Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

The Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 26, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Rick A. Dearborn, of Oklahoma, to be a Director of the Amtrak Board of Directors, and Martin J. Oberman, of Illinois, to be a Member of the Surface Transportation Board.

Committee on Finance

The Committee on Finance is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 26, 2018, at 9:30 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Justin George Muzinich, of New York, to be Deputy Secretary, and Michael J. Desmond, of California, to be Chief Counsel for the Internal Revenue Service and an Assistant General Counsel, both of the Department of the Treasury.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 26, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions

The Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 26, 2018, at 11 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Modernizing Apprenticeship to Expand Opportunities.''

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, July 25, 2018, at 2 p.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management

The Subcommittee on Regulatory Affairs and Federal Management of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Thursday, July 26, 2018, at 2:15 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``the Challenge and opportunities of the Proposed Government Reorganization on OPM and

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, earlier this month, President Trump announced his choice to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, and he told us that nominee would be Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

During this short period of time--just a little over 2 weeks--we have seen some of our friends across the aisle attempt to tank Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation before it really has a chance to get started, certainly before they have a chance to meet him. Five of our colleagues across the aisle announced their opposition to any Supreme Court Justice President Trump might nominate--anybody; fill in the blank. Then, once the President chose Judge Kavanaugh, 15 more fell into lockstep with the first 5, so now we have 20 of our Democratic colleagues, before they have even had a chance to meet the judge, who have announced their implacable opposition.

I thought that would pretty much take the cake until I saw reported this morning that one of our colleagues across the aisle said that to support Judge Kavanaugh would make you complicit in evil. It is hard to take statements like that seriously. To me, that is completely unhinged and detached from any reality. This is the same judge who was confirmed in 2006 by a substantial bipartisan vote to what many have called the second most important court in the Nation. My advice to some of our friends across the aisle who are engaged in this kind of super-heated rhetoric is, get a grip. Get a grip.

The strategy we have seen on the other side hasn't worked too well. They have targeted the nominee's character, but then they have had to deal with the fact that this nominee is a standup guy and a good father. Multiple fact-checkers debunked claims regarding his legal views, as well as the timing of his confirmation, so it seems like our colleagues have moved on.

Now it seems like it is all about the paper. It is all about documents. We have heard from some of our colleagues requesting that every email, every memo, every document that ever crossed Brett Kavanaugh's desk be disgorged and produced in the course of this confirmation proceeding. Ignore the fact for a minute that when he was confirmed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, they didn't request any of the documents from when he was Staff Secretary for the President of the United States, but now, for some mysterious reason, they could well be hiding the smoking gun they will use to derail his confirmation--or at least so they are acting.

In the course of my legal career--I served for 13 years as a judge on the trial court and appellate courts in Texas--I have seen phishing expeditions before, and this is the very definition of a phishing expedition.

I agree with our colleagues who say all relevant documents need to be produced--and should be and will be produced in a perfectly normal part of confirming a judicial nominee. But that is the key--the documents need to be reasonably related to the confirmation process.

Our friend the minority leader from New York sees things differently. There is no surprise there. Yesterday, he scolded me personally, as well as other Republican colleagues. He said that we are guilty of applying an enormous double standard when it comes to producing documents in a judicial confirmation hearing. He compared the confirmation of Justice Kagan to Judge Kavanaugh's.

Let's rewind the clock. It is true that Republicans wanted to see Justice Kagan's documents and review them before holding a hearing on her confirmation for the Supreme Court, but it wasn't the range of documents we are talking about with Kavanaugh. Her situation was dramatically different.

First, she had never served as a judge before, as Judge Kavanaugh has. He has a vast judicial record--300 opinions, 12 years on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He has a vast record when it comes to his activities as a judge. You would think that would be a good place to start. We thought it was important to review relevant records for Justice Kagan at the White House because we didn't have judicial opinions to review. For Justice Kagan, we needed materials to understand her legal philosophy and style of reasoning, and we had to use what actually existed at the time.

I will say that the Solicitor General files--she was Solicitor General of the United States and represented the U.S.

Government in front of the Supreme Court. Virtually none of that was touched. We recognize that those attorney-client communications should be respected.

Second, for Justice Kagan's confirmation, Republicans and Democrats alike agreed that not every single executive branch document was relevant and important to her confirmation process. In that respect, I will tell my friend the minority leader that is not a double standard; that is the same standard. It should be the same standard.

Republicans and Democrats got together in the case of Justice Kagan and agreed that records from her time at the Solicitor General's Office were too sensitive and privileged and that they shouldn't be made available to the Senate in connection with her confirmation. Instead, the Senate decided it was more appropriate to focus on records from Justice Kagan's time at the White House Counsel's Office and the Office of Domestic Policy. So, too, we would say that Brett Kavanaugh's documents that he authored, that he contributed to at the White House Counsel's Office, subject to any privileges that might pertain, should be fair game. So there is already well-worn precedent when it comes to executive branch records--which should be on-limits and which should be off-limits. We observed that in the case of Justice Kagan, and we would argue that the same consideration should be applied to the Kavanaugh nomination.

Third, in the past comment of mine Senator Schumer was referring to yesterday, I was talking specifically about tens of thousands of documents in reference to Justice Kagan. In the end, 173,000 documents were produced on her behalf. By the way, that is nowhere close to the ``gazillion'' that the junior Senator from Alabama has alleged was produced during the Kagan confirmation. It wasn't a gazillion; it was 173,000. It might have seemed that way because that is a lot of documents. The stacks of paper were stacked high. But the truth is, much fewer than a gazillion were produced--173,000. Compare that to the document production for Justice Gorsuch when he was confirmed. That was roughly 182,000 documents. That is a high number as well, but it pales in comparison to what our Democratic friends are asking for in the case of Judge Kavanaugh.

The truth is, our friends across the aisle are picking numbers out of the air, talking about potentially millions of documents. The senior Senator from California has named 1 million as her magic number, and that is the minimum amount of documents she said she expects to be produced.

As I said, we all know that Judge Kavanaugh, in addition to serving as a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and in addition to working in the White House Counsel's Office, served as Staff Secretary to the President. Many documents crossed his desk while he worked in that job. But the effort to insist on every document that he touched from the time he was at the Bush White House as Staff Secretary is ludicrous. It is ridiculous. It is nothing less than a phishing expedition designed to delay his confirmation until after the Supreme Court reconvenes in early October.

Do our colleagues really seriously need to see every piece of paper that crossed his desk? Is what President Bush had for dinner 14 years ago relevant to how Judge Kavanaugh will serve on the Court? I am sure there is a copy of the White House mess menu as part of those documents, but those aren't his documents in the sense that he didn't create them, he didn't contribute to them. He was sort of a traffic cop--a very important traffic cop--in terms of the documents that went across the President's desk.

Our friend, the senior Senator from Connecticut, for example, seemed to suggest that every piece of paper that crossed his desk is important. He said he wants to see any documents that have Judge Kavanaugh's name on them, whether he was a direct recipient or a sender or he was copied.

If somebody sent a document to him, how is that relevant to Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications, something sent to him by somebody else that he didn't contribute to and he didn't author?

Well, based on that rationale, if Judge Kavanaugh were cc'd on an email about somebody's birthday party down the hall, apparently some of our friends across the aisle think that information is absolutely crucial to this confirmation hearing. Well, that is just not right, and it is ridiculous.

Just as the Judiciary Committee quickly processed Justice Kagan's nomination in 2010--somebody who spent a number of years at the Clinton White House--I am confident we could do the same if we got together and worked at it in the case of Judge Kavanaugh.

Under Chairman Grassley's leadership, the Judiciary Committee will work to produce hundreds of thousands of documents for Members to conduct a thorough review. I am confident of that.

We met with the White House Counsel yesterday to talk about the strategy for producing the documents that are relevant to the confirmation process, but there is no better evidence of exactly what kind of judge ``Justice Kavanaugh'' will be than the opinions he has written on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

The committee will receive thousands of documents that are relevant and important to the confirmation process. Senators and their staff will be able to review them, and Senators will be able to ask questions. I guarantee Chairman Grassley will hold a full and fair hearing before the Judiciary Committee when we convene for the purposes of the confirmation hearing.

We will be able to ask--all of us--on a bipartisan basis, the hard questions everybody wants to ask, and at the end of the process, which I am hopeful will take place this September, the Senate will act, and Judge Kavanaugh will become Justice Kavanaugh.

Beyond the document production, there is another wrinkle in the confirmation process that has emerged, and it hinges on the nominees's views on Executive power. I spoke a little bit about that yesterday, but there is just another thing to mention.

I am referring to a 1999 transcript of a panel discussion in which Judge Kavanaugh discussed the case United States v. Nixon, which forced then-President Nixon to turn over the Watergate tapes. It was a significant event in our Nation's history.

My friend the minority leader has provocatively questioned whether Kavanaugh would have let Nixon off the hook. Well, no, he wouldn't, and neither did the Supreme Court of the United States--just the contrary. That is what we expect from the courts: independent legal judgment, whether it is the most humble among us or whether it is the President of the United States.

In a speech in a law review article, Judge Kavanaugh praised the unanimous ruling in the Nixon case. His views have been further confirmed by those who have worked closely with him over the years. They have said that to Judge Kavanaugh, Nixon was one of the most significant cases in which the judiciary stood up to the President.

So enough already. Enough with all the distractions, the hyperventilation, the fishing expeditions, and let's get to work. Let's keep this process moving forward on a bipartisan basis. Let's roll up our sleeves. Both Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch were confirmed in 66 days. If you applied that standard to Judge Kavanaugh, that would mean we would vote on his nomination on September 13, but we will have plenty of time to vet this nominee and to review the relevant documents that have some bearing on his qualifications and his experience and fitness to serve as a member of the Supreme Court.

I hope our Democratic colleagues will take advantage of the opportunity to meet with Judge Kavanaugh and to talk to him for themselves and see that he is an accomplished jurist and, perhaps even more importantly, an entirely decent human being. He is one who will faithfully and fairly apply the laws written and uphold our Constitution.

I know the senior Senator from West Virginia has agreed to do that, and I express my personal appreciation to him for breaking up this boycott, which has, I guess, been commanded by the highest authorities--the Democratic leader--to not meet with the judge until we get all the documents we are asking for.

Well, in addition to the Senator from West Virginia, the junior Senator from Delaware has also said he will meet with the judge, as has the senior Senator from Indiana, and I appreciate that. I think they will find a lot of comfort in meeting with the judge, and they will be able to get some answers to their questions.

I look forward to continuing our vetting process and voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh this fall.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, is there an objection?

Madam President, there is an important difference between legal and illegal immigration, and they shouldn't be confused. We should all, as Americans, celebrate legal immigration. In fact, the United States is the most generous country in the world. We naturalize almost 1 million new citizens each year, many of whom serve in the military and otherwise serve their newly adopted country and are rewarded, in part, by an expedited path toward legalization, toward naturalization.

As a result of the deadlock in the U.S. Senate, the drug cartels that traffic in illegal drugs and other contraband--they traffic in migrants, they traffic in children--are celebrating today because we have a big problem that apparently we are unable to solve, and the status quo is simply unacceptable. It is dangerous, it is deadly, and it is killing people--not only the people who attempt the perilous journey from Central America up through Mexico and into the United States but also the drugs that are sold by these same criminal organizations that are, in the words of one expert, ``commodity agnostic.''

This is part of their business model. This is how they make money, and they are celebrating today because the very reasonable solution that our colleague from North Carolina has proposed has been rejected out of hand with no real alternative being suggested.

This is the same mentality, I fear, that calls for the abolition of ICE. You might as well ask for the abolition of the Austin Police Department or the Dallas Police Department or the San Antonio Police Department. It is an invitation to lawlessness. Unfortunately, there are some who believe that the status quo is better than the very reasonable, rational solution offered by our colleague.

Let me explain why objecting to this commonsense legislation imperils the life and well-being of children. Under the current law, unless this very reasonable solution is embraced, children are sent across the border unaccompanied by their parents because the traffickers know and the parents know that if they pay thousands of dollars to these criminal organizations, their child will be transported from Central America across Mexico and into the United States, and if they make it here under the current law, the Border Patrol needs to process this child--some of whom are 17 years of age and older, and for all practical purposes they are young men.

They need to be handed over to Health and Human Services for placement with a sponsor here in the United States. Recently the New York Times pointed out that the United States had lost track of 1500 of the children that had been placed with sponsors. Nobody knows what happened to them because, under the current law, the government doesn't have to do a criminal background check. The sponsor with whom this child is placed doesn't have to be a citizen, and there is simply no infrastructure in place and no system in

place to monitor the status of these children in the hands of these adult sponsors to make sure they appear at their subsequently noticed immigration hearing so that they can present a legitimate claim, if they have one, to asylum or some other immigration benefit.

All President Trump has said is that we are going to enforce our laws against illegal immigration. So if you come into the country as a parent with a child, the parent, being legally responsible, is going to be prosecuted. That is what the law calls for as passed by Congress and signed by the President.

The child will be protected under the law that I mentioned earlier. They will be placed with a sponsor if the parent or the person who claims to be a parent is going to be prosecuted. Part of what we have been struggling with is the refusal on the part of some of our colleagues to actually try to solve this problem, to keep those families together so that they can be kept in a humane, clean family detention facility pending a hearing in front of an immigration judge. If they have legitimate claims, then those can be rewarded.

The status quo guarantees that the criminal organizations that profit from transporting people, drugs, and other contraband across the border win. That is guaranteed by the status quo. It is also that we don't fix the problem associated with unaccompanied minors or minors who come with somebody who claims to be their parent.

So let's say we put the families back together, which is our goal. Everyone agrees with that goal. We don't have detention facilities for those individuals to be detained pending a hearing in front of an immigration judge, so they are released and told to come back for a hearing months, maybe years, in the future. Well, it shouldn't surprise anybody that the vast majority of people don't show up for their hearings. They simply use this flaw in our immigration system and the status quo in order to exploit gaps in our legal immigration system, and it is dangerous.

I regret that rather than embracing a solution, there has been an objection to this very reasonable proposal, which would add additional immigration judges and move these families to the head of the line so that they can present their case before the judge, rather than just releasing them into the vast American landscape. Many of them will never be heard from again. I think it is a terrible lost opportunity.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, this week, we will continue the confirmation process for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who, as we all know, has been nominated by President Trump to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. I say we will continue the confirmation process because there has already been a questionnaire issued by the Judiciary Committee to which the nominee has responded. I know White House Counsel and others are already trying to put their heads together with the George W. Bush Presidential Library, down in Dallas, as well as with the National Archives, to be responsive to the document requests that have been made for the judge.

As the author of more than 300 published opinions, Judge Kavanaugh is a well-known judicial nominee. I think his experience from the last 12 years on the DC Court of Appeals has clearly demonstrated he has the experience that the job on the Supreme Court requires.

He is also enormously well respected among the legal community. We have seen op-eds written by professors--all of them scholars--who say that Judge Kavanaugh can more than hold his own when it comes to legal analysis. We have heard this from people who share his judicial philosophy and those who do not share his judicial philosophy. They have a broad mutual respect for his intellect and his integrity.

We have heard about his mentorship of law clerks, both men and women, liberals and conservatives. As I say, we have received testimonials from professionals across the ideological spectrum. Last week, a group of 80 former students from Harvard Law School, where Judge Kavanaugh taught, sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. As you might imagine, they have a variety of perspectives on judicial philosophy and a wide range of political views, but they all agreed that Judge Kavanaugh is a rigorous thinker, a devoted teacher, and a gracious person.

Lastly, we have heard from the nominee himself. On the night President Trump announced his choice, Judge Kavanaugh said that he believes an independent judiciary is the crown jewel of our constitutional Republic. He promised to keep an open mind in every case, as a judge should, to uphold the Constitution of the United States, and to preserve the rule of law. Those words and the opinions from his many supporters demonstrate that Judge Kavanaugh is the right person to replace Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Most people agree that it is the Supreme Court's job to fairly interpret the law, not to substitute their own

judgment--political, ideological, or personal--for that of Congress's when Congress has spoken, and I believe Judge Kavanaugh understands that deeply.

A number of our colleagues across the aisle have been left grasping at straws given his outstanding qualifications and the fact that he was confirmed back in 2006 to the second most powerful court in the Nation, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.

Judge Kavanaugh is a well-known nominee both to the Senate Judiciary Committee and to the Senate itself, but some have recently criticized Judge Kavanaugh for expressing opposition to the independent counsel statute even though, once upon a time, they supported ending that very same statute themselves. There was bipartisan consensus to essentially let that statute lapse. So it is ironic that some are now using that as a point of criticism.

For example, in 1999, my colleague, the senior Senator from Illinois, called for getting rid of the statute, claiming that it allowed independent counsels to be unchecked, unbridled, unrestrained, and unaccountable. That just goes to show you--if you are in the Senate long enough, you are likely to find yourself on both sides of an argument. But in this case, there is no merit to any criticism of Judge Kavanaugh for something that Democrats and Republicans both agreed to do, which is to let the independent counsel statute lapse.

Another weakness in their argument is that there is a real difference between special counsels, such as Robert Mueller, and independent counsels under the old statute. They are not the same thing.

When Judge Kavanaugh spoke years ago about the independent counsel statute, he was referring to a law that Congress ultimately agreed in a bipartisan fashion to let expire and not renew because it was felt that independent counsels--particularly the last independent counsel, Ken Starr--had too much autonomy to investigate and prosecute any misconduct without clear rules and guidance and without clear oversight by Congress and the Department of Justice. We know that special counsels are different. They are constrained by regulations and are overseen by senior lawyers at the Department of Justice, and in the case of Director Mueller, by the Deputy Attorney General himself. It would be useful if our friends across the aisle would acknowledge this difference and this history.

A new poll has shown that significant majorities of voters in States such as North Dakota, West Virginia, and Indiana all want to see Judge Kavanaugh confirmed. Support is even stronger among Independents. I expect that as more Americans get to know him in the weeks ahead, those numbers will rise.

This nomination for a vacancy on the Supreme Court is Chairman Grassley's 15th Supreme Court confirmation hearing, and I have no doubt that when he says this one will be the most searching and thorough of all of them, he means it.

I look forward to working with all of our colleagues on the Judiciary Committee to ensure that Judge Kavanaugh has a full and fair hearing, and not pull any punches whatsoever, but if the object is to delay for delay's sake or to criticize for criticism's sake, we intend to call that out during this process.

Based on what I have read and seen so far, I believe Judge Kavanaugh will ultimately be confirmed.

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

Mr. President, there is one other item of business I want to mention, and it is some very good news we received yesterday. The House and Senate conferees announced an agreement on the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA. I am glad to hear that the final version included legislation I sponsored called FIRRMA, the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act. The senior Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, was my bipartisan cosponsor.

I thank Senator Crapo, the chairman of the Banking Committee, who ushered this legislation through that committee, where it passed unanimously, and Senator Inhofe for leading the conference here on the Senate side and seeing that this important piece of legislation was included.

In June, President Trump called on Congress to pass a strong piece of legislation to modernize what is known as the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS. Now we are going to do exactly that. The Senate version of the bill updates CFIUS so we can guard against attempts--primarily by China but not only by China--to acquire sensitive dual-use technology and know-how by exploiting gaps in the U.S. rules on foreign investments.

This legislation takes a carefully tailored approach to updating the review process without hamstringing our ability to meaningfully engage in trade with partners around the world. It is not anti-foreign investment--just the opposite is true--but it is all about protecting our crown jewels when it comes to leading-edge technology that can be easily acquired through creative investment strategies, and then, along with the intellectual property and know-how, our competitors, such as China, can gain tremendous advantage.

I appreciate the support we have gotten from Secretary Mnuchin, our Treasury Secretary; Secretary Mattis, the Secretary of Defense; and many others. I again thank Senator Feinstein for being the chief Democratic cosponsor. This has been a bipartisan effort from day one.

The message is, we simply can't let China erode our national security advantage by circumventing our laws and exploiting investment opportunities for nefarious purposes. The backdoor transfer of technology, know-how, and industrial capabilities has gone unchecked for too long. That is why I am glad that once our bill becomes law, a newer, stronger CFIUS process will better protect us from evolving, investment-driven threats to our national security.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, I have 8 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry

The Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Dan Michael Berkovitz, of Maryland, to be a Commissioner of

the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and James E. Hubbard, of Colorado, to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment.

Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

The Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Elad L. Roisman, of Maine, to be a Member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Michael R. Bright, of the District of Columbia, to be President, Government National Mortgage Association, and Rae Oliver, of Virginia, to be Inspector General, both of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and Dino Falaschetti, of Montana, to be Director, Office of Financial Research, Department of the Treasury.

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Teri L. Donaldson, of Texas, to be Inspector General, Karen S. Evans, of West Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary (Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response), Christopher Fall, of Virginia, to be Director of the Office of Science, and Daniel Simmons, of Virginia, to be an Assistant Secretary (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), all of the Department of Energy;

Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

The Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a closed hearing.

Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard

The Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``NOAA's Blue Economy Initiative: Supporting Commerce in American Oceans and Great Lakes.''

Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and

Data Security

The Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance, and Data Security of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Strengthening and Empowering U.S. Amateur Athletes: Moving Forward with Solutions.''

Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity

Policy

The Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy of the Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Tuesday, July 24, 2018, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``The China Challenge, Part 1: Economic Coercion as Statecraft.''

Mr. President, it is hard for me to believe, but it has only been 2 weeks since I was at the White House, along with many of our other colleagues, to await the President's announcement of who would fill the Supreme Court vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. At that time, the President had said he had narrowed the candidates to a field of four, all of whom were well known and well qualified.

I was personally pleased that he had selected Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a candidate whom I had been proud to introduce and support early in my career in the Senate when he was nominated and confirmed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. That would have been back in 2006. His academic background, his longstanding experience in public service, and his now 12-year record of faithfully applying the law as an appellant judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, I believe, make him exactly the type of jurist we should want to serve on our Nation's highest Court.

We know the attacks already began even before the nominee was announced. To me, that was the most telling thing of all. One leftwing group's literal fill-in-the-blank press release confirmed all of the terrible things that nominee xx was going to do when nominee xx was nominated to the Supreme Court. Last week, the leader rightfully referred to this as the ``fill-in-the-blank'' opposition. If you can come out with such certainty and such vigor against an unnamed nominee, it looks to me like you really don't have an open mind in the first place.

Now Judge Kavanaugh's name has been filled in, and the attacks have been more direct and more personal. They have attempted to attack his qualifications, but that has sputtered out pretty quickly given that Judge Kavanaugh's qualifications are unassailable. No one can argue that he is not impeccably well suited for a seat on the Nation's highest Court.

The Nation first got a glimpse of Judge Kavanaugh's character when he spoke at the White House. We heard about his being an only child who had grown up with two hard-working parents and who still refers to his mom as being the original Judge Kavanaugh because of her service on the State court bench in Maryland. We heard about his being a loving father of two daughters and being referred to as ``Coach K'' because of the coaching of his daughters' basketball teams. We also heard about his being a public servant who has been devoted to supporting his community and living out his faith. Yet let's set all of these character traits aside for a moment because, in the end, these aren't the primary measures we will use to confirm this nomination.

Judge Kavanaugh graduated with honors from Yale College. He attended Yale Law, and he clerked for two Federal appellate judges before clerking for Justice Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. He then went on to private practice, and, from there, he went to work at the White House, where he started in the counsel's office before becoming the Staff Secretary to President George W. Bush.

Let me pause there for a moment and remind people what the Staff Secretary does because, I suspect, there are going to be requests for a lot of documents he touched during the time he was Staff Secretary. As I understand the role of Staff Secretary at the White House, there has to be one final person who determines that a document is ready for the President's signature. Has it been properly vetted for policy statements? Is it in the correct application of whatever the current law is that pertains to that topic? More than anything else, it just has to have one final stop that tells the President: OK. We have checked all of this out. We have consulted with all of the relevant people, and this document is now ready for your signature.

In almost no case did Judge Kavanaugh generate the document or author the document. It was written by somebody else. He had merely confirmed it was in its proper shape after

having consulted with the people who did write it and after having consulted with the authorities who were responsible for that policy.

I suspect we are going to hear of requests for millions of documents that came across his desk while he was Staff Secretary, virtually none of which will have any bearing whatsoever on his fitness or qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court.

More relevant, though, are the 12 years he served on the Federal appellate bench here in Washington, DC. The DC Circuit Court has sometimes been called the second highest court in the Nation. We have seen Judge Kavanaugh earn a reputation for being a fair, well-respected jurist who has a record of faithfully applying the law as written.

While it is clear that Judge Kavanaugh is uniquely qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, if I were dreaming up the right qualifications and temperament and experience, I am not sure I could have picked a better person. In its failing to find fault with his character and his qualifications, here is where the opposition has moved in its outlandish claims about how he may apply personal political views to the law.

The opposition started by digging up an old law review article Judge Kavanaugh wrote for the Minnesota Law Review that made the case that Congress should consider enacting legislation to govern a sitting President's lawsuits and investigations. Some of our colleagues have already begun to twist the words in the article and mislead the American people into believing he argued the President could never be investigated or prosecuted.

In fact, the Washington Post fact-check called these claims an ``extreme distortion'' of Judge Kavanaugh's views. It is a bogus conspiracy theory that is only being made by those who haven't reviewed the article or don't want to but who clearly want to try to damage the nomination. In his article, Judge Kavanaugh explicitly wrote that he believes no one is above the law. His point was not to take away checks on the President but only to say Congress might want to consider passing additional legislation.

Some of our friends across the aisle then argued that if confirmed, Judge Kavanaugh would be the deciding vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act, including to overturn protections for preexisting conditions. This is so farfetched that the New York Times fact-check from two health law professors debunked the claim and called these arguments ``overstated'' and that in Judge Kavanaugh's writings on the topic, he focused on specific legal issues, as judges are supposed to do in the cases that are presented to them.

Most every one of our colleagues agrees that preexisting conditions should be covered, but that is a policy decision for Congress. What a specious idea to suggest that somehow this judge who served on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals for 12 years is some crusader who is determined to undermine preexisting conditions coverage for the American people. It is just a loony idea. It is precisely why we, as elected officials, are the ones to make the law and to make policy and to represent the interests of those we serve. When our constituents don't think we are doing a very good job, they can tell us: Hey, you need to be doing a better job, and if you don't, then I am going to exercise my right at the next election to vote against you.

Judges, though, are presented not with a policy or a political or an ideological agenda that they are supposed to pursue but, rather, with specific cases and facts. Then they are to apply the law without having any predisposed policy preferences. That is what judges do. Opposing him based on a guess of how he might rule on a given case that may or may not ever come before him is an act of pure desperation.

Don't they remember the standards set by Justice Ginsburg, who declined to prejudge any case since she said that would be inappropriate? As she said in her own confirmation, that sort of assurance is completely wrong. Justice Ginsburg gave what, I think, is the correct response to such requests, saying she would offer no hints, no forecasts, and no previews of her specific rulings.

As a former State court judge and justice myself, I strongly believe those who serve in our judicial branch must put their personal, political, and ideological beliefs aside and apply the law as written. If you can't do that, you ought to run for the legislature or city council or county commissioner, not serve as Federal judges. I believe attempts to predict how Justices will decide particular cases are futile, particularly when you have a judge who calls balls and strikes as he or she sees them. Cases depend on specific facts and circumstances as well as on the lengthy and detailed legal arguments by the parties who come before the Court.

I hope our colleagues will spend less time dreaming up hypotheticals that will never come to pass and more time in meeting with and in getting to know Judge Kavanaugh, which, so far, they have declined to do. If they want to get to know the man and the judge, I hope they will take him up on the offer to sit down and talk to them and to answer their questions and explain how his judicial philosophy would be put into action.

Thank goodness for a couple of our colleagues, both the junior Senator from North Dakota and the senior Senator from West Virginia. They were quick to say they will not be influenced by their leadership's pressure or messaging from their far-left base. Let's hope others will follow suit.

In having failed to pick apart Judge Kavanaugh's character or his 12- year judicial record, some of our colleagues are now requesting to see every piece of paper--every email, every document--from Judge Kavanaugh's career at the Bush White House. I agree we should fully vet the nominee, and it makes sense to review documents that are important to the confirmation process.

Yet, with nearly half of the Democrats having already announced their opposition to this nomination, why are they requesting these documents? Is it because it would cause them to reconsider their opposition to his nomination? I think they have pretty much made a political decision to oppose the nomination, so any effort to force the production of documents that will not have any relevance whatsoever to his qualifications makes no sense. Instead, we know some of these demands are being made merely so they may drag their feet--as a pretext in order to delay Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation.

Instead of chasing after irrelevant records from the Bush White House, I urge our colleagues to read Judge Kavanaugh's opinions and meet with the judge and get to know him. Sadly, I have heard, as I said, that virtually all of the Democrats have, so far, not been able to or have not found time to meet with the judge, which, I think, is a shame.

Despite the attacks, the attempts to distract, and the efforts to stall, though, the American people can be assured of one thing--we will press forward in our vetting process and vote on the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh this fall in advance of the October term of the Supreme Court. The majority leader, Senator McConnell, has made it clear that if there is foot-dragging, and this is drug out beyond the first Monday in November, when the Supreme Court has its first oral argument, we will stay here until the bitter end--all the way up to and including the midterm elections on November 6. That would be the consequence of dragging this out for no good reason, but we will vote on his nomination before the midterm election.

Mr. President, on another note, we will vote today on the nomination of Robert Wilkie to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Mr. Wilkie brings to this position a firsthand understanding of the mental and physical demands of military life. The son of an Army commander who was wounded in Cambodia during the Vietnam war, he said his father's recovery was at the forefront of his mind when he was offered the position at the Veterans Health Administration. He himself is an Air Force Reserve officer who has spent three decades helping to shape military policy.

In fact, he started out his career in this very Chamber and worked, most recently, for our friend from North Carolina, Senator Tillis. He holds a law degree and multiple master's degrees, but he has had real- world experience as the Under Secretary of Defense

for Personnel and Readiness, as Assistant Secretary of Defense, and as Senior Director of the National Security Council. Those are positions of great responsibility and great importance. My home State of Texas is home to 1 in 12 veterans, so having a well-functioning Veterans Health Administration is crucial to my State.

Mr. Wilkie, I believe, has the experience, the compassion, and the drive to make sure our Department of Veterans Affairs can efficiently and effectively serve those who have served in uniform, to whom we owe a moral duty. No nominee for this position has ever received a ``no'' vote on the Senate floor, and my hope is, we continue that tradition during the vote today.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Corker), the Senator from Louisiana (Mr. Kennedy), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me first thank the Senator from Arizona and

the Senator from Delaware for expressing all of our concern about Russian interference in the 2016 election. It is absolutely clear they did, and the President has said as much on a number of occasions.

Now, I agree, in Helsinki he was less than clear about that, but he came back and said that he misspoke and reaffirmed his earlier position that, yes, the Russian Government had attempted to interfere in the election, although nobody disputes the fact that they were unsuccessful in changing a single vote or affecting the outcome. Ironically, the very same investigation which has made clear that the Russians did attempt to disrupt the election has also made clear there is no evidence of collusion that anybody has uncovered to date.

My concern with this resolution is that it is purely a symbolic act, and what we need to do is not just offer symbolic resolutions on the floor. We need to do the hard work Senators have to do through regular order. In other words, our committees that have jurisdiction over these issues ought to be permitted to call the witnesses and ask the hard questions and develop the record before we go on record as to a resolution like this.

I would point out that the indictments that were referred to, apparently, according to published reports, Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, asked the President before Helsinki if he should withhold the announcement of those indictments or go ahead and release them before the summit. The President said: No, go ahead.

Anybody who read the 29 pages of the indictment, issued at the request of Robert Mueller by a grand jury in the District of Columbia, knows there is chapter and verse of how Russians attempted to interfere with the election. It is a good and important read. The President knew that before he went to Helsinki. That gives me some confidence that he did, indeed, misspeak, especially in light of his subsequent affirmations of Russian interference in the election.

I happen to be privileged to sit on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. We have been conducting a bipartisan investigation of the Russian matter for the entire time the President has been in office for the last year and a half. We already issued some preliminary reports. The way to do our work is through bipartisan committee work--have the witnesses come and testify, ask them hard questions, and render our judgment.

I know Secretary Pompeo is coming before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee sometime next week. He ought to be asked hard questions. I am confident he will respond to those questions. That is how we get the information we need.

Let me just say that I think we should consider sanctions--not some sort of sense-of-the Senate resolutions that have no sting or no impact, certainly no deterrent effect on what we all want, which is to discourage Russian involvement in our 2018 elections. That is why the majority leader today asked the chairman of the Banking and Foreign Relations Committee to hold hearings and recommend additional measures that could respond to or deter Russian malign behavior. We ought to do our work through our committees of jurisdiction.

When we rush to judgment and do resolutions like this, we can inadvertently make mistakes. Let me point out one that is in this resolution. There is a reference to Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which passed the Senate 98 to 2, to deter and punish election interference by the Russian Federation. There is a provision in the current conference committee on the Defense authorization that would issue a waiver of that act to our partner India. If we want to encourage countries like India to come partner with the United States of America--the world's largest democracy and the world's oldest democracy--then we ought encourage that movement toward us and away from the Russian Federation. I worry there is no reference in here to the waiver provision in the Defense authorization conference committee that India has asked for and that Secretary Mattis has requested Congress grant.

All I am asking for is a little bit of caution in the rush to issue a resolution. No. 1, I don't think we acknowledge the full picture, but we also don't commit our work to the committees that have jurisdiction over these matters to do it carefully, thoughtfully, and in a bipartisan way so we come up to the best solution to the problem.

I think this is the wrong way to go about it. I think our committees ought to continue to do their work--Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Armed Services Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Banking Committee. We ought to come up with the right kind of bipartisan answer, which I think could well include sanctions against the Russian Federation to deter them from meddling in our 2018 elections and beyond. I am confident they will continue until we stop them from doing so.

I object.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain) and the Senator from Alabama (Mr. Shelby).

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, it has been a little more than a week since President Trump announced his nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court left by the impending retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. In that short period of time, we have seen some of our friends across the aisle run through an almost impressive set of rhetorical calisthenics in an attempt to tank Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation before it even had a chance to begin.

``He will overturn this case or this law,'' they claim. ``He will not be a check on the President,'' they have tried to say. They have even suggested that he charged too much for baseball season tickets on his credit card--horror of horrors. Multiple fact-checkers have debunked each of these claims, so they have moved on.

More recently, we have heard from some of our Democratic colleagues that they want to review every single piece of paper--every email, every memo, every document that has passed across Brett Kavanaugh's desk at any point in his career.

Reviewing relevant and important documents is a perfectly normal part of confirming a judicial nominee, but using that as an excuse to delay, foot-drag, and obstruct is not acceptable. We know that the effort to get every memo from the Bush White House during the time he served as Staff Secretary there is really laughable and is only a fishing expedition designed to delay his confirmation until after the Supreme Court begins its work the first Monday in October.

For example, as Staff Secretary, he would have had the responsibility to basically manage the paper flow across the President's desk. These aren't just documents that he, himself, has generated. In fact, I suspect that with the overwhelming majority of them, he would have had nothing to do with creating them. He wouldn't be the author. He wouldn't be making policy recommendations. Basically, he would have navigated all of the documents that went across the President's desk to make sure that they had been reviewed by the appropriate person and that they would have been checked for accuracy. The ideas that every single piece of paper that went across President George W. Bush's desk should be somehow relevant and that we should delay confirmation until we have all had a chance to read it are ridiculous. Is what President Bush had for dinner 14 years ago relevant to Judge Kavanaugh's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court? Obviously not.

Just as, in 2010, the committee quickly processed Justice Kagan, who spent many years in the Clinton White House, I am confident we can expeditiously and efficiently review Judge Kavanaugh's relevant background materials to make sure the vote on his confirmation occurs before the Supreme Court reconvenes in October.

Under Chairman Grassley's leadership, the Judiciary Committee will work to produce as many documents as are relevant and possible so that every Senator can do their due diligence. An important part of our constitutional responsibility is to provide advice and consent, as the Constitution itself says.

The most important thing to remember is that unlike the Kagan nomination, we have 12 years of service on the bench by Judge Kavanaugh. He served on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in what has often been called the second most important court in the Nation because it is located in the District of Columbia. Most of the major cases involving huge policy disputes confronting the Federal Government have made their way through his court, and he has written opinions--majority opinions and dissenting opinions--which have all been reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. I submit that would be the best evidence of what kind of Justice he would be on the Supreme Court. What kind of judge has he been on the DC Circuit? That is the best evidence.

We shouldn't indulge requests for these fishing expeditions and paper chases that will lead to nothing other than delay. It is important that the vetting process be deliberative and thorough, and it will be. But the volume of documents requested shouldn't be just a pretext to draw this out for political purposes.

Here is an important factoid: Nearly half of the Democratic caucus has already said that they will vote no on Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Are they going to be requesting documents? Are they going to be saying ``Well, I want to look at everything that came across his desk'' when they have already announced their public opposition?

Five of them announced their opposition before Judge Kavanaugh was even named. In other words, they would oppose anyone who is nominated by this President. We saw an attempt to filibuster the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, which resulted in the change of the precedent. We lowered the number of votes to close off debate from 60 votes to 51 votes because we realized that some across the aisle were so determined to vote against any nominee of this President--no matter how well qualified--there was no way we could confirm a well-qualified candidate. So we changed that.

Both Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch were confirmed just 66 days after they were nominated. In the case of Judge Kavanaugh, if that same timetable held up, we would be voting on his confirmation about September 13--well in advance of the October deadline when the Court reconvenes. We will have plenty of time to thoroughly vet this nominee in a similar timeframe, which is consistent with the confirmation process for both Republican and Democratic Presidents.

I had the good fortune to sit down with Judge Kavanaugh last week and to renew my acquaintance with him, which first occurred in 2000. As I have recounted here on the floor, when I was attorney general of Texas, I had the privilege to argue a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. As one of the best qualified appellate lawyers in the country, having clerked on the Supreme Court, as well, he was one of the lawyers who helped me get ready for that oral argument.

I had a chance not only to get to know him in 2000 but to follow his career on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He has consistently impressed me with his thoughtfulness, his deliberativeness, his outstanding legal and

academic credentials, and, of course, his experience on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. He was candid and open, professional and impressive.

I hope all of our colleagues will meet with Judge Kavanaugh to see for themselves. I have been told that he has been making calls to some Democratic Senators' offices, and they refuse to see him at all.

He is an accomplished jurist who will fairly and faithfully apply the law as written and adhere to the text of the Constitution, as judges are obligated to do, and leave the policymaking and the politics to the Congress and the executive branch. I look forward to continuing our vetting process and voting to confirm Judge Kavanaugh this fall--well in advance of the October term of the Supreme Court.

On a separate note, Mr. President, this afternoon, we will vote to confirm another accomplished legal mind, Andy Oldham, to the Federal Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which includes Texas.

Andy will join two other judges whom we have already confirmed in the Fifth Circuit earlier this year: Don Willett, a former member of the Texas Supreme Court, and Jim Ho, my former chief counsel, someone with impeccable legal credentials. They are already on the Fifth Circuit. I am delighted that Andy Oldham will be joining them.

As we like to say in Texas, Andy wasn't born there, but he got there as fast as he could. He grew up in Richmond, VA, where his parents instilled within him a sense of hard work. His father put himself through college, and his mother was one of the first women to attend the University of Virginia.

Following their examples, Andy attended the University of Virginia and was awarded the prestigious title of Jefferson Scholar. While he was at UVA, he helped found an advocacy group to prevent sexual assault. His group was particularly focused on educating young men on their responsibilities when it comes to sexual violence.

From there, he attended the University of Cambridge as a Truman Scholar, graduated with first class honors, and then went to law school at Harvard--very impressive academic credentials.

During law school, he helped represent a death row inmate in a habeas corpus petition and won a temporary stay of execution in the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on Andy's hard work, the then-Governor of Virginia, who is now a Member of the Senate, commuted the defendant's sentence to life without parole based upon Andy's legal representation.

After law school, he went on to clerk for Judge Sentelle on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, which I spoke about in connection with Brett Kavanaugh. Then he served as an attorney to the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel; that is, the lawyers for the lawyers at the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel, who issue authoritative guidance for the Department of Justice. And then, of course, he served as a law clerk for Justice Alito on the Supreme Court.

Following a period of private practice, the State of Texas came calling, and Andy became a deputy solicitor general in the office of the Texas attorney general; then it was Greg Abbott, whom he later followed to the Governor's office, where he now serves as Governor Abbott's general counsel.

On behalf of the State of Texas, Andy has argued two cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and filed countless briefs in support of the State. Because of his background and experience, Andy has earned bipartisan support, receiving recommendations from the general counsel to the Obama Foundation, as well as the Texas attorney general's office.

In his confirmation hearing before the Judiciary Committee, Andy spoke about his transition from a role as an advocate to that of a jurist. He explained how he views the role of a jurist as ``fundamentally different,'' which it is.

He went on to say that ``the oath of a jurist is simply to administer justice impartially, to do equal right by rich and poor, and to discharge justice in an equal and fair manner.'' This is exactly the type of judge we should want serving on our courts--someone who is impartial, not someone who will push for a particular ideology or political agenda on the bench. I believe Andy will follow this philosophy of impartially and fairly administering the law.

Andy spent all but 3 years of his career in public service, and he has advocated on behalf of Texans for many years. I am confident he will continue to serve them and the rest of the country well, and I look forward to supporting his nomination this afternoon.

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senator is necessarily absent: the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).