[Pages S6995-S6998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE SESSION

                                 ______
                                 

  PROVIDING FOR CONGRESSIONAL DISAPPROVAL UNDER CHAPTER 8 OF TITLE 5, 
    UNITED STATES CODE, OF THE RULE SUBMITTED BY THE BUREAU OF LAND 
MANAGEMENT RELATING TO ``MILES CITY FIELD OFFICE RECORD OF DECISION AND 
         APPROVED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PLAN AMENDMENT''--Resumed

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senate will 
resume consideration of H.J. Res. 104, which the clerk will report.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A joint resolution (H.J. Res. 104) providing for 
     congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United 
     States Code, of the rule submitted by the Bureau of Land 
     Management relating to ``Miles City Field Office Record of 
     Decision and Approved Resource Management Plan Amendment''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.


                              Arctic Frost

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, Monday of this week, I invited eight of 
my colleagues to be briefed on an issue that we just found out about 
from Deputy Director Dan Bongino. What we learned is very disturbing 
and outrageous political conduct by the Biden FBI.
  As most of you know, this year, Senator Johnson and I made records 
public relating to our investigation of Arctic Frost. Arctic Frost was 
the FBI investigation that became Jack Smith's elector case against 
then-citizen Trump. We have shown that partisan FBI agents and the 
Department of Justice prosecutors created and advanced that matter, and 
they did so in violation of FBI rules. We have shown that the FBI 
expanded the investigation to almost 100 Republican groups and 
individuals, even including Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA. And we 
have learned that Arctic Frost included the targeting of at least eight 
Republican Senators--the same ones that I invited to that briefing.
  In 2023, the Biden FBI sought and obtained cell phone tolling data 
about my colleagues' personal phones. We have been told the date range 
for that data was January 4 through January 7, 2021. This is obviously 
an outrage, obviously an unconstitutional breach. Attorney General 
Bondi and Director Patel need to hold accountable those that are 
involved in that serious breach and wrongdoing, and I am confident that 
those two officials will do just that.
  Now, based on the evidence to date, Arctic Frost and related 
weaponization by Federal law enforcement under Biden was arguably worse 
than the Nixon Watergate scandal.
  I have also been informed that Arctic Frost documents, like the one 
targeting Republicans, have been hidden in prohibited access files.
  Now, let me tell you what I think a prohibited access file is. It 
might be legitimate for national security. It might be legitimate for 
intellectual property. It may be legitimate for the personal privacy of 
American citizens. But it should never be used for what it was used 
for: to hide things from the public that would embarrass bureaucrats 
and government officials and maybe even political officials.
  As I have made public through my oversight, when files are in a 
prohibited access file, they receive what the FBI calls a false 
negative search result on their database. So that means that if you ask 
for emails or some records of the FBI, and they type it in, it doesn't 
show up, so that it doesn't exist. Clearly, this impedes responses to 
congressional oversight and court cases. It allows for misconduct.
  Because of whistleblowers informing me of this serious problem, the 
FBI is now reviewing these file types, and only because of that review, 
the document about targeting eight Republican Senators was located.

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  Lastly, I started the Arctic Frost investigation in July 2022. Now, 
it has taken years to get records and to advance the investigation. 
Sometimes my oversight work is done quietly, outside of the public eye, 
but what the public is now seeing is the importance of congressional 
oversight and the importance of whistleblowers exposing government 
misconduct. My whistleblowers deserve great thanks for what they have 
helped to expose.
  We were all shocked and outraged by the unjustified fishing 
expedition Deputy Director Bongino informed us about. The FBI told us 
in our briefing that not a single one of my colleagues on the list was 
under investigation, so the FBI did its dirty digging without 
legitimate predication.
  We expect Patel and Bongino to shut this abuse down and do it 
immediately, and I want my colleagues and Iowans to know that I won't 
give up until I have followed all the facts and accountability is 
delivered for the American people.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Minority Leader

  The Democratic leader is recognized.


                           Government Funding

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, it has now been a full week--a whole 
week--of Donald Trump's government shutdown, and the country is feeling 
the sting of Republican intransigence. Over 700,000 Federal employees 
have been furloughed. Services are being disrupted. The Wall Street 
Journal reported this morning that businesses nationwide with 
government contracts are in peril.
  The Republican-manufactured disaster did not need to happen. The 
government is shut down for one reason and one reason only: Donald 
Trump and the Republicans would rather kick 15 million people off 
health insurance, would rather raise premiums by thousands and 
thousands of dollars a year on tens of millions of Americans, rather 
than sit down and work with Democrats on fixing healthcare.
  That is the reason. They would rather kick tens of millions off 
healthcare than sit down with us and work with us in addressing this so 
important issue--so important to the American people.
  Now, Americans are frustrated. The cost of living continues to go up. 
Donald Trump's tariffs have sent grocery prices spiking. It is even 
more expensive now to buy a cup of coffee, the first thing many people 
drink in the morning. They are going to see Trump's tariffs hurting 
them.
  People are worried about paying more on their electricity bill. 
Forty-one States have seen increased prices. Why? Because in their 
mania of hating clean energy, they cut out so much of wind and solar, 
solar being the cheapest form of new energy to go on the grid.
  Americans are pessimistic that any of this is going to get any 
better, and they blame President Trump and the Republicans. A CBS poll 
from a few days ago found that 75 percent of Americans don't think the 
administration--the Trump administration--is focusing enough on 
lowering costs. Fixing healthcare would be at the top of the list for 
lowering costs for people.
  Now, Democrats want to reopen the government right away. We want to 
have a serious negotiation to fix healthcare so that people can see 
their costs go down. And we can do both: fix healthcare and reopen the 
government. This is not an either-or thing, which Republicans are 
making it, and the American people don't like it.
  Democrats have been consistent. Our position remains the same. We 
have been saying it for months: Republicans are shutting down the 
government because they refuse to address the crisis in American 
healthcare.
  One sentence sums it all up: Republicans are shutting down the 
government because they refuse to fix and address the crisis in 
American healthcare.
  Now, our Republican colleagues, being against public sentiment, are 
flailing. On the one hand, it is starting to sink in for Republicans 
that their position of not fixing healthcare is untenable in the eyes 
of the American people.
  As President Lincoln said, ``Public sentiment is everything.''
  Well, public sentiment is building on fixing healthcare. It is high 
already. It is getting higher every day, and it is not going to recede. 
It is getting even stronger.
  Republicans refuse to acknowledge that public sentiment is not on the 
side of Trump and Johnson. And Johnson has become the No. 1 roadblock 
to ending a shutdown.
  He sent everyone home for 3 weeks now. If you care about fixing the 
crisis, if you care about reopening the government, how the hell do you 
keep your House not in session for 3 weeks?
  And now their buddy Johnson himself is feeling the heat. At first, he 
and his caucus were telling Republicans in the House: Don't talk about 
healthcare. They knew the American people were against what they 
thought. Johnson's leadership team explicitly told Members in a memo 
not to mention healthcare when talking about the shutdown.
  Of course, that didn't work because the public knows, overwhelmingly, 
that we need lower healthcare premiums and that is what Democrats are 
fighting for and that is what is preventing the Republicans from coming 
to the table. They don't want to fix it. That is why they are causing 
the shutdown.
  So feeling the heat, Speaker Johnson held a press conference 
yesterday and said perhaps one of the most ridiculous things I have 
heard from Republicans in a long time. He said: ``Let me look right 
under the camera,'' said Johnson, ``and [I will] tell you very clearly: 
Republicans are the ones concerned about healthcare.''
  As he did it, he couldn't look right into the camera. Deep in his 
subconscious, he knew he wasn't telling the truth. What he said was 
nonsense. He couldn't even look in the camera when he said this because 
he knows the American people don't buy what he is saying.
  Republicans are the ones who cut a trillion dollars from Medicaid, 
who tried to repeal the ACA. Three times we asked them to vote to 
sustain it after the new year. Three times they voted it down.
  So that is first.
  Second, Donald Trump is making all these terrible threats led by the 
evil Mr. Vought. Trump is saying, he is going to fire people en masse, 
saying that Federal workers don't even deserve backpay, even though he 
signed the law guaranteeing backpay in 2019.
  Again, they are threatening. They are bludgeoning. They are using the 
American people, government workers, as pawns. But these kinds of 
tactics from the administration are backfiring. Americans don't like 
being used as pawns. Even if they are not one subject to being held 
hostage, they don't like watching it happen.
  The American people know clearly that it is Republicans who are in 
charge. Republicans have the White House. They control the House and 
the Senate. So when people are laid off, when people are not paid, when 
people are not getting backpay, they know it is the Republicans trying 
to do it, even though they are using it to try and bully us.
  It is not Democrats who are threatening to fire people or threatening 
to withhold backpay. It is the Republican side, Donald Trump, saying 
all this, and the American people know it and will blame them for these 
mass firings and chaos.
  The data is very clear that trying to use the public as political 
pawns will backfire for Republicans, and plenty of Republicans in 
Congress know this. That is why, behind closed doors, some Republicans 
are praying the administration tones down its threats because these 
mean-spirited tactics by Russell Vought aren't going to win in the 
court of public opinion or the hearts and minds of Americans.
  Look, Republicans are tripping over themselves because they are 
divided on the core issue: fixing people's healthcare.
  When someone on the hard right--the hard, hard right--Marjorie Taylor 
Greene, openly says Republican leaders are wrong and that we need to 
fix the premiums, that is how you know how deeply Republicans are 
split.

[[Page S6997]]

  Let me read what she said. This is Marjorie Taylor Greene, not Chuck 
Schumer:

       I'm going to go against everyone on this issue--

  Healthcare that is--

       because when tax credits expire this year my own adult 
     children's insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, 
     along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people 
     in my district.

  More Republicans should listen to her because on this issue, she is 
right on the money. Meanwhile, Democrats' position hasn't changed. We 
urge our Republican colleagues to join us in serious negotiation to 
reopen the government and extend ACA premiums. It is the right thing to 
do for the American people, and by doing it, we will be able to quickly 
reopen the government before any more serious damage is done by the 
Republicans to our country.


                   Nomination of Jennifer Lee Mascott

  Mr. President, finally, on nominations, today, the Senate will vote 
to advance the nomination of Jennifer Mascott of Maryland to be a 
circuit court judge for the Third Circuit. I will oppose Mascott's 
nomination because she does not seem to have any other qualification 
for the job other than this: She is a career loyalist and sycophant to 
Donald Trump.
  She has no connections to the Third Circuit. She has never lived in 
Delaware. She is not even licensed to practice law in Delaware. In 
fact, her only link to the State is a beachside summer home.
  If you look at Mascott's resume, the only time she has ever really 
practiced law is the 2 years she worked in Trump's Department of 
Justice. That is it, and you are putting her on the circuit court, one 
of the most important courts in the country?
  Well, the only reason Donald Trump is putting Mascott on the bench is 
because he thinks she will do whatever he wants from the bench. She 
will be a total, total Trump sycophant--not look at the law, not look 
at the facts, just look at Donald Trump and see which way he is nodding 
and follow it.
  This nominee is another troubling example of the ``Trumpification'' 
of the Federal bench, where loyalists replace jurists and obeisance to 
Trump matters more than adherence to the law or precedent or even the 
Constitution.
  It is just like what we saw yesterday in the Judiciary Committee.
  Pam Bondi exposed herself as woefully unqualified to be Attorney 
General but a supremely obeisant Trump deputy is what she is instead. 
She spent her time dodging questions, hurling insults, and, most 
importantly for Donald Trump, defending the President's interests more 
than anything else, even if the law or the facts or the truth pointed 
strongly in the other direction.
  This troubling pattern of obeisance above all in our judiciary system 
is dangerous and troubling. So I will oppose today's nominee and urge 
my colleagues to do the same.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                   Recognition of the Majority Leader

  The majority leader is recognized.


                           Government Funding

  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, we are now on day eight of the government 
shutdown, which is truly unfortunate and unnecessary and totally at the 
behest of leftwing Democrat special interest groups that have pressured 
the Democratic leadership into a position that makes absolutely no 
sense to any thinking person.
  I want you to think about where we are. Think about this scenario: 
You have a bill passed by the House of Representatives, over here in 
the Senate--24 pages long, clean, short term, nonpartisan, no policy 
riders, no Republican priorities--a clean resolution to fund the 
government. And there are 55 Senators--55 out of 100 Senators--who are 
voting for the clean, short-term funding resolution that would open up 
the government.
  The President of the United States has said that, as soon as it is 
passed in the Senate, he will sign it into law. So what you have is 
complete unified support for a short-term funding resolution to keep 
the government open and make sure that all the government employees who 
are currently being impacted and their families can get back to work 
and get paid again.
  And so it is always interesting when the Democrat leader comes down 
here and describes this fantasy world where the bill that they 
proposed, which would only get 47 votes here in the U.S. Senate--not 
even 50, not 51, not a majority, and certainly not the 60 that are 
necessary to pass consequential legislation in the Senate--it wouldn't 
get a single vote in the House of Representatives.
  So they have got a bill, a proposal, that they say keeps the 
government open, that can't pass the Senate, wouldn't pass the House, 
and wouldn't be signed into law by the President.
  You tell me--you tell me--who is responsible for the government 
shutdown.
  Republicans passed a bill in the House. It is over here in the 
Senate, 24 pages long, sitting right at the desk. We can pick it up and 
pass it today and send it to the President, who will sign it into law, 
and the government opens up again.
  Or--or--you can take this proposal the Democrats have, which has $1.5 
trillion in new spending, allows for free healthcare coverage for 
noncitizens, completely obliterates the $50 billion rural hospital fund 
that we put in place to support rural hospitals in this country that 
are struggling, and they think that would pass. It doesn't pass here, 
doesn't pass the House, and wouldn't get signed into law by the 
President.
  So just a logical person, think about this. Think about the 
juxtaposition of those two positions, and you tell me who is shutting 
the government down. We have a straightforward, simple proposition: a 
24-page funding resolution to keep the government open, with no 
partisan policy riders, no gimmicks, short term, which funds the 
government through November 21 to give us an opportunity to do the 
government funding the way we should do it, through the appropriations 
process, where we have the committees meeting and Republicans and 
Democrats contributing, and then bring it to the floor and have an open 
amendment process here. That is the way the government should normally 
be funded.
  And so what this does is it provides a short-term extension in order 
for all that to happen. That is all that we are talking about.
  They have other issues they want to bring up, which I have said 
before we are happy to discuss. And, yes, there are some things that I 
think there is interest on both sides in trying to address when it 
comes to healthcare in this country. But you can't take the Federal 
Government hostage and expect to have a reasonable conversation on 
those issues. The government needs to be funded. Federal employees need 
to go back to work. Federal Agencies and Departments need to be open 
and providing the services that the American people expect. It is that 
simple.
  And that is really what this is all about--again, nothing more, 
nothing less, nothing else. It is whether or not they want to support a 
24-page funding resolution that keeps the government open or continue 
to vote for $1.5 trillion in new spending, free healthcare for 
noncitizens, and completely wiping out a $50 billion rural hospital 
fund that is designed to support rural hospitals in this country--
something that would get 47 votes here in the Senate and not a majority 
in the House of Representatives, and wouldn't get a single vote, 
honestly, among Republicans in the House of Representatives, and would 
not be signed into law by the President--versus something, again, 
passed by the House, here at the Senate.

  All we need is five more votes. There are a majority of U.S. Senators 
today who support the short-term funding resolution, 55 out of 100. We 
need 5 Democrats.
  You tell me who shut the government down.
  And I think that the public is becoming wise to this debate and this 
argument and these fallacious arguments that are being made by the 
Democrats. In fact, there is a new Harvard-Harris poll that came out 
Monday that found that 70 percent of voters oppose a government 
shutdown--70 percent.

[[Page S6998]]

  And of interest to my Democratic colleagues, 65 percent of voters, 
including 63 percent of Independents, think the Democrats should end 
the shutdown by accepting a continuing resolution like the clean 
funding resolution I just described that is in front of us.
  So what are my Democrat colleagues doing? Well, after their 
resounding defeat in the Presidential election last November, you would 
think they might be paying attention to the strong majority of voters 
who would like the shutdown to end as well. You would think they might 
notice that 63 percent of Independents--voters I am sure Democrats 
would like to capture in the next election--want Democrats to accept a 
resolution like the clean CR in front of us. But you would be wrong, 
because Democrats are still deeply in thrall to the far left, and they 
are taking their marching orders for this shutdown from far-left 
interest groups. And I mean that literally.
  A recent Axios article reported:

       Progressive grassroots groups are blasting congressional 
     Democrats on speed dial to ``hold the line'' in any 
     negotiations to reopen the government.

  Now, that followed an Axios report that found:

       Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his staff are 
     closely coordinating their government shutdown strategy with 
     outside liberal groups. . . . Backing down and helping fund 
     the government, like Schumer did in March, is unacceptable, 
     the groups have told his team.
       Backing down and helping fund the government, like Schumer 
     did in March, is unacceptable, the groups have told his team.

  And so the liberal groups say ``jump,'' and Democrat leaders say, 
``How high?''
  Forget the robust majority of Independents that want the Democrats to 
end this shutdown.
  You know, back in the day--and by ``back in the day'' I mean as 
recently as 6 months ago--the Democrat leader was a pretty robust 
opponent of government shutdowns. Yes, he was an opponent--so much so 
that even though he didn't like the continuing resolution we passed in 
the spring, he voted for it anyway because, in his words, ``a 
government shutdown would be far worse.''
  But then progressive groups got big-time mad, and now the Democrat 
leader is leading the charge to keep the government shut down--
indefinitely, apparently--and all those Federal workers and hard-
working Americans he was so worried about before seem to have slipped 
his mind.
  In fact, Democrats have barely reacted to the fact that Federal 
workers are going to start missing pay.
  When we realized we were going to need a continuing resolution to 
allow us more time to complete the fiscal year 2026 appropriations 
bills, Republicans wanted to do everything we could to ensure that 
there was no government shutdown, which is why we put forward a clean 
continuing resolution with no Republican policies or partisan policy 
riders.
  We knew a shutdown would be costly and disruptive for hard-working 
Americans, and we were determined to ensure the Democrats had no 
reason--no reason--to oppose our CR. But Democrats weren't deterred by 
the fact that there was nothing for them to object to in our bill, and 
they decided to oppose it anyway.
  Now, Democrats will get another chance this week to vote to keep the 
government open. And I hope the Democrat leader and Democrat Senators 
can summon up some of that concern they used to have about shutdowns 
and vote to reopen the government.
  At the very least, if the Democrat leader is too worried about his 
polling to vote to reopen himself, he could allow Democrat Senators who 
do care about the functioning of our government to join Republicans to 
reopen.

                          ____________________