[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 129 (Tuesday, August 2, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3840-S3841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                           Ayman Al-Zawahiri

  Madam President, at 6:18 a.m. this past Sunday morning, in a wealthy 
neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan, two U.S. Hellfire missiles 
delivered justice--at last--to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. Al-
Zawahiri is dead, and the world is better for it. He was a terrible man 
who brought horrific suffering to countless numbers of people, innocent 
people, throughout the world.
  He was second in command to Osama bin Laden during 9/11, which 
claimed nearly 3,000 innocent American lives. He was the mastermind 
behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 
and behind the bombing of the USS Cole in the Yemeni port in 2000. He 
claimed to act on behalf of Islam; yet his hands were stained with the 
blood of innocence, including of countless Muslims.
  Since the death of bin Laden 11 years ago, Zawahiri has been the 
leader of al-Qaida. He has been rumored variously to be hiding in the 
tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He was finally discovered 
living with his family in a wealthy neighborhood in the center of 
Kabul.
  The U.S. intelligence community and the CIA deserve great credit for 
their careful, professional work over months to verify Zawahiri's 
location and identity. President Biden also deserves credit. At least 
three U.S. Presidents hunted down this man. Joe Biden's administration 
finally succeeded in ridding the world of this terrible person.
  The war in Afghanistan was America's longest war by far--20 bloody 
years. Donald Trump, before he left office, set the deadline to end 
that war--a decision that Joe Biden inherited and America completed 1 
year ago this month. I supported that decision to withdraw the troops 
from Afghanistan. At the same time, President Biden and military 
leaders warned extremists not to confuse the withdrawal of American 
boots on the ground with any reduction of our commitment to the fight 
against terrorism.
  The death of Zawahiri is proof that those who harm U.S. citizens, 
U.S. troops, and U.S. interests will find no safe quarter in this 
world.


                            PACT Act of 2022

  Madam President, you don't have to go to Ground Zero in New York or 
to the Pentagon or to the field in Shanksville, PA, to see the 
reminders of the terrible suffering that came out of 9/11; you can walk 
outside of the Senate Chamber and see Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and 
their families, who still bear the scars of war.
  For years, they and many others have urged the Veterans Health 
Administration to finally provide healthcare for the veterans who were 
exposed to toxic burn pits and other forms of deadly toxic pollution 
during their service.
  Last Thursday, many of these veterans traveled to Washington. They 
came here to see a celebration--the passage of the PACT Act--and 
President Biden promised to sign it. It is a critical bill designed to 
provide VA health services for 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans. 
Instead of a celebration, they witnessed a betrayal. At the last 
minute, 25 Republican Senators, who had just voted for the PACT Act 6 
weeks earlier, voted against it. They voted against giving toxic-
exposed military veterans the VA healthcare they deserved.

  Since then, these veterans, their family members, and supporters have 
been holding a vigil--what they call a fire watch--on the steps of the 
Capitol. They have remained there through rain and steaming heat to 
remind us of our duty to help them.
  Veterans across this Nation and some out on the steps are sick and 
dying with cancer and other disorders because they were exposed to burn 
pits, Agent Orange, and other chemical poisons. These are wounds of 
war, and they should be treated that way. Veterans who have risked 
their lives for our freedom must not be treated as collateral damage in 
a political skirmish.
  Jon Tester, the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, has 
shown real leadership on this. Jon states it ever so simply, and I 
think we should all remember: We have to face the real costs of war. We 
talk about our annual budgets. We talk about the body counts. We talk 
about all of the issues that face us, but we face the reality that 
those who served in our wars come home many times with physical but 
often invisible scars that haunt them for a lifetime. Those are the 
real costs of war. This bill, the PACT Act, which Jon Tester and 
Senator Moran of Kansas brought to this floor, addressed those costs.

[[Page S3841]]

  It is time for us to get it right in the U.S. Senate. There is a 
rumor on the floor that there may be an agreement that even today we 
are going to vote on this. None too soon. Those veterans who are 
waiting on the steps deserve it. Millions at home are watching this--
and their families and others who love them--in the hopes that what we 
do on the floor of the Senate will finally give them some comfort in 
their lives. The Senate must hold another vote on the PACT Act, and I 
hope it will be today. That is the rumor on the floor.
  Let's get it right this time. Let's reassemble that bipartisan 
coalition that passed the bill originally. Let's restore the faith of 
the veterans community and many Americans in the U.S. Senate. On a 
bipartisan basis, we can stand up for those who stood up and served our 
Nation.


                               January 6

  On another matter, Madam President, the last several days have 
brought a stream of troubling revelations about the disappearance of 
Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security text messages from 
around the time of the deadly January 6, 2021, insurrection on this 
Capitol. The missing texts could provide critical evidence about one of 
the worst crimes and greatest threats to our Constitution ever 
perpetrated on America. The disappearance of this critical information 
could jeopardize the efforts to learn the full truth of January 6 and 
hold responsible anyone who planned and participated in that attack.
  I don't know whether the failure to preserve these critical 
government texts of January 6 is a result of bad faith or stunning 
incompetence, but I do know that the man who has overseen this fiasco 
is not the right person to investigate it. This man has lost whatever 
credibility he may have once had on this matter. That is why I have 
asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to step in and take control of 
this investigation into the missing texts.
  This is what we know so far: Joseph Cuffari was nominated to be 
inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security by former 
President Donald Trump. He remains in that position today. The 
Department of Homeland Security includes the Secret Service and many 
other critical government Agencies. Inspectors general are supposed to 
be independent watchdogs for their Departments and make sure that the 
people working in that Department don't engage in waste, fraud, or 
abuse. If there is any problem, the inspector general is required by 
law to report it to Congress.
  In recent weeks, we learned belatedly from Mr. Cuffari, this 
inspector general, that, No. 1, his office asked the Secret Service 
last February for text messages, emails, and other records that could 
shed light on January 6, and he was met with months--months--of delay 
and stonewalling.

  Mr. Cuffari has known since at least February of this year that the 
Secret Service texts from January 6 had been erased in supposedly 
routine resets of the Agency's phones.
  Imagine that--Agencies entrusted with the security of the United 
States and when there is a handoff of official phones, they are erased 
at that time.
  Mr. Cuffari did not share that information with Congress for 5 
months--5 months.
  Mr. Cuffari also belatedly informed Congress that texts from the cell 
phones of the top two leaders in the Department of Homeland Security 
during the insurrection, Acting Secretary Chad Wolf and Acting Deputy 
Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, were apparently lost during another reset 
after they turned in their government phones.
  Imagine the fumbling of critical information about an event as 
historic as the January 6 Trump insurrectionist mob who invaded this 
Capitol.
  According to public reports, Department staff actually came up with a 
plan to retrieve the deleted emails when they first learned about them. 
Listen to this: Mr. Cuffari's office inexplicably killed the plan.
  This isn't just another government Agency we are talking about, as 
important as that would be; the Department of Homeland Security has 
some of the most sophisticated intelligence and investigative 
capabilities not just in the United States but in the world. It is hard 
to believe that this Department accidentally deleted texts that could 
shed light on one of the greatest constitutional events and crimes ever 
committed in the history of the United States, but it would be just as 
problematic if they did. Either way, we need to get to the bottom of 
this.
  This month, after news of the missing texts became public and his 
office came under criticism, Mr. Cuffari belatedly opened a criminal 
investigation into the Secret Service's missing text messages. It was 
the right thing to do, but he is the wrong person to do it. Mr. Cuffari 
has lost his credibility.
  The same law that allows Mr. Cuffari to conduct this criminal 
investigation, the Inspector General Act, gives to the Attorney General 
of the United States the power to take control of it. It is time for 
Attorney General Garland to step in and oversee this investigation with 
impartial professionalism that justice and history demand.