[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 103 (Monday, June 14, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4506-S4507]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ATTORNEY GENERAL INVESTIGATIONS

  Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I just heard the Republican Senate 
leader warn us not to initiate partisan investigations. It has only 
been a few weeks since he personally vetoed a bipartisan investigation 
of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 of this year.
  For those of us who lived through that incident, we find it hard to 
understand why a 9/11-style Commission, divided equally between both 
political parties, is in any way a partisan investigation and why the 
Republican leader, who has served for so long in the Senate, would not 
feel awkward, in a way, walking through the halls of this Capitol and 
seeing the men and women of the Capitol Police force who have sent us a 
letter begging for a Commission to get to the bottom of what happened 
on that day when 140 men and women in uniform were attacked by this 
insurrectionist mob inspired by President Trump.
  So when it comes to investigations, we have offered the most 
sanitized version of an investigation that one could ever ask for.
  So why are we renewing this request when it comes to the information 
which is now before us? Well, on Friday, the DOJ inspector general 
announced he would investigate DOJ's use of subpoenas to obtain 
communication data from Members of Congress and the media, including 
whether the Department of Justice complied with applicable internal 
policies and whether its decisions were motivated by improper 
considerations
  What happened was, the previous President, Donald Trump, apparently 
had some channel into the Department of Justice where he could call for 
investigations and information and data to be collected about Members 
of Congress. He highlighted two Democratic Members of Congress who 
were, coincidentally, members of an investigative committee of the 
House Intelligence Committee. And then it turns out, in the last 2 
days, he called for an investigation of his own White House Counsel.
  So it is very hard to follow who was in charge in the White House. 
The Attorneys General at the time denied having any connection 
whatsoever to these investigations, and certainly the White House 
Counsel wouldn't have called for an investigation of himself. So who 
was running the show? It is a legitimate question because it gets to 
not only the issue of leaks, which is important, of course, but it gets 
to the more fundamental question of separation of powers in this 
government.
  If Members of Congress are subject to investigation by a President 
for something other than corruption, then certainly this can be 
translated into political pressure on those individuals.
  So I find it hard to follow the logic of the Republican Senate 
leader, who denies an investigation of the January 6

[[Page S4507]]

mob violence on the Capitol--a bipartisan investigation--and then turns 
around and says that the President could investigate Members of 
Congress without accountability either. You wonder if there is going to 
be the proper constitutional authority witnessed and exhibited in this 
circumstance.

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