[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 197 (Tuesday, December 10, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6910-S6911]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                        Inspector General Report

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, for years, President Trump has 
speculated wildly about a ``deep state'' conspiracy against his 
Presidency based on the claim that the FBI opened an investigation into 
the President's campaign with political bias, with the explicit purpose 
that they were out to get him.
  Yesterday, the Department of Justice inspector general released a 
report that puts this conspiracy theory to bed. The report conclusively 
debunks the baseless conspiracy that the investigation into Mr. Trump's 
campaign and its ties to Russia originated with political bias. In 
fact, the report quotes the FBI Deputy General Counsel as saying that 
``the FBI would have been derelict in our responsibility had we not 
opened the case.''
  Let me repeat that from the No. 2 counsel at the FBI. ``The FBI would 
have been derelict in our responsibility had we not opened the case.''
  Donald Trump commits so many wrongs, and when people call him on it, 
he blames somebody and comes up with a conspiracy. And the most amazing 
thing is that not just his appointees but these Senators in this 
Chamber--almost too many of them--just echo those crazy theories 
designed to divert us from the truth.
  The inspector general of the Department of Justice, Michael Horowitz, 
has been praised for years by Members on both sides of the aisle for 
his integrity and for his fairness. There is no reason to doubt the 
report's conclusion. He has never been accused of bias before.
  Attorney General Barr and Lindsey Graham praised Mr. Horowitz, but 
all of a sudden, they are casting aspersions on him and his report. 
Only political actors doubt this report--political actors like Attorney 
General Barr and now, it seems, as well, his handpicked Federal 
prosecutor, John Durham.
  Attorney General Barr has all too often acted on behalf of the 
President's interests rather than as a neutral law enforcement officer. 
He almost seems a hatchet man on a political campaign rather than an 
Attorney General--an august position--following the rule of law and 
trying to shield that office from politics whenever possible. Instead, 
Barr loves to jump into the political pool of muck.
  I was skeptical when Mr. Barr appointed John Durham simply because 
Attorney General Barr had picked him. He does almost nothing in these 
sensitive areas that are not political. But you had some hope. Durham, 
some said, had a good reputation. Well, yesterday, Durham's statement 
confirmed our suspicions that he is not a nonpolitical actor. No 
prosecutor worth his salt would release a political statement like he 
did while conducting an investigation. Because of issuing that 
statement, Durham has lost a great deal of credibility even before he 
issues his report. No one who is thinking of these things down the 
middle is going to think Durham is a dispassionate, nonpolitical 
observer because he has already shown himself to be, in a certain 
sense, a henchman of Mr. Barr and his political activities.
  To emphasize the broad acceptance of the IG report, FBI Director 
Wray, appointed by President Trump, embraced the report.
  When Director Wray asked whether he thought the FBI targeted the 
Trump campaign, he said I do not. And for that, not surprising, but 
still rather, again, low, shallow, and disgusting, President Trump 
lashed out this morning at the FBI Director, saying, ``I do not know 
what the current Director of the FBI was reading, but it wasn't the one 
given to me.''
  President Trump, if you actually read the report, you would 
understand exactly what FBI Director Wray was talking about, and you 
would understand exactly why it was his duty to defend his department 
when they behave on a nonpolitical rule of law basis.
  My friends, it is a sad state of affairs when truth tellers have no 
place in Trump's Washington. Anyone inside the Trump administration 
willing to speak truth to power--Secretary Mattis, DNI Director Coats, 
even Chief of Staff Kelly towards the end, and so many others--cannot 
survive the President's insistence on blind loyalty, cannot survive the 
fact that the President makes them tell lies and mistruths to continue 
to serve him.
  If you do not act in febrile obeisance to President Trump, he will 
turn on you, so this quality of people in this administration is 
getting lower and lower and lower. Top-notch people and the ability to 
govern and make smart decisions and the ability to care about the truth 
often go hand in hand, but if you care about the truth, you are out, 
and so Trump loses quality people in his administration. And the only 
people who survive are willing to bow down to Donald, who will do just 
what he wants and says, even when they know it is false.
  And that is why this administration is so erratic, so disjointed, so 
ineffective, and, at this time, so unpopular with the majority of the 
American people. The American people know that Mattis is a fine man. 
They know that Wray is a fine man. They know that they are the kind of 
people that, if Trump says tell a lie, they won't. But,

[[Page S6911]]

unfortunately, the people in this administration who remain are willing 
to do just that. And that said, as I said, it is a very sad state of 
affairs and one of the reasons this administration has such a difficult 
relationship with the truth.
  The President conjures fictions, buys into baseless conspiracy 
theories told by known buyers on FOX News or somewhere else, and then 
anyone who contradicts him earns his scorn. Contradict him enough, if 
you are in the administration, you lose your job.
  Now, more worry. Amazingly, this afternoon, the President and 
Secretary of State Pompeo will meet in secret with Russian Foreign 
Minister Sergei Lavrov. It shows a blinding disregard with what is 
going on in Congress and the world right now. Russian intelligence has 
been pushing the baseless theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 
elections, not just Putin, as a way to divide the West and defend 
Putin.
  Certain Republican Senators have stunningly repeated that falsehood 
around these corridors, and now, President Trump and Secretary of State 
Pompeo are meeting with the Russian Foreign Minister in secret. What 
new conspiracies are they cooking up with Lavrov today? I worry. The 
President has been so unable to articulate a defense of the facts 
uncovered in the House impeachment inquiry that he has resorted to one 
conspiracy after the next to explain his conduct. His allies, including 
Members of the Senate Republican Caucus, have elevated several of these 
theories.
  Here in the Senate, certain members of the Grand Old Party are 
forming their own conspiracy caucus. Any crazy conspiracy, whether 
launched by Putin or some wild-eyed crazy conspiracy theorist, who 
manages, of course, all the time to get on FOX News and have his story 
or her story repeated, it is something that my colleagues just repeat 
even though it is clear they are false, and they know they are false.
  Angus King had a great op-ed last week in USA Today, which I commend 
to every one of my colleagues. It basically said, if what the 
impeachment proceeding has found is false, then where are the Trump 
people to refute it? Not to come up with some irrelevant conspiracy 
theory and bring this one and that one into it that has nothing to do 
with it, but actually refute the facts, where is that?
  President Trump has not refuted a single fact that the impeachment 
inquiry has found. None of his people have been willing to come forward 
who would have knowledge to refute those facts if those facts were 
false. And so they try to create a shiny object, a diversion, and, 
unfortunately, too many of the news media on the right will spend time 
on that diversion and repeat Trump's claim that the actual facts are 
false.
  This is the beginning of the end of the democracy, when we can't have 
truth--we can disagree on the outcome of those facts, but we can't have 
truth of the fact--and everything is fake news, particularly those from 
the right who don't like the truth. When conspiracy theories that have 
no basis in fact govern, our democracy is at risk. It is one of the 
main reasons I think so many Americans believe, whatever their 
ideology, that President Trump should not be President.
  The conspiracy theories are not harmless. They are sinister. They are 
insidious. They erode the democratic fabric of this country. They erode 
our fidelity of truth which is at the basis of democracy, and they help 
Putin sow discord in our country. Conspiracies need to stop. If the 
White House would like to submit evidence or offer witnesses to make 
the President's case, please do so. They haven't done it once. Instead, 
the White House is blocking documents and withholding witnesses who 
could potentially defend the President's action, a surefire sign, as 
Angus King said in his op-ed, that the President has something to hide.
  Given that the House announced it would write two Articles of 
Impeachment this morning, the White House's refusal to rebut the 
evidence under oath is something not lost on the Members of the U.S. 
Senate who could soon be judges and jurors in a Senate trial.