[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 19 (Thursday, February 1, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S328-S331]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EXECUTIVE CALENDAR
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the nomination.
The legislative clerk read the nomination of Joseph Albert Laroski,
Jr., of Maryland, to be a Judge of the United States Court of
International Trade.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Butler). The Senator from Maryland.
Human Rights Defenders Protection Act
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to express my
deep appreciation and gratitude for human rights defenders. They are
the core of free, democratic societies. They risk their lives and
freedom to hold governments and the private sector accountable. They
advocate for human rights and political freedom. They protect our
environment and fight corruption.
Despite very real threats to their lives and safety, they have
achieved incredible victories. Because of their tireless efforts, from
Colombia to Mexico, nations across Latin America expanded reproductive
rights; Argentina passed a law to prevent gender-based violence online
and hold perpetrators accountable; the EU reached an agreement to
require companies to address the human rights and environmental harms
of their operations; and Malaysia and Ghana took steps to abolish the
death penalty. We celebrate these victories.
But I also must underline a deep sense of urgency today. Attacks
against human rights defenders are on the rise across the globe.
Hundreds are killed each year, and thousands more are attacked,
threatened, or imprisoned: the Russian investigative journalist who was
brutally attacked for exposing human rights abuses in the Northern
Caucuses; the Guatemalan judge forced into exile after holding human
rights abusers accountable for their actions during the brutal civil
war; the taxi driver and human rights defender in Turkmenistan serving
a 22-year sentence in a penal colony for documenting the torture of
ethnic minorities; the 28-year-old human rights defender in Sudan who
was killed, along with his parents and his four brothers; or one of the
hundreds of human rights defenders killed by armed groups vying for
control of Colombia's drug trafficking routes.
Not only are attacks growing in scale, today's oppressors use
sophisticated surveillance technology to target their enemies, even
those living in exile.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders has
said:
Governments claim that all this repression is about
national security. In reality it is about power and money.
They want to maintain power so they control information.
As a result, those who stand for freedom and justice often face death
threats, harassment, arbitrary detention, and torture.
Women human rights defenders and those working on environmental
protection, climate change, LBGTQI+ community issues, and indigenous
rights face especially high levels of violence.
I am pleased that the Biden administration has made protecting human
rights defenders a priority for American foreign policy. Human rights
defenders are heroes in the fight for democracy and freedom, and the
United States must stand in solidarity with them.
But we all need to do more. That is why I introduced the Human Rights
Defenders Protection Act. This bill enhances our government's ability
to prevent and respond to attacks on human rights defenders. It
requires the administration to come up with a whole-of-government
global strategy for human rights defenders. It creates a new, limited
visa category for at-risk human rights defenders. It elevates the State
Department's human rights officers in countries facing democracy and
human rights crises. It trains Foreign Service officers on the
protection of human rights defenders. It expands fellowships to allow
human rights defenders to conduct research, outreach, and exchanges in
the United States.
My grandparents came to America in 1902 from Lithuania, where there
were pogroms against Jews across Russia and Eastern Europe. The defense
of human rights has always been profoundly important to me and my
family.
For many decades in my life, the Soviet Union was one of the greatest
threats to human rights on Earth, and it seemed indestructible. But I
remember standing with my wife at the Berlin Wall in 1987--a symbol of
totalitarianism suffering. My wife and I hammered at the concrete that
was covered in graffiti, showing a crossed-out hammer and sickle.
Chipping away at the Berlin Wall was a reminder of the good we can
achieve if only we have faith.
So to everyone who cares about justice, to everyone who fights for
freedom, to everyone who defends human rights against all odds, don't
give up. Let us continue to advocate for those human rights defenders
behind bars. Let us champion their efforts across the globe. Let us
have faith that we can overcome oppression and violence and
assassinations. Let us keep hope alive that we can build a world that
is safe and peaceful and prosperous.
With that, I urge my colleagues to support the legislation I filed.
Nomination of Lisa W. Wang
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today, the Senate will vote to confirm
Lisa Wang to the U.S. Court of International Trade.
Ms. Wang attended Cornell University and the Georgetown University
Law Center before entering private practice in Washington, DC, as an
international trade associate. Ms. Wang then spent 3 years serving in
the U.S. Embassy in Beijing as a senior import administration officer
before joining the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as assistant
general counsel. She went on to serve as a senior attorney in the
Commerce Department's Office of the Chief Counsel for Trade Enforcement
and Compliance before completing another stint in private practice.
In 2021, President Biden nominated Ms. Wang to serve as an Assistant
Secretary of Commerce for Enforcement and Compliance, and she was
confirmed in the Senate by voice vote. At the Department of Commerce,
she has led the Federal Government's efforts to maintain a level
playing field for American workers and consumers by holding our
partners accountable to their trade agreements.
Ms. Wang was unanimously rated ``well qualified'' by the American Bar
Association. Her deep knowledge of international trade law and
commitment to fairness make her an excellent addition to the Court of
International Trade. I urge my colleagues to join me in voting for her
confirmation.
Mr. CARDIN. I yield the floor.
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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maryland.
Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the
scheduled vote for 1:45 p.m. begin immediately.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Vote on Wang Nomination
The question is, Will the Senate advise and consent to the Wang
nomination?
Mr. CARDIN. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Michigan (Ms. Stabenow)
and the Senator from Michigan (Mr. Peters) are necessarily absent.
Mr. THUNE. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator
from Wyoming (Mr. Barrasso), the Senator from Texas (Mr. Cruz), and the
Senator from Kansas (Mr. Marshall).
Further, if present and voting: the Senator from Kansas (Mr.
Marshall) would have voted ``nay.''
The result was announced--yeas 53, nays 42, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 33 Ex.]
YEAS--53
Baldwin
Bennet
Blumenthal
Booker
Brown
Butler
Cantwell
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Collins
Coons
Cortez Masto
Duckworth
Durbin
Fetterman
Gillibrand
Graham
Hassan
Heinrich
Hickenlooper
Hirono
Kaine
Kelly
King
Klobuchar
Lujan
Manchin
Markey
Menendez
Merkley
Murkowski
Murphy
Murray
Ossoff
Padilla
Reed
Rosen
Sanders
Schatz
Schumer
Shaheen
Sinema
Smith
Tester
Van Hollen
Vance
Warner
Warnock
Warren
Welch
Whitehouse
Wyden
NAYS--42
Blackburn
Boozman
Braun
Britt
Budd
Capito
Cassidy
Cornyn
Cotton
Cramer
Crapo
Daines
Ernst
Fischer
Grassley
Hagerty
Hawley
Hoeven
Hyde-Smith
Johnson
Kennedy
Lankford
Lee
Lummis
McConnell
Moran
Mullin
Paul
Ricketts
Risch
Romney
Rounds
Rubio
Schmitt
Scott (FL)
Scott (SC)
Sullivan
Thune
Tillis
Tuberville
Wicker
Young
NOT VOTING--5
Barrasso
Cruz
Marshall
Peters
Stabenow
The nomination was confirmed.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
U.S. Supreme Court
Mr. WYDEN. Madam President, I come to the floor to talk about
something every American wants from their public officials:
transparency and accountability.
Unfortunately, after repeated attempts, Congress has not received
that transparency or accountability from Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas, and it is feeding the perception of corruption. For the past 6
months, the Senate Finance Committee has been trying to get straight
answers from the Justice and his wealthy friends about the growing list
of handouts they have lavished on the Justice.
Most recently, we sought to figure out whether Justice Thomas
secretly had over $250,000 in debt written off--simply wiped away--by a
wealthy benefactor. If so, as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,
I am working to learn whether he paid the taxes he was supposed to--
taxes that any American is legally required to pay.
The Justice has refused to respond. Justice Thomas acts as if the
freebies and the special favors Americans are reading about--the
flights on private jets, comped; trips on luxury yachts; megawealthy
individuals paying for school tuitions; quarter-million-dollar debts
wiped away--is totally normal stuff.
The reality is, it is not. It isn't normal for anyone, and when the
person receiving all of these extravagant handouts is one of the nine
most powerful jurists in the country, with unchecked power to rewrite
laws from the bench, it looks worse.
With respect to this disappearing debt, here is what we know. In
1999, one of Justice Thomas's friends loaned him $267,230 to buy a
luxury RV. That is some kind of friend.
Justice Thomas wants to believe the story is simple, like the couple
hundred bucks you would loan somebody to get their car fixed in an
emergency. This is the story that the Justice has, in effect,
apparently subscribed to obscures the truth.
The simple fact here is that loans have to be repaid, and it sure
looks like this one was not. According to the terms of the loan
agreement--which, by the way, was written down on Supreme Court
stationary from the chamber of Clarence Thomas--Thomas's friend
supplied the money to buy Thomas the luxury RV. In return, the Justice
was supposed to pay 7.5 percent interest for 5 years. Then the loan
would come due, and then Justice Thomas would be responsible for having
to repay the full principal. But from what I have seen, the payment
never happened.
Through my investigation, I have uncovered that Justice Thomas only
paid interest on the transaction. When the deadline hit after 5 years,
his friend extended the maturity date on the loan for another decade.
But just 4 years later, Thomas' friend simply decided to stop
collecting payments from the Justice, even though the Justice still
owed him more than $\1/4\ million.
Justice Thomas's friend wrote a note telling him that the interest he
paid was good enough and that he wouldn't accept further payments. That
means that the debt--likely the entire $260,000 in principal--was
considered forgiven. Again, that is quite a friend.
So the documents we have seen indicate Justice Thomas received a
$267,000 loan to buy a luxury RV and never repaid most--and, likely,
not even a dollar--of the money that his friend originally loaned him.
This has legal consequences.
The Tax Code makes clear that in instances where a debt is canceled,
forgiven, or discharged for less than the amount owed, the borrower
must report the amount canceled or forgiven as income for tax purposes.
Furthermore, the forgiven debt is income that Justice Thomas is
required by law to report on his financial disclosure report.
But Justice Thomas never reported the $\1/4\ million in forgiven debt
on his financial disclosure report in 2008, the year his debt was
forgiven. He won't give the Finance Committee a direct answer on
whether he reported it on his taxes, raising serious legal questions.
After I publicly revealed these findings, Justice Thomas, through his
lawyer, said the documents that I reviewed were untrue. The Justice
said:
The loan was never forgiven. Any suggestion to the contrary
is false.
And--
The terms of the agreement were satisfied in full.
This contradicts the documents I reviewed. So, along with Senator
Whitehouse, our colleague from Rhode Island, we wrote to Justice
Thomas's lawyer and gave him a chance to prove his claim. Personally, I
believe that a sitting Supreme Court Justice would jump at the
opportunity to correct the record and prove that he repaid his debt and
did not cheat on taxes. I wish I could report to the American people
that was the case and that this whole mess was just a misunderstanding.
But that did not happen.
Justice Thomas did not give us any documentation about his so-called
loan. Senator Whitehouse and I gave him a month to respond and received
nothing--no loan agreement, no payment schedule, no evidence of
principal payments, and no explanation for why he and his lawyer said
the documents and information I uncovered were untrue. If what Justice
Thomas and his lawyer are saying about the loan is accurate, the
question is, What is behind all the stonewalling?
Does the Justice believe he shouldn't ever have to answer the
questions about all these major windfalls and luxury travel, not even
to prove that everything was on the level? Justice Thomas and his
lawyers could put this whole affair to rest by providing copies of
checks repaying the $\1/4\ million loan.
My personal guess is they can't because those payments never
happened.
If a wealthy friend forgave a $\1/4\ million loan to Justice Thomas,
the law requires that he declare it.
As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, it is essential that
Justice Thomas list that income on his taxes. He is also required to
disclose the money on his financial disclosure report. Based on what we
have seen, it
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seems like he did neither. Our laws, including our tax laws, have to
apply to everyone. The law applies to everyone, especially one of the
nine most powerful jurists in America. Congress must ensure that they
do.
It is time for Justice Thomas to respond with the facts about this
$\1/4\ million loan and any similar money and gifts he has received as
a Supreme Court Justice.
Now, Madam President, I am going to yield to my colleague on the
Finance Committee. He is also the chairman of the Budget Committee and
chairman of the important Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, our
colleague Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Madam President, let me start by thanking our Finance
Committee chairman, Chairman Wyden, for his strong leadership. Chairman
Wyden was able to secure the cooperation of the wealthy donor who gave
Justice Thomas the $\1/4\ million-plus RV loan. The chairman doggedly
followed the facts to get the truth for the American people, which
takes guts, particularly when you consider the many special interests
rooting for this investigation to go away.
And while I am thanking the chairman, let me also thank Chairman
Durbin for his persistent and dogged pursuit of the truth through the
Judiciary Committee. Both the Judiciary and Finance Committees are
working to get to the bottom of this.
Keep in mind, in all the ethics mess engulfing Justice Thomas, that
for every ethics issue, there is also likely a tax issue; perhaps, two
sides of the same coin. If a Justice isn't reporting income on his
legally required financial disclosure, there is a good chance that
something is amiss with his tax reporting as well.
When a Justice receives something of value from a benefactor, the
presumption is that it needs to be disclosed under the ethics law
either as income or as a gift. Generally speaking, if it is income, the
Justice must also report it as income for income tax purposes; and if
it is a gift, the donor needs to report it for gift tax purposes--which
is why when you are looking at possible ethics violations in situations
like this, it is important to know if that income showed up on the tax
side or if that gift report showed up on the tax side. That is why
Chairman Wyden's leadership here is so essential.
If this went unreported, that could be a tax law violation. Again, if
it is a gift, the Justice needs to disclose it under the ethics law
unless it falls under a narrow definition for ``personal
hospitality''--spending Christmas with your in-laws, for instance, or
going on a trip with your college roommates. So either way, the tax
question becomes for donors, for gifts, did the benefactor or did the
donor report it for gift tax purposes? So you have the income tax
reporting issue, the gift tax reporting issue. And then you have a
third issue, which is that these tax filings can also test the veracity
of what Justices claim.
Justices Thomas and Alito claim they didn't have to report free jet
and yacht travel gifted by billionaires because those gifts, they
claimed, were personal hospitality. There were no college roommates or
in-laws involved. It is a heck of a stretch to call this personal
hospitality. But one of the ways you could test whether it is personal
hospitality would be by looking at how the donor of the hospitality
treated it on their taxes. It would be a pretty good tell that all that
hospitality those Justices received was not so personal if the yacht
and jet travel gifted to Justices Thomas and Alito was written off by
these billionaires as a tax expense--as a business expense. So there is
a lot to be learned from tax filing.
Two other reminders as we go through this. One, it is a crime. It is
a crime under 18 U.S. Code section 1001 to file a false sworn statement
with the Federal Government. Both judicial disclosures and tax filings
are filed under oath.
No. 2, the law requires the Judicial Conference, if there is any
question about whether an improper judicial disclosure filing might
have been willful, to refer the question of willfulness to the Attorney
General for investigation. It is not under the law of the Judicial
Conference's job to decide the question of willfulness; it is only to
decide if there is a question of willfulness and then refer that to the
Attorney General for investigation.
So this can get serious fast, which brings us to Justice Thomas and
his RV. When it comes to ethics requirements, there is no question
about what the law required here. If part of Justice Thomas's debt was
forgiven, he had to report it. The state of the facts based on the
documents the Finance Committee has obtained and reviewed is that
Justice Thomas never paid back a dollar of principal on $\1/4\ million
loan and that the donor long ago stopped collecting even interest on
that loan.
So let's take a look at the law. Justice Thomas likely didn't have to
report the loan itself. Justices don't need to report loans secured by
a personal vehicle as long as the value of the loan isn't worth more
than the vehicle itself.
If Justice Thomas put up the RV as collateral for his loan and didn't
obtain more money than the RV was worth, there was no need for him to
disclose the loan. But all that changes if any part of the loan was
forgiven later on. As the chairman has said, when you collect not $1 of
principal and stop collecting interest, that sure looks like
forgiveness of a loan. And a loan you don't pay back is a form of
income.
The law requires officials to disclose any income they receive
outside of their government salaries, which makes sense if you are
trying to expose or prevent corruption. Under the law, if you receive
more than $200 of income from any one person in a year, you have to
disclose that.
Here are the regulations on financial disclosure. These are regs
adopted pursuant to law, and they say that income ``includes but is not
limited to'' income from ``discharge of indebtedness.'' And down here,
it further says that you must report ``discharge of indebtedness.''
And if you go to the Tax Code--specifically 26 U.S. Code, section 21,
which defines income for tax purposes, subsection 11(a) describes that
``income from discharge of indebtedness counts as income.'' Income from
discharge of indebtedness--it is the identical language in the Tax Code
and in the judicial reporting regulations.
So a loan whose principal is not repaid is reportable income both
under judicial ethics law and under tax law. And the law is crystal
clear on this point.
Even Justices are told what the law is on this point. So if you go to
the ``Filing Instructions for Judicial Officers''--this is what the
judge gets that tells them how to comply with their filing requirements
regarding these disclosures. Here is what it tells them:
Income . . . The disclosure of the gross amount and the
type of income--dividends, rent, interest, or income from
discharge of indebtedness--is required.
Disclosure of income from discharge of indebtedness is required.
There is nothing very subtle or complicated about that. It couldn't
be more straightforward.
If Justice Thomas failed to report a loan that was no longer being
collected with a big balance still due and hence was, as a practical
matter, forgiven, he likely violated these requirements.
If he failed to file his taxes accordingly, he also likely violated
our tax laws. Either of these--either the tax filing or the filing
under the judicial disclosure rules--could amount to a false statement
under the Criminal Code.
In the first instance, as to the judicial disclosure filings, the law
requires the Judicial Conference to determine if there is reason to
believe that Justice Thomas's violation may have been willful, in which
case it has a legal obligation to report him to the Attorney General
for further investigation to settle the question of willfulness.
I have asked the Judicial Conference to consider exactly these facts,
and I hope they will do so. It looks like they are. As they do so, here
are some things they should consider:
First, this is not Justice Thomas's first brush with this law. A
previous episode of yacht and jet travel gifts to him from Harlan Crow
actually went to the Judicial Conference for investigation years ago.
In my subcommittee on the Judiciary Committee, we held a hearing
about this with a judge who served on the Judicial Conference at the
time and could relate to us what transpired
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back then with the Crow to Thomas yacht and jet travel undisclosed
gifts.
That episode I would describe as a decent burial, but it is not clear
now that, with Thomas back as a repeat offender with the same types of
gifts from the same billionaire, that he will get the same courtesies
from his fellow judges as he did in episode one of Crow to Thomas yacht
and jet travel gifts. Indeed, the latest report from the Judicial
Conference--they put out two reports a year. This is their report of
proceedings for this past fall; i.e., this is their most recent report
of proceedings, dated September 12 of last year. It has this rather
Delphic sentence in it:
The Committee was also updated on the status of the ongoing
review of public written allegations of errors or omissions
in a filer's financial disclosure reports that were referred
to it since the Conference's last session.
I don't know of any other judge or Justice who has received public
written allegations of errors or omissions in that filer's financial
disclosure reports other than Justice Thomas. So although there is no
name mentioned here, it looks very much like the Thomas investigation
is alive and well in the Judicial Conference. If they should determine
that there is a question of willfulness in his failure to file,
particularly to the extent that it may involve similar failures in tax
filings, it is their legal obligation to present that question to the
Attorney General.
So it appears that the matter remains under active review, and I
would conclude by saying that this is to be continued.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Supplemental Funding
Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, conversations are ongoing. Some issues
still need resolution, but we are getting very close on the national
security supplemental.
The national security supplemental is so important to enabling us to
address multiple crises around the globe. Vladimir Putin has waged war
against Ukraine and against Western democracy for nearly 2 years, and
America must step up. Israel suffered its bloodiest day last fall at
the hands of the terror group Hamas, and millions of innocent Gaza
civilians are in need of aid. The Chinese Communist Party threatens to
increase tensions in the Indo-Pacific. Our southern border is in urgent
need--in urgent need--of fixing.
Addressing these challenges is not easy, but we cannot simply shirk
from our responsibilities just because a task is difficult.
Order of Business
So, for the information of Senators, the Senate will be in session
and will hold a vote on Monday, February 5. There is no longer a no-
vote day. While we are respectful of Members' schedules and try to
limit inconveniences, these challenges at the border, in Ukraine, and
in the Middle East are just too great, and we will need to be here
working.
Next, as I said, discussions are going well, so I want Members to be
aware that we plan to post the full text of the national security
supplemental as early as tomorrow, no later than Sunday. That will give
Members plenty of time to read the bill before voting on it.
As for the timing of the vote, I plan to file cloture on the motion
to proceed to the vehicle on Monday, leading to the first vote on the
national security supplemental no later than Wednesday.
____________________