[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 37 (Tuesday, February 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1139-S1141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Election Security

  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam President, I rise today to once again call upon 
the Senate to take immediate and urgent action to prevent Russia or any 
other foreign power from interfering in our 2020 elections. Since the 
last time I came to the Senate floor to talk about this issue, it has 
become only more urgent. The clock is ticking, and each day that goes 
by without the Senate taking action, this body becomes more complicit 
in the hijacking of our democracy by Vladimir Putin or other foreign 
powers that try to interfere in our elections.
  Just in the last week, we have seen significant new developments. We 
know that the intelligence community briefed the House Intelligence 
Committee about ongoing Russian interference in our current elections.
  We also know that upon learning about that briefing, upon hearing 
that the intelligence community was doing its job in keeping Congress 
informed about election interference, President Trump erupted upon 
hearing the news. He did not want the House of Representatives to know 
what the Russians were up to.
  We know that soon after that briefing, President Trump 
unceremoniously fired his Acting Director of National Security, Joseph 
Maguire, who is a military veteran and a career public servant of great 
integrity. All of that, we know. And we know that President Trump 
replaced Mr. Maguire with an Acting Director who has no prior 
experience in the intelligence community and whose only qualification 
appears to be to tell President Trump what President Trump wants to 
hear when it comes to intelligence information or other matters.
  None of us should be surprised to learn that the Russians are 
interfering again in our elections. They did it in 2016. That was the 
unanimous verdict of all our U.S. intelligence agencies. In fact, that 
was the verdict by the head of agencies who had been appointed by 
President Trump. That was also the bipartisan finding of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee. They found that there was some level of Russian 
interference in the 2016 elections in every State in the country, all 
50 States. It was also the well-documented conclusion in the Muller 
report that brought a number of indictments against Russian operatives 
of the GRU.
  Just last November, the leaders of the intelligence agencies--again, 
leaders appointed by the current President--all warned the Congress and 
the American people that the Russians and other foreign powers would 
seek to interfere in our elections in 2020. Those agencies included the 
heads of the NSA, the CRA, the FBI, the DNI, and others. Last November, 
all of them warned us about expected Russian interference in our 
elections. So it really should be no surprise that we learned last week 
of a briefing in the House where the intelligence community said: We 
told you so.
  We have determined that the Russians are interfering right now in the 
ongoing 2020 elections. That shouldn't be surprising. What is 
surprising and what is shocking is that the Congress has done virtually 
nothing to prevent it. Think about that. We were warned in 2016. We 
have been warned repeatedly since then that the Russians are going to 
interfere in our 2020 elections. We now have a briefing about ongoing 
interference and still nothing. What does the President do in response 
to that information? He fires the head of the intelligence community. 
He fires him because he doesn't want him to tell Congress what the 
Russians are doing.
  Just last month, in February, the Senate Intelligence Committee 
issued another report. It was another bipartisan report. What they did 
was they went back to look at what happened in

[[Page S1140]]

the 2016 elections--specifically in the lead-up to the 2016 elections--
and asked themselves the question: Why, when we learned that there was 
some Russian interference, did we not notify and alert the country?
  Their findings were interesting. They found that there were various 
political reasons. People had concerns about making that information 
public. In fact, the Republican leader, the majority leader here, was 
one of those who said: No, we should not inform the American people 
about that interference.
  The Senate Intelligence Committee drew lessons from that, saying: We 
shouldn't be caught once again unprepared. That is what they said in 
the report just last month, and now we are sitting here today with the 
intelligence community telling us the Russians are interfering right 
now as we speak, and we are doing nothing about it. Our democracy is 
under attack, and we are just pretending things are going on as normal. 
You would think we would all agree that when our democracy is under 
attack, we should unify immediately and take every action necessary to 
prevent that.
  What could and should we do?
  We should harden our election systems. We should make sure that 
voting systems around the country are harder to hack. We should make 
sure that voter registration information is harder to hack, and we have 
dedicated some additional resources to that. We haven't done enough, 
but we have taken some small steps in that direction, as we should.
  This is a situation in which the best defense is a good offense, and 
as long as Vladimir Putin and the Russians don't pay any price at all 
for interfering in our elections, it should be no surprise that they 
are going to keep on doing it. It is cost-free to them. In fact, they 
are gaining major benefits, and we see them around the country. They 
are succeeding in helping to divide Americans against one another. They 
are succeeding in undermining public confidence in the democratic 
system. That is exactly what Vladimir Putin wants to do here in the 
United States and among our allies in Europe and elsewhere around the 
world.
  What should we do about it?
  After we learned of what happened in 2016, Senator Rubio and I 
introduced a bipartisan bill. It is called the DETER Act. In addition 
to Senator Rubio and me, we have Republican and Democratic cosponsors.
  What does the bill do?
  It is pretty straightforward. It says to Vladimir Putin and other 
foreign powers: If we catch you interfering in a future election, you 
will pay a price. That price will be immediate, and it will be severe. 
So, if you are thinking about what benefits you might gain from 
interfering in an American election, you will know there will also be a 
big price to pay.
  That is the legislation that Senator Rubio and I introduced back in 
2017. It has not gotten a vote here in the U.S. Senate. It has not 
gotten it. It didn't have a vote in the last Congress, so we 
reintroduced it in this Congress.
  Now, last fall, when we were taking up the National Defense 
Authorization Act, the NDAA, the Senate agreed that part of our 
national defense meant defending our democracy and part of our 
defending our democracy meant defending the integrity of our elections. 
So we unanimously, by a voice vote here in the Senate, said that the 
Defense authorization bill should include a provision like the DETER 
Act, that it should include a provision that says to the Russians and 
other foreign powers: If we catch you interfering in an election, there 
will be a severe price to pay.
  When I talk about a severe price, I mean sanctions on their 
economies, sanctions on their major banks, sanctions on the energy 
sectors--real economic pain, not imposing sanctions on a few oligarchs, 
but real pain. That is what the Senate said we should do as part of the 
NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act.
  Guess what happened?
  When the conferees--when the negotiators--went behind closed doors, 
the White House essentially told the Senate conferees: Huh-uh, we don't 
want you adopting these important protections--protections to defend 
the integrity of our democracy.
  So, despite that unanimous Senate vote, it just disappeared in the 
middle of the night from the negotiations over the Defense 
authorization bill.
  What do we do?
  The clock is ticking, and it is time for the Senate to do now what it 
said it wanted to do when we unanimously passed that motion to instruct 
the conferees to pass something like the DETER Act as part of the 
Defense bill, and we are, right now, engaged in ongoing discussions 
with the chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs 
Committee to try to finally get this bill--this bipartisan bill--out of 
the U.S. Senate. I hope we make progress because what appears to be the 
situation is that the White House is essentially putting up a massive 
roadblock to progress on this matter.
  It is not our job in the U.S. Senate to simply do the bidding of this 
President or of any other President. It is the duty of this Senate to 
protect our democracy against what we know is an ongoing attack on the 
integrity of our elections.
  That is why I am here on the floor right now, because we just got the 
news last week that everything we had been warned about in terms of 
expected Russian interference in our 2020 elections is coming true. So 
we have a missile aimed at the integrity of our elections, and the 
Senate is doing nothing about it. It is unbelievable and grossly 
negligent to know, in realtime, that our elections are being undermined 
and to take no action.
  I just want to say to my colleagues that, if we don't move forward on 
the bipartisan DETER Act in the coming days and make progress in the 
coming days, I will be back here on the Senate floor next week, and I 
will ask for unanimous consent to bring it up. If Senators want to come 
down here in the light of day and say no--no to bipartisan legislation 
that protects our democracy--they can do that, but we are going to keep 
at this, and with every day that goes by, we learn more about what is 
happening now.
  I close with what I said before: We should not be surprised that 
Vladimir Putin is interfering in our elections. He did it in 2016, and 
we have been told ever since then that he will do it again. What is 
surprising and shocking and grossly negligent is that this body has not 
taken action to date to protect our democratic process. We are going to 
keep fighting until we get that done.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Would the Senator accept a question?
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Yes, I would be delighted to entertain a question.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, just for the reference of everyone, 
I believe the majority leader is going to come in for his closing 
script. When he does, that will end whatever little colloquy we will 
have had here, and I will then do my ``Time to Wake Up'' speech.
  In the time that it takes the majority leader to get here, I am 
interested in hearing the Senator from Maryland say that the White 
House--our White House--the President of the United States--is a 
massive roadblock to protecting the integrity of our upcoming election 
from foreign interference. How does that make sense? Why would it be an 
American President who doesn't want to defend the integrity of an 
American election from foreign interference?
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the Senator from Rhode Island for the 
question.
  All I can say is we have seen a pattern from this President. We saw 
this President, President Trump, in Helsinki a few years ago, standing 
next to Vladimir Putin, and our President was the one who threw our 
intelligence community under the bus. He said he trusted Vladimir Putin 
when Putin told him, Don't worry, President Trump. We didn't interfere 
in your elections.
  President Trump said: OK. I think President Putin may be right about 
our intelligence community.

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. He did say it very strongly.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. He did, and we have seen that pattern over and over 
again.
  We just learned of this briefing that took place in the House of 
Representatives this week. The response from President Trump was not, 
Oh, my goodness. Let's pass this legislation. It was to fire the guy 
who was in charge of the intelligence community.

[[Page S1141]]

  So what do you think?
  It is a mystery to all of us as to why the President is taking this 
action other than the fact that, of course, he did call on Russia in 
the last election and welcomed its support. We all saw him on national 
television when he did that.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Yes.
  In fact, even the Mueller report showed that there was considerable 
Russian activity and support in the election that made Donald Trump our 
President. They couldn't prove an ongoing conspiracy between the Trump 
campaign and the Russian election interference effort, but they 
confirmed that there was a Russian election interference effort. If I 
recall correctly, they confirmed that the Trump campaign was witting of 
it, just not conspiring with it, just not directly engaged with it.
  So I don't know. Perhaps it is just the hope that, perhaps, he will 
get elected again with foreign interference and that he doesn't want to 
close off that option, but it is a little bit odd for the President of 
the United States not to take the protecting of the security of the 
American election more seriously.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I am glad Senator Whitehouse made that distinction 
with respect to the Mueller report.
  It is true that they did not find a criminal conspiracy, meaning they 
did not find some agreement between the Trump campaign and the Russians 
to interfere, but they found plenty of evidence of the Trump campaign's 
welcoming the intervention from the Russians.
  Of course, we have more recently seen President Trump spreading the 
conspiracy theories that were launched by Vladimir Putin that it was 
not the Russians who interfered in the 2016 elections: Oh, my God. It 
was the Ukrainians who interfered in the 2016 elections.
  There is this famous videotape now of Vladimir Putin's saying: Thank 
God, they are not blaming the Russians anymore. They are blaming the 
Ukrainians.
  Translation: Thank God our propaganda is working, and even the 
President of the United States and some Members of the House of 
Representatives are parroting our conspiracy theory, the ones that we 
cooked up.
  It is really alarming that a foreign government--someone like 
Vladimir Putin--is so successful in spreading its misinformation within 
our system.
  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. I appreciate the concern of the Senator from Maryland 
on this, and I wish him success with his legislation.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank the Senator for his questions.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.