[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.

[[Page S329]]

  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

[[Page S330]]

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

[[Page S331]]

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.

                          ____________________