January 15, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 9 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session
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IMPEACHMENT; Congressional Record Vol. 166, No. 9
(Senate - January 15, 2020)
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[Pages S215-S217] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov] IMPEACHMENT Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. President, at this particular moment in our history, we are witnessing the convergence of three events. The Senate will likely be sworn in tomorrow for the impeachment trial of President Trump. One of the Articles of Impeachment that will be coming over from the House relates to the President's abuse of power-- the charge that he has used the power and prestige of the Office of the Presidency to, among other things, withhold vital U.S. security assistance to Ukraine in order to pressure it to announce an investigation into Burisma, Hunter Biden, and, possibly, Joe Biden in an attempt to get Ukraine to interfere in the upcoming 2020 election on behalf of President Trump. Now, I am not here today to go into issues directly related to that trial. It is vitally important that we get relevant witnesses, that we get relevant [[Page S216]] documents, and that we have a fair trial and get to the truth. The second event that we learned about just this week that relates to the impeachment trial was that Russian military hackers broke into the Burisma computers in Ukraine and that they used the same phishing techniques that the GRU used--the Russian military intelligence--to break into the Democratic National Committee headquarters' servers during the 2016 Presidential elections. All of the evidence points to another attempt by Vladimir Putin to use his military GRU hackers to interfere in an American election--this time in the 2020 election. I don't know what is going to happen during the election on November 3 of this year. Obviously, each of us has his hopes as to what the result will be, but that is not the purpose of my being here on the floor today. My focus is on what should unite all of us in this body-- that should unite all 100 U.S. Senators--and that is that we should all agree that it is outrageous for any foreign power to interfere in an American election the way Russia interfered in our election in 2016 and that it would be equally outrageous for us, in our knowing that this is Russia's intent in 2020, to sit here and not do anything to protect the integrity of our democracy. Look, we all know what happened in 2016. Just to refresh our memories, it was the unanimous conclusion of all U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 Presidential election. That was the unanimous conclusion of the leaders of intelligence agencies appointed by President Trump. It was also the bipartisan verdict of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which painstakingly documented the fact that elections systems in all 50 of our States were targeted to one degree or another by Russian hackers in the 2016 elections. In fact, we know this from the outcome of the Mueller investigation that led to the indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence individuals, members of the GRU. They were indicted because of their interference in the 2016 elections. We also know that Vladimir Putin and the Russians intend to interfere in our elections again in 2020. We know that because of the revelations this week about the actions the GRU is taking with respect to Burisma-- same fingerprint, same techniques--but we also know that from our own U.S. intelligence agencies, which, in November of last year, all got together to issue a warning that Russia was going to interfere again in 2020. I am holding in my hand a joint statement from the leaders of U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and what they say is that our adversaries--and they point to Russia--will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions. This document is not about the past. This document is not about 2016. This document is about the here and now and the November 2020 elections. And this is, again, from the heads of our intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies who have been appointed by President Trump. Now we have overwhelming evidence that Russia interfered in 2016, we have overwhelming evidence and predictions that Russia will interfere again in our elections in 2020, and so we clearly are facing an immediate danger to the integrity of our elections and our democracy. It is like we have a Russian missile in the air right now headed toward our election integrity systems and our electoral process. That is what the intelligence agencies are telling us right now. We learned the hard way in 2016, and now it is happening all over again. So the question for this body is, When you know something is happening, what are you going to do about it? There are two things we should be doing about it. We should be working to strengthen our elections systems here at home, to harden them, to make it more difficult for Russian military intelligence to hack into them. We should be working with social media companies to prevent the Russian Government and their agents from spending money on advertising on social media or using other techniques on social media to influence American voters. We need to be doing all that. We have appropriated some funds to do that. We should be doing more than we have, but the best defense is a good offense. We can and should spend money to strengthen and protect our elections systems, but that is not enough because it is kind of like the arms race. We will work to try to better strengthen and protect those systems, and the hackers who are trying to get in will develop new techniques to try to get around them. It is an endless cycle. That doesn't mean we shouldn't harden them--we should--but that is not enough to protect the integrity of our elections. We have to apply the principle that the best defense is a good offense and make it clear up front to Vladimir Putin and Russia that the costs of interfering in another American election far outweigh the benefits. That is what we need to do because right now it is absolutely cost-free to Vladimir Putin to mess around in our elections. In fact, it is a big benefit to Vladimir Putin and the Russians. That is why they do it. What do they accomplish? Well, first of all, they succeed in dividing Americans against one another. They succeed in undermining public confidence in the outcome of our elections, and that is part of their overall strategy--to try to undermine democracies, whether here in the United States or in Europe or other places around the world. Maybe they also succeed, ultimately, in weighing in and helping their preferred candidate in an election. But the point is, right now, if you are Putin, there is zero cost to getting caught interfering in our elections and lots of perceived benefits by Vladimir Putin. So that is why, more than 2 years ago, Senator Marco Rubio and I introduced the bipartisan DETER Act, and there are many other Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, who were on that bill. The DETER Act is very straightforward. It would enact into law a very straightforward proposition. It says to Russia--and also to other countries, but the main attack seems to be coming from Russia--it says to Putin and Russia: If we catch you again interfering in our elections, there will be immediate and very harsh penalties for you to pay. This will happen virtually automatically. So Vladimir Putin will know up front that if our intelligence agencies catch them again, which they are likely to do, then he will finally pay a price for interfering in our elections and trying to undermine our democratic processes. These are not sanctions against a couple of Putin's pals. These are not sanctions against a couple oligarchs. These would be sanctions against major sectors of the Russian economy--state-owned banks, state-owned parts of their energy industry--so their economy will take a big hit if we catch them attacking our democracy once again. That is absolutely appropriate because what Putin is doing is undermining faith and confidence in our democratic process, and we need to make it clear up front that there is a big price to pay--not because we want those sanctions to go into effect but because we don't. That, of course, is the entire idea behind deterrence. You raise the cost, you raise the price on Putin and Russia to the point it is no longer worth it to interfere in our elections. That is why Senator Rubio and I introduced this legislation 2 years ago. We hoped it would be in place before the 2018 midterm elections, but that date has passed, and still here we are in the U.S. Senate having failed to adopt this bipartisan legislation. I was right here on the floor of the Senate just a few months ago when we were debating the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act. I asked for a vote to include the essential provision of the DETER Act in the Defense authorization bill because it makes a lot of sense that in a bill that is supposed to defend the United States, we include a provision to defend the integrity of our democracy and electoral system against Russian attack or any other attack. Apparently every single Senator in this body agreed because it passed unanimously. The Senate went on record unanimously saying we should include provisions like the DETER Act in the NDAA to deter Russian interference in our elections. Then we were in negotiations on the NDAA, and it turned out that in the back rooms, behind closed doors, the Trump administration got Republican Senators to insist on throwing that provision out of the NDAA bill. [[Page S217]] This was one of the matters that was discussed until the final stages of negotiations on the NDAA, and apparently the majority leader and other Republican Senators, at the behest of the Trump administration, said no--said no to a provision that had been agreed to unanimously by this body to help protect our elections by deterring Russian interference. The question is, Why? Why, when our own intelligence agencies are telling us that Russia is planning to do in 2020 what they did in 2016, would Republican Senate leaders block a provision that lets Putin know ``You will be punished if you do that again. You will be punished if you attack our democracy''? And I haven't gotten a straight answer to that question. Why not? Why not include that provision? Clearly, there are Senators who don't want to build up our defenses and deterrence again Russian interference in our elections. When we failed to get that into the NDAA, I came to the Senate floor, and I asked for unanimous consent to bring up the bipartisan DETER Act. Because every one of the Senators in this body had voted or said through lack of objection that they wanted the DETER Act in the NDAA, I brought up the bill for unanimous consent passing here. Well, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee came to the floor and objected, and we had a back-and-forth conversation about the DETER Act. Yesterday, I was planning to come to this floor and again ask for unanimous consent to take up the DETER Act, but we heard from the chairman of the Banking Committee that he wanted to find a way to get this done. So I am going to take the chairman of the Banking Committee up on that offer, and I hope we can get it done. But I want to be really clear. If we are not able to work this out in a smart, straightforward way, which is what the bill does right now--as I said, it has strong bipartisan support right now--then I will be back on the Senate floor regularly to ask for unanimous consent, and any other Senator who wants to come down here and object can do that. That is their right. But I am going to keep pushing this issue because the clock is ticking. Every day that passes while we know from our own intelligence agencies that Russia plans to interfere in the 2020 election and we don't do anything about it--we are grossly negligent. I want Senators who are not going to support that to come here in the light of day and let the American public know they are blocking that effort. I hope we don't have to do that. I hope we can work this out. I hope we can pass the bipartisan legislation that has been sitting in the Senate for over 2 years now as we get warning after warning after warning that Vladimir Putin, the GRU, and the Russians intend to interfere in our democratic process again and attack the integrity of our electoral system. Let's get this done. Let's protect our democracy. Let's make it clear in advance to Putin that the price he will pay for trying to interfere in our democracy will be much higher than any benefit he expects to gain. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania. Mr. CASEY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. ____________________
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