesses its aviation safety performance and 
priorities in response to the findings of the inspector general, the 
National Transportation Safety Board, and other inquiries, we will work 
to adjust funding to assist the agency in fully executing all official 
recommendations in a timely manner.
  I cannot emphasize enough the importance of enacting a full-year T-
HUD bill to help address the FAA's safety and operational demands. If 
we end up with a yearlong continuing resolution, we will have missed 
the opportunity to

[[Page S5953]]

respond based on what we have learned in the aftermath of the 
devastating 737 MAX crashes.
  It is also important to pass this bill because it upholds our 
longstanding commitment to make housing affordable for 5 million low-
income families and provides funding for innovative solutions to 
address homelessness among the more than half a million Americans who 
are without stable housing.
  We rejected the President's ill-advised proposals to cut $12 billion 
in affordable housing and community and economic development programs 
like HOME, CDBG, and Public Housing. These bipartisan programs are 
critical components to bridging the gap between stable housing and 
homelessness for so many working families.
  The bill also continues to invest in programs that prevent veterans' 
homelessness by rejecting the administration's proposal to eliminate 
the HUD-VASH Program. Instead, we provide $40 million for 1,500 new 
housing vouchers to help veterans gain access to safe and stable 
housing.
  This year, we were able to continue providing record funding to 
remediate lead-based paint and other environmental hazards in low-
income housing and expand these initiatives to our Nation's public 
housing.
  I am proud of the bill before us, and I want to work with my 
colleagues to consider amendments to make it even better. I encourage 
Senators to file amendments as soon as possible so we can continue to 
move this process forward.
  Before I conclude, let me compliment my colleagues who are managing 
the other bills that are included in this minibus package--Commerce, 
Justice, Science, Agriculture, and Interior. They have done excellent 
work in crafting their bills, supported, as always, by Chairman Shelby 
and Vice Chairman Leahy. I hope we can follow their example and move 
quickly to complete our work on all 12 appropriations bills before 
November 21.
  Finally, our efforts were immensely aided and assisted by a strong 
and dedicated staff at the T-HUD Committee. I recognize Clare Doherty 
for the majority counsel and Dabney Hegg for the minority counsel for 
their extraordinary work, which motivated their entire staff to go 
above and beyond. That is one of the major reasons today Senator 
Collins and I can stand with a very good bill to present to the U.S. 
Senate.
  With that, Mr. President, I would ask unanimous consent to make a 
presentation that was previously scheduled on another topic.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                                 Russia

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise to highlight my concerns about 
ongoing Russian information warfare operations against the American 
people, including the upcoming 2020 Presidential elections, the lack of 
a unified strategy from the administration to counter and deter these 
attacks, and steps that must be taken in the near term to be better 
prepared in the future.
  I will explain how statements by the President soliciting foreign 
governments to investigate political rivals for his personal benefit 
are part of a disturbing pattern of behavior that reinforces Russian 
disinformation narratives and has implications for our national 
security and the integrity of our democracy.
  It has been almost 3 years since Russia interfered in our democracy 
during the 2016 Presidential election with hybrid warfare and malign 
influence operations. These hybrid warfare tactics, including 
information warfare, which I will focus on today, are not simply 
opportunistic meddling by Russia. Russia's purpose is to further its 
strategic interests. Russian President Vladimir Putin knows that, for 
now, Russia cannot effectively compete with the United States through 
conventional military means and win.
  Instead, Putin seeks to use tools from his hybrid warfare arsenal to 
divide the United States from our allies and partners in the West and 
weaken our institutions and open societies from within. By weakening 
our democracy, Putin can strengthen Russia's perceived standing 
globally and bolster his autocratic grip on power at home.
  Similar to the other tools in its hybrid arsenal, Russia has been 
developing its information warfare playbook over time, enhancing both 
the technical and psychological aspects of these information operations 
in capability, sophistication, and boldness. Lessons learned from 
previous information warfare campaigns culminated in the attacks the 
Kremlin unleashed against the United States during the 2016 
Presidential election.
  The 2016 information warfare campaign, according to our intelligence 
community--in their words--``demonstrated a significant escalation in 
directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous 
operations.'' Special Counsel Mueller's report on Russian interference 
in the 2016 Presidential election confirmed these assessments and 
detailed how the Kremlin used information warfare operations, among 
other hybrid warfare tactics in--in the words of the Mueller report--
``sweeping and systematic fashion.''
  The recently released Volume 2 of the bipartisan investigation by the 
Senate Intelligence Committee on Russian active measures campaigns and 
interference in the 2016 U.S. election affirms both the intelligence 
community's assessment from January 2017 and the special counsel's 
investigation.
  The committee--again, on a bipartisan basis--concluded that, in their 
words, ``Russia's targeting of the 2016 U.S. presidential election was 
part of a broader, sophisticated, and ongoing information warfare 
campaign. . . .''
  From these assessments and reports, we have been able to reveal 
aspects of the Kremlin's playbook. In the 2018 midterm elections, the 
government took steps, in coordination with the social media companies, 
to disrupt Kremlin and Kremlin-linked information warfare operations. 
As a nation, we have never undertaken a collective examination, as we 
did after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, to understand 
what happened and how we should reorganize ourselves, our government, 
and our society to prevent it from ever happening again.
  To make matters worse, the findings of the special counsel's report, 
a detailed accounting of how Kremlin and Kremlin-linked actors attacked 
our democracy, have been obfuscated with a partisan spin by President 
Trump and his allies. This absence of a comprehensive nonpartisan 
assessment and the President's lack of seriousness has implications for 
our national security as we prepare for the 2020 elections.
  Equally troubling, the President has consciously or unconsciously 
embraced themes peddled as part of Russia's information warfare 
operations on the campaign trail, while serving as President, including 
comments over the summer that our elections are rigged and that there 
were illegal votes cast in so-called ``blue'' States.
  Not only does the President give the impression that he is unbothered 
by this interference of 2016, he appears to be openly asking for help 
in 2020 and willing to leverage the power of his office to get that 
assistance. You only have to look as far as his phone conversation with 
the Ukrainian President where he asked for a favor in return for the 
delivery of defensive weapons to counter Russian aggression or the 
President publicly inviting China to start an investigation into the 
Biden family moments after he discussed trade talks with Beijing and 
threatened that ``if they don't do what we want, we have tremendous 
power.'' He told the world as much in a June interview with ABC News 
when he said that he doesn't see anything wrong with taking help for 
his political campaign, including from a foreign adversary. He is 
broadcasting to the world that he is willing to throw the interests of 
the United States overboard if it means helping with his reelection 
prospects.
  These statements also have the intended or unintended effect of 
furthering Russian disinformation campaigns, including that our 
democracy is corrupt or fraudulent. These incidents and others I will 
discuss today are part of a troubling pattern of behavior and must be 
called out for what they are. They are wrong.
  The President's troubling behavior, coupled with his inability or 
unwillingness to lead an effective policy to counter and deter this 
type of malign foreign influence, is to the peril of our national 
security and the integrity of our democracy. We cannot allow this 
course to continue uncorrected.
  In order to further understand these dynamics and what to do to 
counter

[[Page S5954]]

them, I will highlight three aspects of the Russian information warfare 
playbook that we can anticipate will be deployed in 2020. The first 
aspect is supporting candidates likely to advance Kremlin strategic 
interests; the second aspect is undermining the credibility of the 
elections; and the third aspect is the recruiting of local surrogates 
to wittingly or unwittingly advance the Kremlin's agenda.
  For each aspect, I will also explain how the Trump campaign, 
wittingly or not, embraced that tactic. I will then offer four 
recommendations for near-term steps to defend ourselves from foreign 
adversaries who seek to interfere with our fundamental institutions.
  A central objective of Russian election interference efforts is 
supporting candidates that advance Kremlin strategic interests. For the 
2016 Presidential election, Russia assessed that a Trump Presidency 
would advance their interests, and Kremlin and Kremlin-linked actors 
deployed information warfare and malign influence campaigns to aid 
then-Candidate Trump.
  The intelligence community unanimously assessed in January 2017--
again in their words--``Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 
aimed at the U.S. Presidential election to denigrate Secretary Clinton 
and harm her electability and potential Presidency. Putin and the 
Russian government developed a clear preference for President-elect 
Trump.''
  The recent report by the Senate Intelligence Committee--again, on a 
bipartisan basis--arrived at the even stronger conclusion that the 
Kremlin-linked troll organization's ``social media activity was overtly 
and almost invariably supportive of then candidate Trump, and to the 
detriment of Secretary Clinton's campaign.''
  Similarly, the special counsel's report confirmed that Russian 
operations aimed to bolster their favored candidate, concluding that 
``[t]he Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump 
Presidency and worked to secure that outcome.'' The report described in 
detail how Russia's two main information warfare operations--the 
manipulation of social media and the hacking and dissemination of 
stolen information--``favored Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump 
and disparaged Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.''
  With regard to the manipulation of social media, the February 2018 
indictment by the special counsel of the Kremlin-linked troll 
organization, commonly known as the Internet Research Agency, provided 
additional evidence of how operations aimed to bolster specific 
candidates. The indictment showed Kremlin-linked trolls were instructed 
to ``use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except 
Sanders and Trump--we support them).''
  The other main Russian information warfare effort was carried out by 
the Russian military intelligence units, or GRU, which stole private 
information and disseminated it, including on social media, to damage 
Secretary Clinton.
  The Senate Intelligence Committee's recent report confirmed this 
tactic, assessing that ``information acquired by the committee from 
intelligence oversight, social media companies, the special counsel's 
investigative findings, and research by the commercial cyber security 
companies all reflect the Russian government's use of GRU to carry out 
another vector of attack on the 2016 election: the dissemination of 
hacked materials.''
  One of the ways that the GRU was able to amplify its ability to 
disseminate the hacked material was by collaborating with WikiLeaks. 
The special counsel's report found that ``in order to expand its 
interference in the 2016 presidential election, the GRU units 
transferred many of the documents they stole from the [Democratic 
National Committee, or the] DNC, and the chairman of the Clinton 
campaign to WikiLeaks.''
  It must be noted that the special counsel, as well as our 
intelligence community, have established that the organization 
WikiLeaks was not just acting as an unwitting stooge for the Russians. 
WikiLeaks had a role in the amplification of these information warfare 
operations. The special counsel's indictment from July of 2018 stated 
that GRU officers, posing as the fake persona Guccifer 2.0 ``discussed 
the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases'' 
with WikiLeaks ``to heighten their impact on the 2016 Presidential 
election.'' The special counsel's report further described how ``as 
reports attributing the DNC and DCCC hacks to the Russian Government 
emerged, WikiLeaks and [WikiLeaks founder Julian] Assange made several 
public statements designed to obscure the source of the materials that 
WikiLeaks was releasing.'' The weaponization of this information stolen 
by the GRU units through WikiLeaks was an important aspect of the 
Kremlin's support to then-Candidate Trump and heightened the impact of 
these operations against our elections.
  The special counsel's report detailed a third line of effort to 
advance Russia's preferred candidate. The information warfare campaigns 
were conducted in coordination with outreach to the Trump campaign from 
Kremlin and Kremlin-linked individuals. These overtures included 
``offers of assistance to the [Trump] campaign.'' That is a quote from 
the special counsel's report.
  In contrast, the special counsel's office found no parallel efforts 
of assistance directed toward Secretary Clinton's Presidential campaign 
and, in fact, found the opposite. With regard to the manipulation of 
social media by Kremlin-linked trolls, the special counsel's report 
stated that ``by February 2016 internal [Internet Research Agency] 
documents referred to support for the Trump Campaign and opposition to 
candidate Clinton,'' and further states that ``throughout 2016 the 
[Internet Research Agency] accounts published an increasing number of 
materials supporting the Trump Campaign and opposing the Clinton 
Campaign.'' The special counsel's February 2018 indictment of the 
Internet Research Agency described additional efforts to oppose the 
Clinton campaign, including information warfare campaigns across social 
media platforms designed to peel off certain groups that are 
traditionally identified as reliable Democratic Party voters. The 
indictment stated: ``In or around the latter half of 2016, the 
[Internet Research Agency] began to encourage U.S. minority groups not 
to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or to vote for a third 
party presidential candidate.'' The recent Senate Intelligence 
Committee report also affirmed this finding, concluding that no single 
group was targeted more than African Americans.
  Let me emphasize again that this Senate report was a bipartisan 
effort.
  President Putin all but confirmed support for the Trump campaign 
while standing next to the President in July of 2018 at the Helsinki 
Summit. When asked by the press if he wanted Trump to win the election 
and whether he directed any Kremlin officials to help with these 
efforts, Putin replied: ``Yes, I did, because he talked about bringing 
the U.S. Russia relationship back to normal.'' I think in this 
instance--and I think it is rare--we should take Putin's word for it.
  Equally disturbing, the special counsel provided significant evidence 
that President Trump and his associates embraced, encouraged, and 
applauded Russian support. The special counsel's report definitively 
concludes that Russia saw its interests as aligned with and served by a 
Trump Presidency, that the central purpose of the Russian interference 
operations was helping the Trump campaign, and that the Trump campaign 
anticipated benefiting from the fruits of that foreign election 
interference.
  The special counsel's report detailed evidence showing how Trump 
embraced Russian information warfare campaigns that sought to help him 
and damage his opponent. The evidence is overwhelming that the Trump 
campaign encouraged this interference in the Presidential campaign, 
even as it became increasingly apparent that Russia was behind these 
attacks on our democracy.
  One example of embracing Kremlin and Kremlin-linked help is Trump 
campaign associates, including the President's son-in-law and then-
campaign chairman, meeting with Russian agents in the hopes of getting 
dirt on Secretary Clinton. The email to set up the meeting to Donald 
Trump, Jr., held the Kremlin's intentions plain as day. The offer was, 
and I quote, ``to provide the Trump campaign with some official 
documents and information that would

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incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be useful to 
your father'' as ``part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. 
Trump.'' Trump Junior embraced this offer and responded that, quote, 
``if it's what you say, I love it.'' I think that response from the 
President's son speaks for itself.
  Yet another example of this behavior was the Trump campaign's 
promotion of WikiLeaks releases of information stolen by GRU. The 
special counsel's investigation showed that ``the Presidential campaign 
showed interest in the WikiLeaks releases of documents and welcomed 
their potential damage to candidate Clinton.''
  On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported that ``Russian 
government hackers'' were behind the hacking of the DNC and DCCC. So it 
was likely that as of mid-June of 2016 the Trump campaign had a good 
idea that the stolen information distributed by WikiLeaks about the DNC 
was stolen by Russia. The Mueller report described that ``by the late 
summer of 2016, the Trump Campaign was planning a press strategy, a 
communications campaign and messaging based on the possible release of 
Clinton emails by WikiLeaks.'' By October 7, the Department of Homeland 
Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued 
a joint statement naming the WikiLeaks disclosures as ``consistent with 
the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts'' to influence 
public opinion and were ``intended to interfere with the U.S. election 
process.'' If not prior to the release of that joint statement, 
certainly by that point, the President's campaign should have known 
better. Instead, they appeared willing to embrace the Russian 
information warfare campaigns aimed at damaging their opponent.
  The special counsel's January indictment of longtime Trump associate 
Roger Stone further details how Trump associates sought information 
about WikiLeaks releases of stolen materials intended to damage 
Secretary Clinton. That indictment stated: ``A senior Trump campaign 
official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases 
and . . . other damaging information [WikiLeaks] had regarding the 
Clinton campaign.'' That indictment also showed that on October 7, 
2016--a half-hour after the joint statement by DHS and ODNI that 
WikiLeaks was part of Russia's operation to interfere with U.S. 
Presidential elections--WikiLeaks disseminated the first set of emails 
from Clinton chairman John Podesta. In response to those releases, ``an 
associate of the high-ranking Trump campaign official sent a text 
message to Stone that read `well done.' '' Trump campaign associates 
applauded the actions by WikiLeaks, which Trump's then-CIA Director 
later labeled ``a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted 
by state actors like Russia.'' Instead of calling the FBI, the campaign 
celebrated. In the last month of the campaign alone, the President 
publicly boasted of his love of WikiLeaks at least 124 times.

  Embracing WikiLeaks is not the only example of the President's 
problematic embrace of Russian information warfare operations. The 
President appears to have welcomed the GRU's hacking operation and its 
intention to damage his opponent's candidacy. On July 27, 2016, Trump 
announced publicly during a press conference:

       Russia, if you are listening, I hope you're able to find 
     the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will be 
     rewarded mightily by our press.

  The special counsel's report confirmed that the GRU tried to assist 
Trump with those efforts, finding that ``within approximately five 
hours of Trump's statement, GRU officers targeted for the first time 
Clinton's personal office.''
  This call for Russia to hack his political opponent and find her so-
called deleted emails was not an isolated remark or sarcasm, as the 
President likes to say. The special counsel's report detailed that 
during the same period:

       Trump asked individuals affiliated with his campaign to 
     find the deleted emails. Michael Flynn . . . recalled that 
     Trump made this request repeatedly and Flynn subsequently 
     contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.

  Further, as described in the special counsel's report, one of the 
people General Flynn contacted to obtain Secretary Clinton's alleged 
deleted emails claimed that he had organized meetings with parties whom 
he believed ``had ties and affiliations with Russia,'' though the 
special counsel's investigation was not able to establish that Flynn's 
contacts interacted with Kremlin-linked hackers. As Brookings 
Institution senior fellow Benjamin Wittes laid out in April, Trump 
``not only called publicly on the Russians to deliver the dirt on his 
opponent but he also privately ordered his campaign to seek the 
material out . . . knowing . . . that Russia would or might be the 
source.''
  As I mentioned earlier, the special counsel was not able to find 
sufficient evidence to prove that the Trump campaign's embracing of 
Kremlin or Kremlin-linked operations constituted a crime beyond a 
reasonable doubt, but, clearly, the special counsel established a 
breadth of episodes where Trump embraced Russian operations in support 
of the campaign. Maybe those acts don't meet a criminal standard, but 
there are significant implications for this behavior. For instance, is 
it OK for a candidate to get elected President or elected to any public 
office by capitalizing on information stolen by a foreign adversary? 
Will that be acceptable the next time around? Will foreign campaigns 
targeting our elections be accepted as normal from now on? The actions 
of President Trump indicate, unfortunately, that it is acceptable and 
even welcome, and that is to the detriment of our national security and 
the integrity of our democracy.
  I would like now to highlight a second aspect of the Kremlin's 
playbook, operations to denigrate the legitimacy of U.S. elections and 
democratic processes in general. The January 2017 intelligence 
community assessment found that one of the main objectives of the 
Kremlin-ordered election interference campaign was to undermine the 
American public's faith in our electoral system. The intelligence 
community's assessed in January 2017: ``When it appeared to Moscow that 
Secretary Clinton was likely to win the presidency, the Russian 
influence campaign focused more on undercutting Secretary Clinton's 
legitimacy . . . including by impugning the fairness of the election.'' 
The intelligence community's assessment further stated that ``Pro-
Kremlin bloggers had prepared a Twitter campaign, #DemocracyRIP, on 
election night in anticipation of Secretary Clinton's victory.''
  The special counsel's work confirmed the intelligence community's 
assessment. The Mueller report showed significant evidence of how the 
Kremlin-linked troll organization the Internet Research Agency deployed 
information operations around the theme that the election was rigged, 
fraudulent, or otherwise corrupt. The special counsel's indictment of 
Internet Research Agency officials from February 2018 stated: 
``Starting in or around the summer of 2016, [the Kremlin-linked troll 
organization] also began to promote allegations of voter fraud by the 
Democratic Party through their fictitious U.S. personas and groups on 
social media.'' The Kremlin-linked troll organization purchased 
advertisements on Facebook to further promote allegations of vote 
rigging, including ads promoting a Facebook post that charged ``Hillary 
Clinton has already committed voter fraud during the Democratic Iowa 
Caucus.'' Other examples include posts that voter fraud allegations 
were being investigated in North Carolina on the Internet Research 
Agency's fraudulent Twitter account @TEN_GOP, which claimed to be the 
Tennessee Republican Party. Just days before the election, the agency 
used the same fraudulent Twitter handle to push the message 
``#VoterFraud by counting tens of thousands of ineligible mail in 
Hillary votes being reported in Broward County, Florida.''
  Consciously or unconsciously, President Trump also embraced this 
tactic from the Russian information warfare playbook and ran with it. 
According to a New York Times compilation, Trump tweeted at least 28 
times during the 2016 Presidential campaign that the election, the 
electoral process, or certain early voting procedures were rigged, 
fraudulent, and corrupt. Let me give you a few examples. On August 1, 
2016, Trump told a rally in Ohio: ``I'm afraid the election is going to 
be rigged, I have to be honest.'' On September 6, 2016, he stated: 
``The only

[[Page S5956]]

way I can lose in my opinion . . . is if cheating goes on . . . go down 
to certain areas and study [to] make sure that other people don't come 
in and vote five times.'' Multiple press reports indicate that Trump's 
campaign website invited supporters to serve as ``Trump election 
observers'' to help him ``stop crooked Hilary from rigging the 
election.'' At the final debate on October 19, 2016, Trump indicated he 
would not necessarily accept the results of the election, instead 
saying he would ``look at it at that time,'' alleging ``millions of 
people'' on the voter rolls ``shouldn't be registered to vote.''

  At an Ohio rally the next day, Trump alleged that Secretary Clinton 
``is a candidate who is truly capable of anything, including voter 
fraud.'' On October 21, 2016, Trump told a rally in Pennsylvania:

       Remember, folks, it is a rigged system. That's why you've 
     got to get out and vote. You've got to watch. Because this 
     system is totally rigged.

  In these instances and others, Trump furthered the Kremlin's 
disinformation campaign by embracing and promoting the themes that our 
democratic system was rigged. As New Yorker journalist Jonathan Blitzer 
observed at that time, ``Trump has taken . . . [the voter fraud] 
concept to the extreme: trying to delegitimize a national election even 
while campaigning for the presidency.''
  It is wildly irresponsible to push conspiracy theories that threaten 
the integrity of our democratic system without any evidence. It is 
wrong when a candidate for President pushes conspiracy theories that 
advance a central theme of the Russian information warfare campaign 
that our electoral system is ``rigged'' and aids key strategic 
objectives of the Kremlin. These tactics also undermine the American 
public's faith in our electoral system and strengthen Putin's position 
in the strategic competition between the United States and Russia. It 
is unpatriotic and cannot be accepted as part of our democracy and open 
society.
  The mere idea that our entire election system would be attacked by 
the Russians to delegitimize it, and then to have those efforts echoed 
by the President does a huge disservice to the American public. If the 
American public does not have faith in the integrity of our electoral 
system, then we have profoundly lost a fundamental principle of our 
government that thousands of Americans have defended over years and 
years of effort. Our elections have to be protected. They can't be 
denigrated. The denigration that we saw was outrageous.
  These two aspects of the Kremlin's playbook are supported by a third 
aspect--the recruitment and exploitation of local surrogates. This 
process was described in an amicus brief from December 2017 filed 
against President Trump by former national security officials, 
including Director of National Intelligence Clapper, CIA and NSA 
Director Hayden, CIA Director Brennan, and Acting CIA Director Morell. 
The brief stated:

       The Russian Government continues to use local actors in a 
     number of ways, [including] to get closer to a target 
     (especially one who would be hesitant to offer assistance to 
     Russian operatives directly), or manipulate a target to suit 
     their needs. They use these agents to probe individual 
     targets to see if they might be open to relationships or 
     blackmail. And they recruit individuals within a country to 
     help them understand how to appeal to U.S. populations and 
     target and shape the contours of disinformation campaigns.

  The recent Senate Intelligence Committee report affirmed these 
tactics, explaining: ``Russian backed trolls pushing disinformation 
have also sought to connect with and potentially coopt individuals to 
take action in the real world.''
  The special counsel's report described how the Kremlin and Kremlin-
linked actors deployed these tactics in the United States to interfere 
in the 2016 election, including:

       As early as 2014, the [Internet Research Agency] instructed 
     its employees to target U.S. persons to advance its 
     operational goals. Initially, recruitment focused on U.S. 
     persons who could amplify content posted by the [Internet 
     Research Agency].

  However, the activities that the Kremlin-troll agency, wittingly or 
unwittingly, used Americans for grew over time to include assistance 
with organizing pro-Trump rallies and demonstrations. The special 
counsel's related indictment of the Internet Research Agency officials 
stated that by late August 2016, the Internet Research Agency had an 
internal list ``of over 100 real U.S. persons contacted through 
[Internet Research Agency]-controlled false U.S. persona accounts and 
tracked to monitor recruitment efforts and requests.'' These efforts to 
exploit local surrogates included two different types of interactions 
with the Trump campaign according to the special counsel--reposting 
Kremlin-linked troll content from social media and requests for 
assistance with organizing political rallies.
  This aspect of the Kremlin playbook--recruitment and exploitation of 
local surrogates--was also embraced, consciously or unconsciously, by 
the President and his inner circle. The special counsel's report 
detailed how Trump's family and campaign associates retweeted Kremlin-
linked troll organization posts, amplifying a foreign adversary's 
information warfare campaign against our Presidential election. The 
special counsel found: ``Posts from the [Internet Research Agency]-
controlled Twitter account @TEN_GOP were cited or retweeted by multiple 
Trump campaign officials and surrogates, including Donald J. Trump Jr, 
Eric Trump, Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale, and Michael T. Flynn.'' 
The posts these campaign surrogates cited or retweeted included two 
other aspects of the information warfare campaign--accusations to 
damage Secretary Clinton's campaign and allegations of voter fraud.
  With regards to this aspect, as well, the special counsel did not 
conclude there was enough evidence to establish that the embrace and 
amplification of these information warfare operations was willful 
coordination by the Trump campaign amounting to a criminal conspiracy. 
It may well be that the President and the people around him didn't know 
that at @TEN_GOP wasn't the Tennessee Republican Party but was, in 
fact, Russian trolls thousands of miles away, fraudulently pumping 
disinformation into our system. However, it still shows a willingness 
to embrace for partisan advantage baseless, unsubstantiated allegations 
from unknown sources threatening the very fabric of our democracy--
claims we know now were ginned up by a foreign adversary. It may not be 
criminal, but it is incredibly reckless and wrong. It is not the 
standard of conduct we should demand from someone seeking political 
office and the public trust that goes with that office. Again, this is 
part of a troubling pattern of behavior by the President.
  Equally important, the election of a President who consciously or 
unconsciously embraces the tactics of foreign disinformation operations 
has implications for our national security and that of our allies and 
partners. As Benjamin Wittes from the Brookings Institution assessed, 
that the Internet Research Agency, a Kremlin-linked troll organization, 
``was able to . . . get Trump figures--including Trump himself--to 
engage with and promote social-media content as part of a hostile 
power's covert efforts to influence the American electorate . . . shows 
a troubling degree of vulnerability on the part of the U.S. political 
system to outside influence campaigns.

  Now, unfortunately, we can anticipate that these aspects of the 
playbook will continue and escalate in sophistication and scale in 
2020. The 2016 election was not just a one-off operation for the 
Kremlin. As then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned, 
Russia's malign activities ``are persistent, they are pervasive, and 
they are meant to undermine America's democracy.''
  FBI Director Chris Wray also emphasized similar concerns during his 
spring speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, stating that the 
threat from Russian foreign malign influence ``is not just an election 
cycle threat; it's pretty much a 365-days-a-year threat.'' Director 
Wray further warned that ``our adversaries are going to keep adapting 
and upping their game.''
  The intelligence community assessed in January 2017 that the campaign 
against us represented a ``new normal'' in Russian influence efforts in 
which ``Moscow will apply lessons learned from its campaign aimed at 
the U.S. presidential elections to future influence efforts in the U.S. 
and worldwide.''

[[Page S5957]]

  The recent Senate Intelligence Committee's report concluded that 
information warfare attacks in 2016 ``represent only the latest 
installment in an increasingly brazen interference by the Kremlin on 
citizens and democratic institutions of the United States.'' And 
Director Mueller told the House Intelligence Committee in July that 
Russian interference ``wasn't a single attempt. They're doing it as we 
sit here.''
  This interference has only increased in sophistication as the 
Russians used lessons learned from tactics developed in the Kremlin 
playbook in 2016. We saw Kremlin and Kremlin-linked actors deploy 
information warfare campaigns designed to advance their preferred 
candidates in the 2018 elections.
  An October 2018 Department of Justice indictment from the Eastern 
District of Virginia detailed information warfare operations in 2017 
and 2018 by the Internet Research Agency leveraged to promote 
candidates aligned with President Trump and denigrate candidates 
opposed to him, including anti-Trump Republicans. These operations 
demonstrated a high level of precision and specificity in messaging for 
the Agency's employees to deploy, including references to relevant news 
articles and topical items of the day to optimally promote Russia's 
candidates and causes of choice.
  For example, the indictment cited how managers of the Internet 
Research Agency provided employees a news article titled ``Civil War if 
Trump Taken Down'' and instructed them to use their fraudulent personas 
to ``[n]ame those who oppose the President and those who impede his 
efforts to implement his preelection promises.'' One of the targets of 
these efforts was anti-Trump Republicans. The trolling instructions 
included detailed talking points to deploy over social media platforms, 
including ``focus on the fact that the Anti-Trump Republicans: a) drag 
their feet with regard to financing the construction of the border 
wall; b) are not lowering taxes; c) slander Trump and harm his 
reputation (bring up McCain); d) do not want to cancel ObamaCare; e) 
are not in a hurry to adopt laws that oppose the refugees coming from 
Middle Eastern countries entering this country.''
  This information warfare operation was designed to support the 
President and detailed a sophisticated campaign deployed against an 
unwitting American public by trolls pretending to be fellow citizens. 
As national security journalist Natasha Bertrand wrote in The Atlantic 
about the 2018 information warfare campaigns detailed in the Eastern 
District's indictment, ``[t]he messaging strategy mimicked the 
overheated rhetoric . . . that [the Internet Research Agency] employed 
to considerable effect during the Presidential election. The partisan--
and at times hateful--comments so artfully mimicked the daily back and 
forth on social media that they seemed to be those of real Americans.''
  She also observed how these messages supported the President, noting 
that ``[a]t times, the messaging copied President Trump's bombast 
almost verbatim'' and ``the echo chamber between Trump's election 
rhetoric and that of the Russian trolls was striking.''
  And the Russian information operations were not limited only to 
supporting President Trump. The Eastern District of Virginia indictment 
also showed how the Kremlin-linked troll organization worked to advance 
Republican challengers of several congressional races through a 
fraudulent Twitter account called @CovfefeNationUS, which encouraged 
readers to contribute to a political action committee seeking to defeat 
incumbent Democratic Senators and Representatives in the 2018 midterm 
election. These operations demonstrated a sophisticated understanding 
of the American political system.
  We also saw evidence from the 2018 midterms of a second tactic from 
the Kremlin's playbook that I discussed earlier, attacking the 
legitimacy of the election, which is a fundamental attack on the 
democracy of this country--the ethic that holds us together. Here, too, 
the operation evolved in sophistication. In the same indictment, the 
Eastern District of Virginia described information warfare operations 
that worked to undermine the legitimacy of the U.S. election, with 
specific messages for its employees to disseminate. One example from 
the indictment was instructions for the Russian Internet Research 
Agency's employees to cite specific online articles on voter fraud. The 
Kremlin-linked trolls were told the state in deployed messages:

       Remind that the majority of ``blue States'' have no voter 
     IDs, which suggests that large scale falsifications are bound 
     to be happening there. . . . Democrats in the coming election 
     will surely attempt to falsify the results.

  The indictment also detailed how these information warfare campaigns 
were deployed across multiple platforms, including being pushed out 
using multiple fraudulent Twitter accounts to reinforce and amplify 
their message.
  Finally, we saw the continuation of a third aspect of the Russian 
playbook, the recruitment of local surrogates to advance Kremlin 
interests with the 2018 election. As the Eastern Virginia's indictment 
states, between March 2016 and around July 2017, ``while concealing its 
true identity, location, and purpose, the [Kremlin-linked troll 
organization] used the false U.S. persona `Helen Christopherson' to 
contact individuals and groups in the United States to promote 
protests, rallies, and marches, including by funding advertising, 
flyers, and rallies and supplies.''
  The indictment further details how the Kremlin-linked troll 
organization used a different fake persona ``while concealing its true 
identity, location, and purpose, to solicit at least one person 
presumed to be located in the United States to assist with . . . social 
media activities.'' These efforts to recruit surrogates included 
posting on and managing content on a fraudulent Facebook page created 
specially to further a Russian information warfare campaign.
  As we have been warned, these operations will continue to look more 
American, and the Kremlin and Kremlin-linked agents will continue to 
try to recruit people in the United States to advance Russia's hybrid 
operations.
  Many of the President's national security officials have warned that 
we could see heightened Russian information warfare attacks and other 
influence operations in the 2020 elections. Even before the 2018 
midterm elections, Christopher Krebs, Homeland Security's Cybersecurity 
and Infrastructure Security Agency Director, warned:

       The midterm is . . . just the warm-up, or the exhibition 
     game. . . . The big game, we think, for adversaries is 
     probably 2020.

  FBI Director Wray echoed that assessment, stating this spring that 
the ``2018 elections were seen as a dress rehearsal for the big show in 
2020`` and that the FBI anticipates the 2020 threat being even more 
challenging.
  Former Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats testified to 
the Senate Intelligence Committee in late January: ``Moscow may employ 
additional influence toolkits--such as spreading disinformation, 
conducting hack-and-leak operations, or manipulating data--in a more 
targeted fashion to influence U.S. policy, actions, and elections.''
  There are several examples which further demonstrate how these 
efforts have become more sophisticated and pervasive. In 2016, Russia 
disseminated what turned out to be authentic stolen information. 
However, just a few months later, during the French Presidential 
elections, Kremlin and Kremlin-linked actors disseminated a mix of real 
and fake information about Presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron in 
order to damage him and bolster their preferred candidate, Marine Le 
Pen. So next time foreign adversaries may use a mixture of real and 
fake information as part of their influence operations.
  We already saw a multi-country, multi-language information warfare 
campaign uncovered by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research 
Lab that made use of ``fake accounts, forged documents, and dozens of 
online platforms to spread stories that attacked western interests and 
unity.''
  It may also be harder to discern what is real and what is fake 
because it is more likely to look like it is coming from regular 
Americans who are concerned about an issue. In February 2018, Russia 
expert Heather Conley warned in testimony before the Senate Armed 
Services Subcommittee on Cybersecurity that Russian information warfare 
campaigns in 2018 and 2020 will adapt and ``look more American, [and] 
it will look less Russian.''
  In addition, new technologies, including the use of artificial 
intelligence

[[Page S5958]]

and deepfake recordings that seem real but are actually doctored or 
entirely fabricated, will add an additional layer of complexity and 
make it easier for us to fall for these operations. As then-Director of 
National Intelligence Dan Coats testified to the Senate Intelligence 
Committee in late January, ``Adversaries and strategic competitors 
probably will attempt to use deep fakes or similar machine-learning 
technologies to create convincing but false image, audio, and video 
files to augment influence campaigns directed against the United States 
and our allies and partners.''
  Despite these assessments by our senior national security officials 
and our intelligence community, the voluminous evidence in the special 
counsel's indictments and report, additional indictments from the 
Department of Justice, and bipartisan reports from the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, the President appears unwilling or unable to 
recognize the urgency of this national security threat or the need to 
immediately implement a comprehensive strategy to counter and deter 
Russian hybrid warfare. Instead of alerting Americans to the threat, 
the President continues to ignore the analysis of his own intelligence 
agencies. Instead of leading efforts to deter foreign adversaries, the 
President, with the whole world watching at the July 2019 G20 Osaka 
summit, treated election interference as a joke, signaling to Putin 
that he would not hold Russia accountable.
  This doesn't only apply to past Russian interference in the 2016 
election. The President's blind spot when it comes to Russian election 
interference is harming our ability to counter future interference. The 
New York Times reported in April that former Homeland Security 
Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was told not to bring up the issue with the 
President of expected Russian interference in the 2020 election. Acting 
Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said it ``wasn't a great subject and 
should be kept below [the President's] level.''
  The President's unwillingness to accept Russian interference and his 
public statements inviting other countries to interfere in future 
elections have created real impediments to formulating a whole-of-
government and a whole-of-society strategy to counter and deter Russia 
or others from attacking our elections. Despite almost 3 years having 
passed since the 2016 election, the White House has not led efforts to 
develop a comprehensive strategy to counter foreign election 
interference. While, as I mentioned, individual U.S. Departments and 
agencies took steps to disrupt Russia in the 2018 midterm elections, no 
wholesale strategy to deter and counter these operations appears to 
have been implemented for 2020.
  Don't just take my word for it. Then-European Commander General 
Curtis Scaparrotti, who was on the frontlines in deterring Russia, 
testified this spring to the Senate Committee on Armed Services that 
U.S. efforts to counter Russian influence operations still lacked 
``effective unification across the interagency.'' Equally troubling was 
his assessment that the United States has yet to develop ``a 
multifaceted strategy to counter Russia.''
  When FBI Director Christopher Wray testified in May before the Senate 
Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related 
Agencies, he could not identify a lead person who was designated to 
coordinate these efforts. This is despite a provision included in the 
fiscal year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act requiring the 
President to designate an NSC official to be in charge of coordinating 
the U.S. Government response to malign foreign influence operations. To 
date, no such coordinator has been named. Moreover, the cybersecurity 
coordinator at the NSC was dismissed over a year and a half ago, and 
that position remains unfilled. So, at the highest levels, we don't 
have anyone in charge.
  What additional steps can we take right now to protect the American 
people against interference campaigns by the Russians and other foreign 
adversaries--campaigns we know are coming ahead of the 2020 elections?
  In the near term, I believe we must immediately adopt several 
measures that would provide additional tools to detect these 
information warfare operations and help reduce the American people's 
vulnerability to them. We have no time to waste.
  First, we must designate the Secretary of Homeland Security, with the 
concurrence of the Director of National Intelligence and the FBI 
Director, with the responsibility for increasing public vigilance and 
reassuring the American people about the legitimacy and validity of our 
elections.
  This group of senior officials should be organized to detect foreign 
interference in our political process and expose malign behavior, 
including on social media. In the run-up to the election, this group 
must issue monthly public reports--with a classified annex, if 
necessary--showing top trends in malign influence campaigns from 
countries identified as posing the greatest threats. They also must 
provide a public assessment as to whether these countries are engaged 
in interference in our election 90 days prior to election day and again 
30 days out. Making such an assessment a requirement and including a 
delivery date will help inoculate these assessments from questions 
about political bias.
  Even after election day, we need to make sure this group is poised to 
affirm the legitimacy of the democratic process. No less than 3 days 
after the election, it must also make an assessment to the maximum 
extent possible as to whether foreign interference was detected. To 
further protect the group from accusations of political bias, the spot 
assessment could be backed up by a neutral, nonpartisan panel, which 
would review and certify the government's assessment in short order, 
such as within 2 weeks.
  These types of public assessments are not unprecedented. As I 
mentioned earlier, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 
and the Department of Homeland Security made an announcement about 
Russian influence operations ahead of the 2016 election. Ahead of the 
2018 midterm elections, the Director of National Intelligence, the 
Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security 
made a public statement about foreign influence, and the President 
issued an Executive order regarding election interference ahead of the 
2018 midterm elections, which requires a 45-day report after the 
election that assesses attacks from foreign adversaries. Yet these 
sporadic statements are not enough to reassure the American people, and 
a report 45 days after the election is much too long to wait. The 
public must know that this group is going to keep us informed in real 
time and issue warnings regarding the threats.
  Much of this idea was endorsed as a recommendation in the recent 
bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee's report, which called for the 
executive branch to stand up a task force to continually monitor and 
assess the use of social media platforms by foreign countries for 
``democratic interference'' that, among other things, would 
``periodically advise Congress and the public on its findings.''
  Second, we need a better understanding of how the Kremlin and other 
foreign adversaries are deploying disinformation and foreign influence 
operations across social media platforms. Right now, we are depending 
on social media companies to take down unauthentic accounts that are 
engaged in malign influence activities. These companies have stepped up 
their efforts to identify and counter these activities, which is 
something they failed to do in the 2016 election. Ultimately, they are 
for-profit enterprises, and the government's visibility on and 
understanding trends and indicators of foreign activity on these 
platforms is limited. We cannot solely rely on the social media 
companies to look after the public good and protect our national 
security.
  One way to increase transparency and help the American public 
understand the changing threat picture across social media platforms 
would be greater support for independent research, with the 
participation of the social media companies and independent third-party 
researchers, to compile information and analyze trends that are 
relevant to foreign information operations. Such research would allow 
trusted independent researchers and academics to gain insight into 
cross-platform trends and

[[Page S5959]]

provide analysis of indicators of foreign influence activities to the 
public. This mechanism could also provide an important tool for 
informing our government's response to foreign influence and 
disinformation operations ahead of the 2020 elections. This concept 
also has bipartisan support from the Senate Intelligence Committee, 
which includes a similar recommendation in its recent report.
  We have proof that this concept works and is vital to national 
security. General Paul Nakasone, commander of U.S. Cyber Command, 
publicly testified to both the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence 
Committees that two analyses of Kremlin-linked influence operations 
across social media platforms done by independent researchers at the 
Senate Intelligence Committee's behest were, in his words, a very, very 
helpful window into the adversary's operations ahead of the 2018 
midterms. As our adversaries continue to evolve and adopt their 
techniques, we need to redouble our efforts to understand what to 
expect in the next election.
  Third, we must reinforce the prohibition on candidates and campaigns 
that accept offers of help from foreign adversaries who interfere in 
our political process to advance their strategic interests.
  The Trump campaign's series of foreign contacts in the 2016 election 
and the President's continued statements to solicit and show his 
willingness to accept assistance from foreign governments make it clear 
that Congress must act to prevent future interference efforts. That is 
why I am a cosponsor of S. 1562, the Foreign Influence Reporting in 
Elections Act--or the FIRE Act--introduced by Senator Warner. The FIRE 
Act would require all campaign officials to report within 1 week to the 
Federal Election Commission any contacts with foreign nationals 
attempting to make campaign donations or otherwise collaborate with the 
campaign. The FEC would, in turn, have to notify the FBI within 1 week.
  It is in all of our interests to ensure that we can defend against 
foreign attacks on our democratic institutions, and reporting these 
kinds of contacts to the appropriate authorities is our first line of 
defense. I am disappointed that my Republican colleagues have blocked 
Senator Warner's attempt to pass the FIRE Act even after many of them 
insisted that politicians should report to the FBI any contacts or 
offers of help by a foreign government.
  Fourth, we should build upon the passage in the Senate of S. 1328, 
the Defending Elections against Trolls from Enemy Regimes Act. This 
bipartisan legislation by Senators Durbin and Graham was a step in the 
right direction by making improper interference in U.S. elections a 
violation of immigration law and violators both deportable and 
ineligible for visas to enter the United States. Additional targeted 
sanctions should be considered on Russia to deter future election 
interference with our allies and partners.
  These are some immediate steps we can take as the Russian playbook 
for the 2020 election crystallizes, but we can also see a familiar 
pattern beginning to emerge.
  This is not hypothetical. Just yesterday, Facebook announced it took 
down 50 accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency. I have 
spoken about it consistently throughout my comments this evening.
  Just yesterday, they took down 50 accounts. These Kremlin-linked 
trolls posed as real Americans, including from swing States. They 
deployed information operations on social media to praise President 
Trump and Senator Sanders and attack Vice President Biden and Senators 
Warren and Harris--repeating tactics from 2016 and 2018.
  Facebook's head of cyber security stated in conjunction with that 
announcement that we can guarantee ``bad guys are going to keep trying 
to do this.'' This is just one more confirmation that Russia is 
deploying aspects of the same playbook in 2020.
  This time, we know this information warfare campaign is coming. In 
fact, it has already begun. We need to build on what we have learned 
and what we anticipate coming next. We should be ensuring that we have 
structures in place to counter foreign election interference. 
Importantly, we must work together with private partners to expose more 
of these operations and continue to help the American people understand 
it. We can speak the truth about how Russia is exploiting our democracy 
and open society to deploy its malign influence playbook so the public 
is not caught unaware of these sophisticated foreign tactics and 
attempts to manipulate the social media environment.
  We also cannot continue to let these moments pass without speaking up 
about the tenets of our democracy and what it stands for. Russia 
exploited vulnerabilities in our society, and their tactics were 
encouraged and amplified by a candidate who was seeking the highest 
office in the land. That candidate, now President, appears to see no 
reason to change his behavior for the future and instead he has doubled 
down.
  Congress as a body and we as a country must speak out and say this is 
not acceptable. It is not acceptable for candidates for political 
office--any political office, those seeking to hold a position of 
public trust, to seek to engage with our adversaries or foreign 
authoritarian regimes to advance their political campaigns. It is not 
acceptable to meet with foreign agents about getting stolen information 
on your opponents, information acquired by foreign espionage. It is not 
acceptable to promote materials stolen by foreign adversaries. It is 
not acceptable to abuse the power of the Presidency to advance your 
personal political interests to the detriment of the country. It is not 
acceptable to promote propaganda and disinformation campaigns that work 
to delegitimize our democracy, a democracy that generations have fought 
and died to protect. This is a violation of the public trust that is 
inherent in any political office and which any candidate for public 
office must uphold to be worthy of the American people's support.
  It is critical that we unite in a bipartisan manner to take immediate 
action to counter these threats. The integrity of our electoral system 
is not a Republican or a Democratic issue. It is an American issue.
  As Abraham Lincoln said, ``America will never be destroyed from the 
outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we 
destroyed ourselves.''
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. McSally). The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, the Senator from Alabama, Mr. Jones, 
and I have legislation that we propose to introduce tonight.
  I am prepared to let him speak before I do because I understand he 
has another event, but I don't see him.
  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. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the 
order for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mr. Alexander and Mr. Jones pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 2667 are printed in today's Record under 
``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, I yield the floor.
  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. MORAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                               H.R. 3055

  Mr. MORAN. Madam President, last evening, I was here at this exact 
spot asking my colleagues to support the idea of advancing 
appropriations bills, and I am pleased to see today that has today 
occurred. It occurred on a vote of 92 to 2. That is a good sign.
  It is a goal of mine to see the Senate function. One of the ways we 
can determine whether we are doing our jobs is whether we can pass 
appropriations bills. The Senate is now considering 4 of 12 
appropriations bills that should be adopted on an annual basis.
  I begin my remarks this evening by thanking Chairman Shelby and Vice 
Chairman Leahy for their leadership

[[Page S5960]]

and for working hard to bring appropriations bills to the floor, 
including my subcommittee's work on the Commerce, Justice, Science, and 
Related Agencies appropriations bill.
  As the chairman of that CJS Subcommittee, I worked closely with the 
ranking member, Senator Shaheen, the Senator from New Hampshire, whom I 
know very well. Senator Shaheen and I have worked together to produce a 
good-government, bipartisan bill that is part of this appropriations 
package we are now debating. I express my gratitude to her and her 
staff for her partnership, and I am proud we were able to report the 
bill out of the Appropriations Committee by a unanimous vote. I 
appreciate Senator Shaheen's willingness to find common ground, and I 
look forward to seeing this bill pass the Senate and ultimately be 
enacted into law.
  As I have said before, this is a good bill. It is consist with our 
subcommittee's 302(b) allocation, and I believe it balances the many 
competing priorities of our funding jurisdiction.
  As you expect in a bill that is titled ``Commerce, Justice, Science, 
and Related Agencies,'' there are many competing interests in 
determining how we allocate the spending within that 302(b) allocation.
  The CJS bill supports activities related to national security; 
Federal, State, local, and Tribal law enforcement; space exploration; 
economic development; trade promotion and enforcement; scientific 
research; and many other critical government functions.
  The CJS bill provides funding for the Department of Commerce, which 
includes an increase of significant amounts of dollars that are 
necessary in fiscal year 2020 to fund the Census Bureau to ensure that 
we have an accurate counting for the 2020 decennial census--a 
constitutional requirement. It is one of the reasons that it is 
difficult to allocate money in our bill, because the census is so 
critical and must be done in a professional and timely manner. We 
believe we have included the necessary support for that to occur.
  This bill also has a strong support for NOAA programs--the National 
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--to ensure continuation of core 
operations, including ocean monitoring, fisheries management, coastal 
grants to States, aquaculture research, and severe weather forecasting, 
and additional opportunities for economic growth by supporting the 
Economic Development Agency and continuing the National Institute of 
Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program.
  The CJS bill also supports space and scientific exploration. This 
bill is the bill that funds NASA. As many of my colleagues know, this 
year the administration took a step--a bold step--in advancing the 
timeframe by which American astronauts will return to the Moon. The 
plan is now to return to the Moon by 2024. This bill helps accelerate 
that goal and will cement America's leadership in space exploration. 
The bill provides robust funding for NASA, including funding for 
science and aeronautics and the Artemis mission--that trip to the 
Moon--which will allow NASA to begin to take those important steps to 
achieve its goal--and a goal of mine--of putting the first woman on the 
Moon by 2024.
  The bill also includes needed funding for STEM education programs.
  In most recent times, when the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 was 
celebrated, it caused me to remember back to the days in which many 
people in this country saw what we were able to accomplish and 
dedicated their lives--young people--to science and research, to space 
exploration. This bill is supportive of that and is designed to inspire 
the next generation of scientists--young people and others.
  Finally, the CJS bill also provides for increased funding for the 
Department of Justice. The funding includes additional resources for 
the Department's law enforcement components, enabling the Department to 
hire additional agents, deputy marshals, and correctional officers, 
expanding the Department's efforts to combat mass violence and violent 
crime.
  Funding for the Executive Office for Immigration Review is also 
increased so that additional immigration judges and support staff can 
be hired, continuing our committee's effort to reduce the immigration 
court backlog, which is now over 960,000.
  Additionally, as an original sponsor of the First Step Act, I am 
proud that this bill provides $75 million--the fully authorized level--
to the Bureau of Prisons for its implementation.
  Our bill provides $2.3 billion in funding for State, local, and 
Tribal law enforcement assistance, including a total of $517 million to 
combat the various opioid, meth, and substance abuse crises raging our 
communities, $500 million for grants authorized under the Violence 
Against Women Act, and $315 million for juvenile justice grants. These 
grants will help local communities prevent crime and also provide 
support and assistance for crime victims.
  Unfortunately, many of our law enforcement officials are under 
significant stress, increasing pressures, and there is an increasing 
level of suicide among law enforcement officers across the country. 
Again, we have provided funding for counseling--something I wish were 
not necessary.
  We have a transparent product here. We worked in a bipartisan manner, 
as many Kansans and Americans have asked me to do, asking: Can we get 
along? The answer is yes, we can get along to do something as basic as 
an appropriations bill. I hope the answer will continue to be yes. It 
is important for us to address the priorities and needs of our Nation.
  I look forward to advancing this legislation. I will be here on the 
Senate floor from time to time to respond to my colleagues' questions 
and to respond to any amendments that may be offered.
  I urge my colleagues to support this package of four bills, including 
our CJS bill, so that we can move one step closer to completing our 
constitutionally required work of funding the Federal Government.
  I again thank Chairman Shelby and the vice chairman, Senator Leahy, 
for their leadership throughout this entire process. I look forward to 
working with them for the next few days and throughout the year to see 
that we have a successful conclusion.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas.


         Unanimous Consent Agreement--Treaty Document No. 116-1

  Mr. MORAN. Madam President as in executive session, I ask unanimous 
consent that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon 
the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's 
consent to the resolution of ratification with respect to treaty 
document No. 116-1.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________