February 14, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 29 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Pages S1366-S1368]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 Russia

  Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. President, over the last 2 years, many of us have 
grappled with a very difficult question about our President. It is a 
question that never before could we even imagine thinking about an 
American President, let alone saying it out loud on the floor of the 
Senate. I am talking about the entirely legitimate question of whether 
Donald Trump could be compromised by the Russian Government. It is more 
than a legitimate question; it is the natural question that comes to 
mind every time we learn more about the links between President Trump, 
his associates, and the Russian Government.
  With the Mueller investigation possibly coming to a close in the near 
future, we may be forced to deal with--both Congress and the American 
public--some very stark facts about the President's ties to Russia. 
Just think about the reported revelations over the last month or so.
  We have learned that President Trump took unprecedented steps to 
conceal the contents of his conversations with Putin from his own 
advisers.
  We have learned that following one of the meetings with Putin, Trump 
phoned a New York Times reporter to argue that Russia did not interfere 
in the 2016 election--once again carrying the Kremlin's water in direct 
conflict with the entire U.S. intelligence community.
  We have learned that over the past year, President Trump repeatedly 
argued for pulling the United States out of NATO--something that Putin 
desires.
  We continue to learn new details about Paul Manafort's--President 
Trump's campaign chairman--meetings with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian 
national with suspected ties to Russian intelligence and an associate 
of Oleg Deripaska's. We know that Manafort met with Kilimnik 
repeatedly, provided him with polling data, and discussed ending U.S. 
sanctions and adopting a Russia-friendly peace plan for Ukraine. This 
is perhaps the most significant indication that Trump's inner circle 
was discussing pro-Kremlin policies in the months before the election.
  Tellingly, just last night, we learned that Manafort has lied again 
and again about the truth of his contacts and his conversations. Did 
Manafort determine that lying to prosecutors was a better alternative 
to telling the truth?
  Finally, let's not forget the revelation from just a few weeks ago 
that the Nation's top law enforcement agency reportedly opened a 
counterintelligence investigation into the President, in part for 
firing the FBI Director because of ``this Russia thing.''
  You can't make this stuff up. Not even in your wildest dreams, not 
even on the TV set of ``Homeland'' could you make this stuff up. The 
news of a possible counterintelligence investigation against a sitting 
President should shake us all to the core. Instead, we are barely even 
surprised.
  For the rightwing pundits who spoon-feed a warped reality to 
President Trump every hour of the day, it is just one more excuse to 
paint him--the most powerful man in the world--as a victim, but for the 
rest of us, these revelations only sharpen the dread that gnaws at us 
as we search our minds for any explanation for President Trump's 
perplexing posture toward Russia.
  Look, I may have my differences with the President on tax policy, on 
immigration policy, on healthcare policy, and more, but let me assure 
you, every time he was set to meet with Putin, I, for one, hoped and 
prayed that our President would prove our suspicions wrong.
  I hoped that the President of the United States would stand up to 
Putin and demand accountability for Russia's interference in the 2016 
elections--the cyber attacks, the stolen data, the malign social 
influence campaigns designed to stoke division and doubt in the 
American people. I hoped President Trump would make clear to Putin that 
legal aggression against Ukraine and the continual denial of Ukrainian 
sovereignty is unacceptable and will result in consequences. I hoped 
President Trump would not congratulate Putin on another sham election 
victory but operate from a position of truth about his grip on power--
that it comes from the oppression of the Russian people, the seizure of 
their assets, the torture and murder of dissenters, the building of a 
chemical weapons arsenal, and the denial of a free press and basic 
human rights. And of course I hoped President Trump would not budge an 
inch on sanctions on the Kremlin.
  But time and again, our President has let us down. He has let our 
country down. He has left Americans to lie awake at night asking 
themselves: What does Putin have on our President? Why won't he hold 
Russia accountable? Why won't he champion the values of democracy, 
freedom, and human rights that transcend political parties and define 
our greatest ideals as a nation?
  Instead, our President champions talking points that could have only 
come out of the Kremlin. Let me provide just a few examples.
  He told the leaders of the G7 that Crimea should be a part of Russia. 
He told the President of France to leave the EU. He said that 
Montenegro, a NATO member, could start World War III because they are 
``very aggressive people.'' He said that the Soviet Union invaded 
Afghanistan because ``terrorists were going into Russia'' and Russia 
was ``right to be there.''
  The Wall Street Journal rightly said that ``we cannot recall a more 
absurd misstatement of history by an American President.''
  I challenge anyone to find one person--one person in the State 
Department, the Defense Department, the National Security Council--who 
believes these statements and would have put them in the President's 
ear. So who does he get these ideas from? I can think of only one 
person--his good friend Vladimir Putin.
  Thus far, our greatest insights into what may be driving President 
Trump's peculiar behavior toward Russia have come out of Special 
Counsel Mueller's investigation and the additional investigations 
spawned by it. With every new court filing, we learn that the tentacles 
of Russian influence over the President and his associates are wrapped 
tighter than we previously thought.

  Meanwhile, the President and his cheerleaders on FOX News continue to 
discredit the Mueller probe as some kind of partisan witch hunt, when 
the truth is that it has already resulted in 4 individual sentences, 7 
guilty pleas, and a total of more than 30 people and 3 Russian entities 
charged.
  But all of this still begs the question why. Why does President Trump 
behave as though he has been compromised by the Russian Government? Why 
is he so deferential to Putin? We saw that at the Helsinki summit. Why 
have those around the President gone to such great lengths to cover up 
and lie about the extent of their interactions with Russia and with 
Russians?
  Of course, if we can consider the possibility that the President is 
an asset of the Russian Government, we then have to wonder whether he 
is a witting or an unwitting asset.
  On the one hand, it seems as though most of what President Trump does 
is unwitting. Perhaps his refusal to take Russian interference in 2016 
seriously is merely an outgrowth of his narcissism, a symptom of a 
fragile ego that cannot accept that maybe, just maybe the unprecedented 
malign influence campaign orchestrated by the Kremlin did indeed sway 
some votes on election day.
  On the other hand, the more I learn about President Trump's strange 
behavior toward Russia, the more I wonder if he knows exactly what is 
going on; the more I wonder if he knows that his campaign was making 
promises about pro-Kremlin positions and rolling back sanctions; the 
more I wonder if Trump knows that he is indebted to Russia and cannot 
allow the truth of

[[Page S1367]]

his business dealings to come to light, for the truth may tell us that 
Trump's overtures to Putin, his disparaging of NATO, his refusal to 
fully apply congressionally mandated sanctions, and his mixed messages 
on Ukraine are actually instances of conspiracy with the Kremlin in 
real time.
  Perhaps it is because I am from New Jersey and I have lived through 
decades of Donald Trump's questionable business dealings, but I cannot 
understand why anyone would flat out reject the proposition that he is 
indebted to Russia. He is the first Presidential candidate in decades 
to refuse to disclose his tax returns. He is the first President in 
modern history to refuse to divest from his business interests, leaving 
us wondering whether he and his family are profiting from his position 
in the Oval Office.
  Beyond the myth of the man, Trump is no business genius. He was a 
millionaire by age 8, thanks to his father. He ran the business into 
the ground. He defaulted on debt, refused to pay workers, and declared 
multiple corporate bankruptcies. Eventually, American banks saw through 
him and refused to lend him money, so Trump had to look elsewhere for 
cash. When you have been essentially blacklisted from the U.S. banking 
system, where do you turn? You turn to less savory sources.
  The fact that the Trump Organization courted and sold real estate to 
wealthy Russian buyers and financiers is no secret, nor is the reality 
that to be wealthy in Putin's Russia means to have close ties to the 
Kremlin. Much of the stolen wealth amassed by Putin and his cronies 
must be hidden from the global financial system, so where do you turn? 
Real estate.
  After a string of bankruptcies and racking up debt for years, the 
Trump Organization suddenly began making a spate of large, 
unexplainable cash purchases, totaling $400 million over 9 years. 
Giant, mysterious, inexplicable cash transactions are the hallmark of 
money laundering. So where did they get the cash? Well, if we are to 
believe the words of the President and his sons, much of it came from 
Russia. In fact, it was Donald Junior who said in 2008 that ``we see a 
lot of money pouring in from Russia'' and Eric Trump who reportedly 
said in 2014 that ``we don't rely on American banks. We have all the 
funding we need out of Russia.''
  We know that several Trump projects, like Trump SoHo and Trump 
Toronto, received significant funding from Kremlin-linked financiers. 
In fact, Trump Toronto was funded by an asset sale by the Russian bank 
VTB--a transaction that would have likely needed approval from Putin 
himself. We now know that the Trump Organization pursued the Trump 
Moscow project for far longer than he led on, including well into his 
campaign for President.
  The President has unequivocally said that he has ``zero investments 
in Russia.'' Well, here is the problem: Donald Trump may not have 
investments in Russia, but it is quite possible that the Kremlin has an 
investment in him.
  That is what keeps me up at night.
  That is why I believe the time is now to pass legislation requiring 
all Presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns and why I am 
the sponsor of such legislation.
  So many of my colleagues decried Trump's shattering of this norm, but 
since he arrived at White House, the Republicans have done nothing to 
stop it from becoming the new normal.
  We still don't know who is behind the vast majority of the Trump 
organization projects around the world, many of which continue to this 
day. We have to follow the money to get to the truth. How else will we 
ever know why our President is either unable or unwilling to publicly 
stand up to Putin?
  What too many of my Republican colleagues seem to forget is that at 
the end of the day, this is not about Donald Trump; it is about the 
American people. It is about whether an American President may be 
beholden to foreign interests and how those interests fare against our 
own.
  When the President embraces our greatest adversaries and gives the 
back of the hand to our closest allies; when he continually denies 
Russia's interference in 2016 and belittles the findings of our entire 
intelligence community; when, in spite of those findings, he suggests 
lifting sanctions on the Russians; when he backs down from challenging 
Putin after Russia commits an unacceptable act of aggression against 
Ukraine in the Sea of Azov, an international border, then we need a 
Congress willing to live up to its role as a coequal branch of 
government.
  We cannot blindly follow a potentially compromised President down 
this dangerous path in which our alliances are suffering, our 
leadership on the global stage is waning, and our competitors are 
seeking to fill the void.
  We need to know the facts--not the latest spin dropped by Rudy 
Giuliani--the facts. The American people deserve to know whom they 
elected to be their President. They deserve to know if he is, in fact, 
putting America's interests first. They deserve to know if Donald Trump 
is wittingly or unwittingly an agent for the Russian Federation.
  Congress must carry out its constitutional duty to fully and 
thoroughly investigate where the facts lead. That is why we must 
protect the integrity of all oversight efforts including the objective, 
sober investigation still being conducted by Robert Mueller, and that 
is why we must push for his final report to be made public to the 
American people.
  At the same time, this administration's deference to the Kremlin 
demands Congress be proactive in shaping U.S. foreign policy toward 
Russia, especially with respect to sanctions. We saw that with the 
Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions or CAATSA law passed 
in 2017 with the support of 98 Senators.
  Given the circumstances we face today, we need additional legislation 
to protect American interests. That is why Senator Graham and I 
introduced just yesterday the Defending America's Security from Kremlin 
Aggression Act or DASKA, a bipartisan piece of legislation that is 
joined by several of our Republican colleagues.
  This comprehensive legislation will ensure our diplomats have the 
tools to advance our interests and stand up to the bully in the 
Kremlin. It includes new sanctions, as well as provisions designed to 
harden our democratic institutions and make us less vulnerable to 
attack. Perhaps most urgently, DASKA requires Senate consent, should 
the President act on his desire to pull the United States out of NATO. 
To risk letting this President pull our Nation out of a military 
alliance so vital to America's security would be a tragedy fit for the 
ages.
  The collapse of NATO is No. 1 on Mr. Putin's wish list, and with 
leaders like Secretary Mattis no longer around to babysit this 
President, Congress has a responsibility to act. This bipartisan bill 
is essential to giving the United States a more solid footing against 
the Kremlin moving forward.
  We should treat DASKA with urgency. The time to pass this legislation 
is now. We need hearings, a vote on the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee, and swift consideration on the floor of the Senate.
  Likewise, we must finally pass legislation to protect the Mueller 
investigation and to require that all Presidential candidates release 
their tax returns.
  I know, deep down, that many of my Republican colleagues share my 
concerns. I have talked with them, a fair number of them, yet they are 
afraid of angering the Party of Trump. Well, I believe that they would 
be seen as American heroes.
  Should the facts confirm our greatest fears to be true, I ask my 
colleagues to consider what the history books will say about those who 
knew the President of the United States might very well be compromised 
by a foreign power, yet still did nothing. I am talking about my 
Republican colleagues who seem to have numbed themselves to the latest 
bombshell revelations about the President's posture on Russia. 
Apparently, they don't want to know why Russia interfered in 2016 to 
help Trump win. They don't want to know why the Republican platform's 
strong language on Russia was watered down by the Trump team. They 
don't want to know how someone deeply indebted to Russian oligarchs and 
later caught giving polling data to Russian intelligence contacts 
became chairman of the campaign. They don't want to know why Russia 
began hacking Hillary Clinton's emails the same day that Candidate 
Trump asked them to do so.

[[Page S1368]]

  They don't want to know why the President undermines our intelligence 
community and attacks law enforcement for investigating Russian 
interference. They don't want to know why he seeks to dismantle NATO, a 
pillar of security, prosperity, and the defense of western democratic 
ideals. They don't want to know why he shares Putin's joy when discord 
unfolds in Europe. They don't want to know why Trump forbade his 
interpreter from disclosing the contents of his conversations with 
Putin and took his notes. In short, they don't want to know the truth.
  Well, now is not the time to ignore the facts or avoid the truth. We 
are living in a time of unthinkable questions, and should the facts 
reveal the most unthinkable of answers, we must do what is necessary to 
protect the interests of the United States of America.
  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, first, let me commend the Senator from New 
Jersey for his very articulate, detailed, and factually specific 
discussion of Russian malign influence across the globe but, 
particularly, here in the United States.