[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 94 (Tuesday, May 19, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2481-S2482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the coronavirus pandemic continues to 
challenge our Nation, and the Senate is here working for the American 
people.
  Our committees have called in experts like Dr. Fauci and leaders like 
Chairman Powell to discuss the CARES Act and the path toward reopening. 
We are tracking the effects of the largest rescue package ever and are 
considering next steps, like strong legal protections so that doctors, 
small businesses, schoolteachers, and universities do not face a second 
epidemic of frivolous lawsuits.
  The Senate is also staying on top of other threats that predated 
COVID-19--the meddling of Putin's Russia, the brutal Chinese Communist 
Party, rogue states like Iran and North Korea, foreign terrorists such 
as ISIS.
  Two weeks ago, we overwhelmingly confirmed an impressive leader for 
the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, whom Acting DNI 
Grenell has announced will play a central role in briefing candidates 
and campaigns on foreign threats against our elections.
  Today, our colleagues on the Intelligence Committee, now led by 
Acting

[[Page S2482]]

Chairman Rubio, will report out the President's nominee to be the next 
Director of National Intelligence, and, last week, we reauthorized 
essential tools that our intelligence community needs to defend our 
homeland, track our enemies, and protect Americans.
  But we didn't stop there.
  Over the last several years, we have been painfully reminded that our 
Nation and our liberties are not only threatened from without. The 
fabric of our country is also hurt when tools and capabilities that are 
meant to keep us safe are abused in ways that are, at best, reckless, 
sloppy, and unaccountable--or, worse, polluted by political bias.
  In 2016, the FBI embarked on a counterintelligence investigation 
against Donald Trump's campaign for the Presidency. Federal law 
enforcement used taxpayer money to scrutinize a political campaign in 
the middle of a democratic election. You would have thought such a 
radical step must have sprung from an air-tight justification. 
Certainly, you would think the outgoing Obama administration should 
only have used the awesome power of the Federal Government to pry into 
their political rivals if they had had a slam-dunk basis for doing so, 
but that is not what they had.
  In one instance, the FBI got permission to surveil a Trump associate 
by telling half-truths, blurring evidence, and citing sketchy sources 
like a dossier of partisan opposition research that had been funded by 
the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC.
  Here is how even the New York Times explained the recent findings of 
the Justice Department's inspector general: ``The FBI had cherry-picked 
and misstated evidence about the Trump adviser . . . when seeking 
permission to wiretap him.''
  That was from the New York Times.
  So an American citizen's campaign for the American Presidency was 
treated like a hostile foreign power by our own law enforcement, in 
part, because the Democratic-led executive branch manipulated 
documents, hid contrary evidence, and made a DNC-funded dossier a 
launch pad for an investigation. The inspector general counted seven 
significant inaccuracies and omissions.
  Here is his report:

       We identified multiple instances in which factual 
     assertions relied upon in the [FBI's] FISA application were 
     inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate 
     documentation based upon information the FBI had in its 
     possession at the time the application was filed.

  Did you catch that last part? It was based upon information the FBI 
had in its possession at the time the application was filed. So we are 
either talking about gross incompetence or intentional bias. Does any 
Senator think it is acceptable for any Federal warrant application to 
include seven significant inaccuracies and omissions? But this wasn't 
just a run-of-the-mill warrant; it was a FISA warrant to snoop on a 
Presidential campaign.
  This is just one of the realities that President Trump's Democratic 
critics spent years calling conspiracy theories or inventions of the 
President's mind. Yet here it is in black and white from exactly the 
kind of independent inspector general the Democrats rushed to embrace 
when convenient.
  Sadly, this was no isolated incident. Just recently, Attorney General 
Barr has had to take the incredible step of unwinding the DOJ 
prosecution of another former Trump adviser because the government's 
case against him was unfair and distorted as well.
  It was largely on the basis of these proceedings that the Democrats 
and the media spent years being fixated on wild theories of Russian 
collusion, but upon investigation, the Mueller investigation--remember 
that one?--it is those wild allegations that collapsed along with the 
credibility of several of these investigations that helped to create 
the cloud of suspicion in the first place.
  In the words of our distinguished Attorney General:

       The proper investigative and prosecutorial standards of the 
     Department of Justice were abused. . . . We saw two different 
     standards of justice emerge, one that applied to President 
     Trump and his associates and the other that applied to 
     everybody else. We can't allow this ever to happen again.

  That is from the Attorney General.
  Oh, and by the way, as if this debacle needed even more shocking 
behavior, I understand a Federal judge may try to continue prosecuting 
one of these cases even though the prosecution itself wants to drop it. 
The judge has taken it upon himself to go browsing for other hostile 
parties. Obviously, that subverts our constitutional order in which the 
executive alone decides whether to prosecute cases
  So, look, no matter what some Washington Democrats may try to claim, 
you are not crazy or a conspiracy theorist if you see a pattern of 
institutional unfairness toward this President. You would have to be 
blind not to see one.
  All of this is why the Senate passed important FISA reforms in last 
week's bill--to help bring accountability and transparency into that 
flawed process--and we aren't nearly finished.
  As soon as possible, the full Senate will vote on Mr. Ratcliffe's 
nomination. The President will have a Senate-confirmed DNI who can 
pursue the vital national security work of our tireless intelligence 
community while he can also ensure that the IC stays out of politics 
and out of the papers.
  Just yesterday, Chairman Graham announced the Committee on the 
Judiciary will vote on a serious new set of subpoenas so the Senate can 
hear directly from key players like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Loretta 
Lynch, and many others to continue getting to the bottom of this. Let 
me say that again. The Senate Republicans are taking steps to issue 
subpoenas to a wide variety of Obama administration officials who have 
some relationship to the abuses I have just laid out. The American 
people deserve answers about how such abuses could happen, and we 
intend to get those answers.
  I have been a strong supporter of law enforcement and the 
intelligence community during my career. The American people sleep 
safer because dedicated people are protecting our country and bringing 
our foes to justice. It is precisely because I support these missions 
that I feel so strongly this malpractice cannot be tolerated and must 
never be repeated.

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