[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 37 (Thursday, March 2, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1586-S1587]
CALLING FOR AN INDEPENDENT, NONPARTISAN COMMISSION
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today to express my deep concern
about this administration's ties to the country of Russia. We are just
3 months into the 115th Congress, and I have come to the Senate floor
multiple times to discuss inappropriate contact between Trump
administration officials and the Russian Government. This is truly
unprecedented.
Our Constitution was set up to guarantee that our democracy would be
free of influence from foreign powers. For months, U.S. intelligence
agencies have said that Russia used covert cyber attacks, espionage,
and propaganda to try to undermine our democracy. Reports show it, and
the facts prove it. As I learned from my trip at the end of the year
with Senator McCain and Senator Graham to the Baltics, Georgia, and
Ukraine, this is not unique to our country and our elections and our
democracy. This is something that has gone on for years--where Russia
shut down the internet in the little country of Estonia simply because
they had the audacity to move a bronze statue to a public square in
Lithuania where they invited members of the Ukrainian Parliament who
were in exile from Crimea in Kiev and invited them to Lithuania to
celebrate their 25th anniversary of independence from Russia, and then
they attempted to hack into the computers of the members of the
Parliament in Lithuania.
As Senator Marco Rubio noted, this is not just about one party or one
candidate or even about one country; this is an assault on democracies
across the world. Last month, we learned that the very day President
Obama imposed sanctions on Russia, with unprecedented attacks on our
democracy, General Flynn, a member of the Trump transition team, spoke
to a senior Russian official regarding those sanctions. The National
Security Adviser, the person charged with the most sensitive matters of
U.S. national security, then misled the Vice President of the United
States and then, in turn, the American people. He resigned, as did the
former chairman of the Trump campaign; he resigned.
Now we have learned that Attorney General Sessions met with the
Russian Ambassador. Fine, Members meet with Ambassadors; we know that
happens. But in fact, he met with the Russian Ambassador only 3 days
after then-President Obama was at the G20 Summit. He was at the G20
Summit, and he met with Vladimir Putin himself. He told him to stop the
cyber attacks, but he also told him that America was not going to back
down from the sanctions. In fact, President Obama told the whole world
that day in a press conference that we were not going to roll over and
back down on the sanctions imposed against Russia because of their
illegal invasion of Ukraine.
What happened 3 days later? Then-Senator Sessions, now our Attorney
General, in fact, met with the Russian Ambassador.
Senator Sessions was then asked about contacts with the Russians from
Trump officials during his hearing. I was there. I serve on the
Judiciary Committee. Senator Franken posed some of those questions, in
addition to Senator Leahy, who has noted that, at best, the answer was
misleading.
That is why I feel so strongly that a press conference today is not
enough and that Senator Sessions must come before the Judiciary
Committee and answer under oath the questions that we now have.
What are those questions?
What was actually said at the meeting? Were sanctions discussed?
Remember, 3 days--this meeting occurred 3 days after President Obama
had said he would not roll back the sanctions. Were the sanctions
discussed? Why did the Russian Ambassador, by the way, not meet with
many other Members that day? We may not have a full accounting, but it
appears that many of the Armed Services Committee members did not meet
with the Russian Ambassador that day.
No. 2, what were the discussions with the Trump administration, then-
campaign officials back in September, before that meeting occurred
between Senator Sessions and the Russian Ambassador? What were the
discussions leading into it? What were the discussions after the
meeting? Those are things we truly need to know.
For weeks, Senator Sessions could have corrected the record--for
weeks, during the time in which this Russian issue and the contact with
the Trump administration were discussed thoroughly. For weeks, I have
been calling on Senator Sessions, now Attorney General Sessions, to
recuse himself from any investigation into Russia.
There are clear Department of Justice guidelines about conflicts of
interest, and, as I have said for weeks, when you read those rules,
there is a clear conflict of interest. Today, Attorney General Sessions
agreed to a partial recusal. He recused himself on the part of the
investigation that relates to the Presidential campaign. Well, the
American people deserve a full recusal.
Think about it. The meeting between General Flynn and the Russian
Ambassador took place after the campaign ended. The meeting that we
just learned about today between the President's son-in-law and Russian
officials happened after the campaign ended. We need a full recusal and
an independent counsel to manage the investigation of contacts between
the Russian Government, the Trump campaign, and the Trump
administration.
I believe, as I have noted earlier, that Attorney General Sessions
must come before the Senate Judiciary Committee under oath and answer
these questions:
Were sanctions discussed? What were his discussions leading into that
meeting with the Russian Ambassador? What were the discussions
afterwards? And I am sure my other colleagues on the Judiciary
Committee have many, many other questions.
I know when I asked about Russia at Senator Sessions' nomination
hearing, I asked him very specifically if he had any reason to doubt
the evidence put forward by our 17 intelligence agencies that there
had, in fact, been an attempt by a foreign government, the country of
Russia, to influence our election. He said he had no reason to doubt
those findings. He had no reason to doubt those findings, so he clearly
understood when you read that report how important this is--the $200
million spent in propaganda by Russian TV, as well as the hacking, as
well as the attempts to influence the election.
So we have these facts. We know that meeting took place just 3 days
after the President, our then-President Obama, met with Vladimir Putin
at the G20 Summit. We know that is a time when Putin was told by the
President of the United States to stop undermining the U.S. election
system with cyber attacks. This was back in September before the
election even occurred. We saw Paul Manafort resign from the campaign
over Russia. We saw General Flynn step down over his contacts with the
Russian Ambassador, and then we have that meeting. To me this seems
like a pattern, and I want to not only see the facts through the
investigations that are ongoing but also hear from the Attorney General
himself.
That is why I am calling for the Department of Justice inspector
general to investigate the actions of the Attorney General and whether
the ongoing investigation into the Trump campaign and administration
contacts with the Russian Government has been compromised in any way.
We know that Russia attempted to interfere with our election. Russia
tries to undermine our democracy. This is not fake news. This is as
real as it gets.
Aides and surrogates of this administration during the campaign and
the transition were in contact with officials from a foreign government
that was actively working to bring our democracy down. They were
actively working to influence our elections. As Senator Rubio has
noted, one time it is one candidate and one political party, and the
next time it will be the other candidate and the other political party,
unless we all come together in a bipartisan fashion to get to the
bottom of the facts.
So how do we do that beyond the recusal and the independent counsel
and having Senator Sessions come back before the Judiciary Committee to
thoroughly answer my questions and the questions of my colleagues?
Well,
[[Page S1587]]
the other way we do it is by having an independent commission. That is
why I introduced, along with Senators Cardin, Leahy, Feinstein, and
Carper, the bill that was announced by Senator Cardin and me, with Adam
Schiff and Elijah Cummings, that would create an independent,
nonpartisan commission to uncover all the facts and make sure that
future elections and political campaigns are safeguarded from foreign
interference. Remember that this commission can go alongside the
Intelligence Committee investigation--not to replace it but to be in
addition to it--because this committee and experts appointed by this
Congress from both sides of the aisle, just like the 9/11 Commission so
successfully did, could actually not just uncover some facts that
aren't known publicly, but, most importantly, they can make
recommendations to make sure this doesn't happen again.
By the way, there are upcoming elections in Germany and in France,
and getting that information out there doesn't just help our democracy,
it also helps democracies in other parts of the world. We also need--
and I touched on this earlier--an independent counsel, special
prosecutor to look into all the contacts between the Trump
administration and the campaign and have a full recusal.
What else can Congress do besides the independent commission? We have
to make sure that the Intelligence Committee proceeds with its
investigation. I am pleased that Senator Burr and Senator Warner have
come together and announced that they are going to do a full and
thorough investigation. They will also be looking into the contacts
with the campaign--incredibly important.
Now we have the issue of the sanctions. As I mentioned, the day that
the Obama administration was imposing additional sanctions on Russia--
and the Trump campaign, through General Flynn, was actually meeting
during this transition day with the Russian Ambassador to perhaps
undermine those sanctions--I was with Senators McCain and Graham in
Eastern Europe. As I noted, when we were in the Baltics, we heard and
met with leaders--Prime Ministers and Presidents of these countries in
Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, who have seen this movie before. We
went to Ukraine. We went to Georgia. We heard from Ukraine--6,500
attempts to hack into their country's computer system alone, shutting
down access in Estonia. Trolls, in a building in Moscow--nearly 1,000
people--who are now working and have been working to undermine
democracies all around the world.
So this isn't just about defending our own democracy; it is about
defending the world's democracies. It is about saying to a country that
thinks they can just get us to roll over and say: Hey, you can
influence our election. No, that is not right. That is why we worked
for expanded sanctions; that is why we introduced on a bipartisan basis
with Senator McCain and Senator Graham--and I was one of the original
sponsors with Senator Cardin and others--the Countering Russian
Hostilities Act that would impose more sanctions on Russia. It would
address cyber attacks, human rights violations, and its illegal
annexation of land in Ukraine and Georgia.
Just this weekend, on Sunday afternoon, I met with my Ukrainian
community. Hundreds of people showed up on a Sunday afternoon in
Minnesota because they are so concerned about their friends and
relatives and they so believe in our democracy. Right down the road
from the Ukrainian Center, where we held our meeting and where I
listened and answered questions from my constituents, is a deli called
Kramarczuk's. It is owned by a Ukrainian immigrant family whose parents
came over to our country having fled oppression, and they came over to
our country and bought this deli. They put this beautiful mural across
an entire wall, and it is a beautiful photo of our Statue of Liberty,
that beacon of democracy. Because of the Kramarczuks--they believe in
our country. They believe in America. They believe in a country that is
going to stand up for freedom of the press, that is going to stand up
for freedom of religion, and that is going to stand up for them and
their rights as immigrants to be citizens in this country. They believe
in it because they have seen the worst of it. They have seen
dictatorships, they have seen oppression, and they came to our country.
They expect our country, as they serve their Ukrainian food to the
people all over Minnesota in front of the big mural of the Statue of
Liberty--they believe that our country is going to stand up for
democracy.
That was the message that Senator McCain, Senator Graham, and I
brought to the people of Ukraine. We not only, of course, met with the
President and their official leaders, but we also went right to the
frontline. On New Year's Eve, we were in Eastern Ukraine on the sea--
cold, snow coming down--with hundreds and hundreds of Ukrainian troops,
hearing the stories of a mother who was so young, who had just lost her
son a week before to a Russian separatist sniper. We heard the stories
of the 10,000 people killed just as this conflict began, standing up
for democracy, just as we have stood up for our democracy.
So when all of these discussions go on about recusals and about who
should resign and what should happen, let's remember what this is all
about. This is about saving our democracy and making our democracy
strong so we can continue to be the beacon that those Ukrainians put on
their wall in their deli because they believe in this country so much.
This isn't about partisan divides. This is simply about being a
democracy and getting to the bottom of it. When something goes on and a
foreign country is trying to influence things, you have to put your
party aside. You have to say: You know what, I want to know what
happened here. If I am a Democrat or Republican, I want to know what
happened so it doesn't happen again. I want to be able to protect our
citizens and our election system and our democracy. That is what this
is about.
Thank you, Mr. President.
I yield the floor.
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