[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 169 (Thursday, October 24, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6141-S6142]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1247

  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague from 
Virginia for his advocacy on this critical measure, and I support him 
on it and also for his advocacy on the FIRE Act. It is very similar to 
the measure on which I am going to ask for unanimous consent. He has 
done wonderful and dedicated work on both measures.
  Mr. President, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent 
that the Rules Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 
1247; that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the 
bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, with no 
intervening action or debate.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from Kentucky.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I am 
concerned that this bill would put an undue burden on anybody who 
decided to run for office in the sense that you would be burdened with 
trying to understand everyone you talk to anywhere in the United 
States--whether or not they are an agent of a foreign government or an 
agent of a foreign principle, such as a foreign company.
  For example, I might run into Hunter Biden in the airport. I know he 
is an American citizen, but this bill doesn't prevent American citizens 
from being an agent of a foreign principle. Hunter Biden also worked 
for a Ukrainian oligarch and a company with mysterious origins that may 
well have something to do with our foreign policy.
  So if I meet Hunter Biden, I am concerned that now it may be against 
the law or I could be reprimanded or fined by the FEC for talking to 
Hunter Biden.
  The same might also exist--I enjoy going to the Indian New Year in 
Louisville, and I sometimes see 5,000 to 6,000 Indian Americans, but I 
can't tell you how many of them are brand new to the country, what 
their visa status is, whether they have a relative from government 
there who might come up to me.
  So I think we need to be very careful about putting forward law, 
particularly by unanimous consent, that hasn't been scrutinized and 
might end up having a burden that we don't really agree with.
  There has been a certain degree of hysteria over the Russian thing. 
Some on the other side of the aisle can't get over they lost the 
Presidential election, and so they continue to blame the Russians for 
losing the election.
  It is so bad that their candidate from the last election, Hillary 
Clinton, had to go after Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic Member of the 
Congress, a sitting Congresswoman, the first female combat veteran to 
run for President, and she has been labeled by Hillary Clinton a 
Russian asset.
  So you can see that the hysteria over Russia is a little bit 
concerning; that we may be going too far in this hysteria.
  Then, once we apply this to the world, is there going to be a 
hesitancy to talk to someone who looks different than you, who dresses 
different than you, who has a different color skin than yours because 
you are concerned they might be from a foreign country?
  So I think this would have the ability of stifling speech--stifling 
political speech--and I think it is a reactionary way to look at 
things, and it really fits in with this unseemliness of Hillary 
Clinton's thinking everybody is a Russian agent to many of the 
Democrats saying: Donald Trump is a Russian agent.
  We spent $35 million on this notion. This was probably a notion 
promulgated by people within the intelligence community who already 
hated Donald Trump before he was elected. I hope we get to the bottom 
of this, but I am not about to allow, by unanimous consent, an attempt 
to politicize our election process and make it so absurd that you would 
have to worry about whom you talk to as you travel the country.
  I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The Senator from Connecticut.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I truly regret the objection by my 
colleague. I regret even more the reasons for his objection, 
characterizing the threat of Russia interference as hysteria.
  Well, I suggest that my friend from Kentucky spend a little bit of 
time--it will not take a lot--with members of the intelligence 
community, any member of the intelligence community, all the members of 
the intelligence community, who agree unanimously that the threat of 
Russian interference is real. In fact, it is ongoing.
  That is the warning we have received from the CIA, the Director of 
National Intelligence, and, most pointedly, from the Director of the 
FBI. They have warned us, in no uncertain terms, that the Russians are 
interfering now, spreading disinformation, creating false accounts and 
sites and that they are planning to do it even more intensely. It is 
not only the Russians but other nations.
  That was the warning of Robert Mueller when he said that the 
Russians' interference in our last election was sweeping and systematic 
and that they were doing it again and we need to pay attention to it.
  That is exactly what my colleagues and I have been doing for the past 
few days, raising for floor consideration various election securities 
bills. We have done it not only in the last few days but for months--
the PAVE Act, the Honest Ads Act, the SHIELD Act, but my colleague from 
Kentucky says it is hysteria.
  Well, it is a well-founded fear based on fact. As one of our former 
colleagues, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once said: People are entitled to 
their own opinions; they are not entitled to their own facts. The facts 
here are indisputable, set forth in numbing detail by the Mueller 
report but also by the intelligence community, independently, in the 
hearings that have been conducted by various of our committees, in open 
and public, in Armed Services and Judiciary, and also behind closed 
doors. Some of them the intelligence community--which produced a 
report, most recently by the Senate Intelligence Committee, a 
bipartisan report, showing how the Russians scan every single State to 
penetrate them, seeking to disrupt them, and that is an absolutely 
chilling fact-based, evidence-founded prospect that we need to counter, 
and that is the reason my colleagues and I have come to the floor for 
these measures. A number of them I have been proud to cosponsor and 
helped to lead.
  The one that brings me here now is the Duty to Report Act, S. 1247, 
and it

[[Page S6142]]

very simply says there is a duty to report. If there is an illegal 
offer of assistance, if anyone knows of an illegal acceptance of 
assistance from a foreign leader or foreign national or foreign 
government, there is a duty to tell the FBI or some other law 
enforcement official.
  The plain fact is our elections are under attack, and 2016 was only a 
dress rehearsal.
  Just this week, talk about hysteria, Facebook banned dozens of fake 
Russian and Iranian accounts attempting to spread misinformation and 
disinformation to Americans--the purpose: to disrupt the 2020 election.
  It isn't necessarily an ad for one candidate or another. It may be an 
ad that seeks to suppress the vote. The point is, that attack will 
continue, and opposition to it is based on hysteria about the potential 
political implications.
  What saddens and angers me is that our Commander in Chief--not just 
some of our colleagues--refuses to believe that our elections were 
attacked and will be again. He is actively working to undermine our 
democracy.
  The President's attempts to invite a foreign leader, the Ukrainian 
President, to interfere in our democratic elections was a betrayal of 
his oath of office and an abuse of power. It is an impeachable offense. 
But it will occur again by others, as well as him, if we do not pass 
measures like the Duty to Report Act.
  It started with a whistleblower complaint, but now we have call notes 
between the President and Ukraine President Zelensky, the corroborating 
statements of multiple witnesses in the government, and President 
Trump's own statements--his own words--on live television, admitting 
that he did this. The transcript of his call chillingly shows how he 
literally pressured and extorted the Ukrainian President, using the 
threat of a cut or elimination of military aid vital to Ukrainian lives 
and Ukrainian defense against an ongoing Russian attack, not to mention 
the visit to the White House, also used as leverage with these 10 
powerful words: ``I would like you to do us a favor though.'' The favor 
was digging dirt on a political opponent through a full investigation 
to favor himself over that opponent.
  The invitation to interfere in our elections goes to the core of our 
democratic institutions. It is literally condoning and, in fact, 
inviting and encouraging an attack on our democratic institution, and 
the President has said, when he was asked, that if he were offered 
foreign assistance, he would take it. His son, during the last 
campaign, was offered Russian assistance, and his response was: ``I 
love it.''
  That is not the appropriate response for the offer of an illegal act 
of assistance. It should be to go to the FBI or another law enforcement 
agency.
  Every Republican should be asked to answer the question--in fact, 
forced to answer this question: Is it acceptable to solicit or accept 
the assistance of a foreign power to win an election?
  We cannot allow this kind of practice to become the new normal. It is 
already illegal to accept or solicit such an assistance from a foreign 
government or leader, and what we want to do is make it illegal to fail 
to report it.
  Finally, as for my colleagues' objection that it would inhibit 
somehow an active and honest campaign, someone who has reason to know 
that there is an illegal offer of assistance and someone who knows that 
that assistance is being solicited by his or her campaign or a member 
of their family, certainly, should feel a duty to report as a matter of 
simple patriotism and moral obligation, not to mention legal 
responsibility.
  With the 2020 Presidential election looming, we must stop this kind 
of foreign interference. We must take active and effective measures 
against it. We must ensure that the American people--not Russia or 
China or Iran, and they are all gunning for our democratic 
institution--decide who the leaders of this country will be and what 
direction our democracy will take.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.