Floor Statements

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

Mr. President, I wish to return to a theme that I have been addressing the last few days, and that is the nomination of Ms. Gina Haspel to be Director of the CIA.

Yesterday, the entire country--indeed, the entire world--saw Ms. Haspel's performance before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Speaking for myself, I could not have been more impressed, and taking an informal poll among others, I think many people felt the same way.

It is a tough requirement of her confirmation process for somebody who has spent 33 years working for the CIA in some of the most obscure--and unknown to the rest of us--spots around the world to have to come and answer questions about her career, much of which happens to be classified information.

We had an open session and then a classified hearing where she and we on the committee could protect the sources and methods and alliances we have around the world that help us collect intelligence for our policymakers and help to keep our country safe. As expected, she faced intense rounds of questioning, as I said, both in an open session and behind closed doors. I believe she did so with patience, courtesy, and poise.

She articulated her view on a number of topics, of course. She defended her record against a series of false accusations and said repeatedly what those of us who have supported her already knew. She believes that U.S. Government actions must be held to a strict moral standard. If confirmed, she would not obey an order she believed to be unlawful, and in her new role, she would not restart interrogation programs inside the CIA.

I want to highlight three developments that I believe lend credence to many of Ms. Haspel's statements during yesterday's hearing. First are the

comparisons that have been drawn with John Brennan, former CIA Director under President Obama.

As many others have pointed out, Mr. Brennan served as the No. 4 official at the CIA--much higher up the food chain, so to speak, than Ms. Haspel, who was a GS-15. Yesterday, I asked someone to tell me, as a civilian intelligence officer, how that rank would compare to the military. I was told that would be the equivalent of roughly a major or maybe a lieutenant colonel in the military. I think that is significant when you think that Mr. Brennan was the No. 4 official at the CIA, and at relevant times Ms. Haspel was an intelligence officer in a mid-level position to be sure.

Getting back to Mr. Brennan, he had direct personal knowledge of the interrogation program many have questioned Ms. Haspel about. She told us she was not a part of it, had not been read into the program, and did not interrogate anyone.

Mr. Brennan was confirmed by a vote of 63 to 34, with only 2 Democrats and 1 Independent voting against him. If Mr. Brennan was confirmed, despite his history at the CIA at a time when this program was being implemented, Ms. Haspel should be confirmed as well.

It is worth noting that Mr. Brennan himself agrees. He has called Ms. Haspel ``an exceptionally well-respected professional within the CIA,'' one ``who has held a number of senior-level positions over the years, and has acquitted herself very competently.'' He said she will be able to provide ``unvarnished, apolitical, objective intelligence . . . to [President] Trump and to others.''

Given this body's past support of Mr. Brennan's nomination and our Democratic colleagues' current opposition to Ms. Haspel, it strikes me that she and our current President are being held to a standard to which Mr. Brennan and President Obama were not held. In other words, it is a double standard. I think that is highly regrettable and indefensible.

The truth is that all the Senate Democrats currently on the Intelligence Committee who were Senators at the time of John Brennan's confirmation voted to confirm him, so I believe they have no good reason not to vote to confirm Ms. Haspel as well.

I also remember when President Obama declassified certain Office of Legal Counsel memos in 2009. He promised the men and women of the CIA:

We will protect all who acted reasonably and relied upon

legal advice from the Department of Justice that their

actions were lawful.

They need to be fully confident that as they defend the Nation, I will defend them.

I hope we will hear from President Obama as he keeps the promise he made back in 2009 to defend those who acted on legal advice from the Department of Justice in good faith. I think we all need to remember those words by President Obama and apply them when considering Ms. Haspel's nomination.

The second thing I want to mention is a letter dated just yesterday that was sent to Chairman Burr and Vice Chairman Warner of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It was signed by more than 30 former senior government officials with national security experience in administrations of different parties or on Capitol Hill. They called Ms. Haspel ``an excellent choice to lead the CIA at a time when our intelligence community is under significant pressure at home and abroad.'' They praised her as a leader with ``discipline and guts to take the CIA into the future,'' saying that she is highly regarded in the storied halls of Langley. That letter was signed by former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, former NSA Director GEN Keith Alexander, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and many others.

I have said it before, but I will say it again. Those people who know Ms. Haspel best, who have worked alongside her on a daily basis, who have been in meetings with her and have witnessed her decision making like this woman. They respect her, and they think she is the best of the best, so enough already. I think we should listen to the people who know her the best.

The third item related to Ms. Haspel that I will mention was a telling exchange she had with our colleague and friend, the senior Senator from California, Ms. Feinstein. Senator Feinstein asked about a certain book that at least one journalist has claimed proves Ms. Haspel ``ran'' an interrogation program in the days after 9/11. In graciously responding to our colleague's question, Ms. Haspel pointed out something important: The author of the book in question has said definitively that he ``never intended to suggest in [the] book that Gina Haspel was in charge of the CIA's interrogation program. She was not.''

In other words, he corrected a misimpression that was created by the way the book was written and made clear she was not in charge of the CIA interrogation program. The author went on to say that he fully supports Ms. Haspel's nomination.

I think that short episode establishes how careful we need to be in evaluating what is known about Ms. Haspel's distinguished record of service. There are a lot of things being said that simply are not true.

As many have mentioned this week, when it comes to interrogation programs following the devastating attack of 9/11, where 3,000 Americans lost their lives, she in fact was exonerated by both internal reviews at the CIA, as well as two Justice Departments, which determined that she had complied with appropriate legal guidance in place at the time she acted.

Toward the end of the open session, Ms. Haspel spoke about the sacrifices made by the men and women with whom she had served. I think we need to keep in mind how difficult intelligence work can be, especially when it requires one to leave family and friends and take up hardship assignments in far-off corners of the globe. They are not like our men and women in the military, who perform such dedicated and patriotic service; intelligence officers have the additional burden of not even being able to tell their own family and friends where they are and exactly what they are doing because of the sensitivity of their work.

Ms. Haspel told us about a CIA al-Qaida expert who gave birth to her third child in the days leading up to September 11. This analyst, because of her expertise, was deployed to Afghanistan shortly after the terrible events of 9/11, leaving her family and three children behind. Later, she and six of her colleagues were murdered while serving in that combat zone in the service of the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. Government. This is exactly the kind of dangerous and selfless work that intelligence professionals embark upon day after day.

They do it because they feel a deep, abiding sense of duty and loyalty to a country that has given us freedoms many parts of the world do not enjoy, and it is that loyalty, it is that sense of duty that propels them to put it all on the line. They pour their blood, sweat, and tears into detecting and helping to stop threats posed against this country by nations and actors intent on doing us enormous harm.

As we heard yesterday from Ms. Haspel, there are more than 100 stars on the CIA Memorial Wall, and 7 more were added just last year. Those are a reminder of the U.S. men and women who have lost their lives while engaged in the service of the intelligence community and our country.

Having served for 33 years with distinction, Ms. Haspel is acutely aware of the sacrifices that have been made by so many with whom she will be working in her new capacity as Director of the CIA, and I know she is mindful of the colleagues and friends she has lost. Yet she believes so firmly in the Agency's mission that she is willing to take on one more challenge, one that may be her greatest challenge yet; that is, leading the entire CIA into an uncertain future.

I want to close by saying that I appreciate her willingness and desire to serve in this new and never easy capacity. I hope we can confirm her in short order so that she can get back to work and continue to do what she loves and help keep our Nation safe.

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

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham) and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

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

Mr. President, earlier today the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence heard from the President's pick for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Gina Haspel. Actually, we had an open hearing this morning, and I just returned from a recently concluded closed hearing, during which classified information was shared with the committee and discussed with the nominee.

As we know, the President's nominees for various positions have been the victims of hearsay, innuendo, and rumor. Thankfully, Ms. Haspel had the opportunity today to respond to some of the questions--and attacks, really--that have been posed against her in the public. She has now had a chance to respond, and I thought she did so with tremendous knowledge, grace, and the kind of temperament you would hope for in a Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

She exemplified the core attributes we have come to know about her since she was nominated: professional integrity, an innate sense of loyalty to her country, and a strong drive to work hard, not just for the advancement of her individual career but also to protect Americans and put our national security first.

The fact that she is here today, as President Trump's nominee to become the first female Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, is a testament to both her character and her exceptional, decades-long career as an intelligence professional.

All the while, she has endeared herself to her colleagues in the intelligence community, who have an immense amount of respect for her and her work. In fact, in addition to being the first female Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Ms. Haspel would be the first operations officer in perhaps 40 years or more. In other words, at the CIA they have analysts, they have people who do operations, who are case officers and who do intelligence work, and, then, they have other people who perform technical intelligence activity. She would be the first in 40 years to actually have worked in some of the hot spots around the world that I will mention more about here in a moment.

Yesterday, I spoke about some aspects of her career, about some of the pieces that our colleagues across the aisle have left out of the picture, which, in fairness, should be painted in full context so people can understand that her career, spanning 33 years, is far more than a couple of anecdotes or caricatures of her experience. In other words, she is not defined by those experiences. Although, as she has said today, we have all learned from those experiences.

Her 33 years of service showcase an unparalleled commitment to the Central Intelligence Agency and a devotion to the rule of law. She understands that when the intelligence agencies don't follow the rules of the road, somebody is going to be held to account for it at a later time. In this case, ironically, having followed the rule of law, we find that some of our colleagues from across the aisle want to relitigate decades-old incidents after the fact of 9/11, where, relying on the premier legal authorities in the country from the Department of Justice and having received orders from the Commander in Chief, they simply did their job and now are being questioned in a way that suggests they did something less than honorable, when, in fact, they did exactly what they were asked to do.

The fact is that here in America we have not seen a follow-on attack from 9/11. I mentioned yesterday a book I was reviewing that reminded me that in the days following 9/11, on which 3,000 people died--some at the Pentagon, where one plane crashed, and two others crashed at the World Trade Center--there was some chatter about a potential nuclear device getting into the hands of al-Qaida, the same people who took down the two towers and hit the Pentagon.

That would have been catastrophic, obviously. Thankfully, as a result of the good investigatory work and intelligence collection that the intelligence community acquired, we learned that those rumors did not end up proving to be true. But that sort of sets the tone for the environment and attitude that many had about the potential for follow- on attacks, which would have been tremendously devastating.

It is a strange business that we ask our intelligence officials to play to the edge of the law--in other words, to follow the law but to be aggressive, to be forward-leaning to prevent these attacks. Then, when they do exactly that, we come back years later, when we are feeling safe and secure, and say: Well, you went too far.

We can imagine what it would have been like if there had been another follow-on attack during which American citizens were killed. We can imagine that our intelligence community would be criticized for allowing that to happen, for somehow not stopping it, finding out about it, and preventing it.

Unfortunately, too many people have 20/20 hindsight and are engaged in second-guessing. Frankly, for people who serve honorably in the intelligence community, it seems like a lose-lose proposition: Do too much and prevent an attack, and we will criticize you. Don't do enough and an attack occurs, and we will criticize you for that.

Suffice it to say that in all respects, during her career Gina Haspel has acted in accordance with the law, as determined by the Department of Justice. By the way, the Supreme Court of the United States is not going to hand out an opinion in a case where the executive branch has to act. Opinions handed down by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department are the authoritative legal guidance for executive branch agencies like the CIA.

Ms. Haspel has worked in assignments from Africa and Europe, and she has been posted to dangerous capitals around the world. She has been shot at, survived a coup d'etat, and run clandestine assets against hard targets.

Those who have worked with her say her management skills and integrity are unmatched. That is why she served as a station chief, the Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, and Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency itself. All of this experience is extraordinary and it is important, and it is exactly what our country needs in this uncertain time.

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified in recent memory that, in his 50 years in the intelligence business, he has never before seen such a diverse array of threats confronting our country--from North Korea to Iran, to Russia, to China, to the terrorism threat, to domestic home-grown terrorist attacks inspired by social media and online activity from overseas.

America clearly needs someone with the deep expertise and understanding of the Central Intelligence Agency and the intelligence community and someone who doesn't have to get up to speed. Americans need someone with extensive counterterrorism experience who has worked with difficult and hostile intelligence services and, I would say, also with our friends and allies around the world. Some of the relationships we have with other countries, like Britain, are some of the most important relationships we have--government to government, intelligence community to intelligence community. Ms. Haspel has the admiration and respect of those coalition agencies around the world.

She may well be the most qualified person ever to be nominated for the role of CIA Director. But we saw today in the hearing that there is a determination by some to relitigate the past. We saw an attempt to relitigate issues that have been closed for a long time, going on 17, almost 20 years.

There were questions about Ms. Haspel's role in counterterrorism efforts in the days immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. I am not questioning the questions, but I am questioning using some of these issues as pretext to block or to vote against her nomination. She was accused of making decisions that clearly were made by her supervisor, when it came to getting rid of videotapes because of concerns for the safety and security of the intelligence officers depicted on those videotapes, even though there were verbatim cables of the activity on the tapes. Obviously, in this case, the

decision to destroy the tapes was not hers but her supervisor's, who took full responsibility for that.

As I said, it is easy here today, in the safety and security of 2018, to remember what the post-9/11 climate was like. It is easy to second- guess the legal guidance that had been provided to our intelligence professionals at the time, which they relied upon in good faith. It is easy to overlook the considerable pressure placed on the Agency at that time. As I said, if they didn't do enough, we would criticize them. If they did too much, we would criticize them for that. So it is a fine thin line they had to walk, which they did with incredible skill and determination.

I would say it is nothing less than obscene to hold someone to a standard that was set after their actions were performed, in good-faith reliance on the law, as determined at the time they did act. In this case, two different Justice Departments--one under President Bush and one under President Obama--conducted investigations, exonerated Ms. Haspel, and chose not to proceed against her or her colleagues at the

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 Environment and Public Works

The Committee on Environment and Public Works is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing.

Committee on Foreign Relations

The Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the following nominations: Jonathan R. Cohen, of California, to be the Deputy Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, with the rank and status of Ambassador, and the Deputy Representative of the United States of America in the Security Council of the United Nations, and to be Representative of the United States of America to the Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations, during his tenure of service as Deputy Representative of the United States of America to the United Nations, Joseph Cella, of Michigan, to be Ambassador to the Republic of Fiji, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador to the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of Nauru, the Kingdom of Tonga, and Tuvalu, and David B. Cornstein, of New York, to be Ambassador to Hungary, all of the Department of State, Eliot Pedrosa, of Florida, to be United States Alternate Executive Director of the Inter-American Development Bank, and Jackie Wolcott, of Virginia, to be Representative of the United States of America to the International Atomic Energy Agency, with the rank of Ambassador, and to be Representative of the United States of America to the Vienna Office of the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador.

Committee on Indian Affairs

The Committee on Indian Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 4 p.m. to conduct a hearing on the nomination of Tara Sweeney, of Alaska, to be an Assistant Secretary of the Interior.

Committee on the Judiciary

The Committee on the Judiciary is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing on the following nominations. Ryan Wesley Bounds, of Oregon, to be United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit, J. Campbell Barker, and Jeremy D. Kernodle, both to be a United States

District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas, Susan Brnovich, to be United States District Judge for the District of Arizona, Chad F. Kenney, to be United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and Maureen K. Ohlhausen, of Virginia, to be Judge of the United States Court of Federal Claims.

Select Committee on Intelligence

The Select Committee on Intelligence is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 9:30 a.m. to conduct a closed hearing.

Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining

The Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management

The Subcommittee on Federal Spending Oversight and Emergency Management of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing.

Subcommittee on Multilateral, International Development, Multilateral

Insitutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental

Policy

The Subcommittee on Multilateral, International Development, Multilateral Insitutions, and International Economic, Energy, and Environmental Policy of the Committee on Foreign Relations is authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, at 2:30 p.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``A Multilateral and Strategic Response to International Predatory Economic Practices.''

Mr. President, when I was a kid, I used to like to read the comics in the newspaper every day. Usually, it was some interesting caricature of real life that was particularly funny. Yet the sorts of caricatures we have been seeing in the past few days about the President's nominee to the CIA are not funny and are not comical at all. What we have seen is a gross caricature of this woman's distinguished 33-year career. I am talking about Gina Haspel at the

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

Madam President, one of the items on our to-do list is continuing to confirm the President's nominees, which have faced an unprecedented level of obstruction and downright foot-dragging. It is maddening to

see our Democratic colleagues insisting that we go through all the motions and the time limits set out in the rules, when nominees are confirmed 99 to 1 or 100 to 0. In other words, these are not controversial nominees, in many cases, and there is simply no reason to drag their feet and to prevent the Senate from doing other important work, including confirming more nominees.

The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Isakson), and the Senator from Arizona (Mr. McCain).

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

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 notwithstanding rule XXII, the cloture motion with respect to the Grenell nomination be withdrawn; that the time until 1:45 p.m. be equally divided in the usual form; and that upon the use or yielding back of that time, the Senate vote on the nomination with no intervening action or debate; further, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.