Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the vote that was scheduled for 1:45 be moved up to 1:30, right now.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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 President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, 2 months ago, I came to this floor to warn about the growing politicization of our intelligence community. I laid out in detail how this administration, led by Director of National Intelligence Gabbard, was dismantling the independence, integrity, and credibility of the very institutions we rely on to keep Americans safe.

I had hoped that by sounding that alarm early, the administration might reconsider its actions or at the very least slow its march toward turning our intelligence Agencies into instruments of political loyalty, but, instead, the situation has only grown more dangerous.

I want to say at the outset that this will not be the last time I come to the floor on this issue as we continue to see the unraveling of that independence. I intend to continue making these speeches for as long as it takes because the stakes for our national security are too high to let this pattern go unchallenged.

Since my remarks in September, we have seen not restraint but an escalation--an escalation--of political retaliation, of the hollowing out of expertise, and of the outright manipulation of intelligence. We are watching in real time an administration strip away the guardrails that have protected this country for generations.

I have had the distinct privilege of representing the people of Virginia in this body since 2009. In nearly 17 years, one of the most consequential responsibilities I have held has been that of serving on the Senate Intelligence Committee, first as a junior member and then, for the last 8 years, as chairman and vice chairman.

I always tell our new members that getting a seat on the committee is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you get access to things that no other Senators hear, and you see capabilities that would astonish even the most seasoned spy novel reader. But the other part of the edge is you get to see the full scope of threats facing the United States: daily reports about terrorist plots, cyber attacks, hostile foreign services targeting our citizens and institutions. Once you have seen that picture clearly, you don't sleep quite as soundly at night.

It is precisely because these threats are real, persistent, and in many cases growing that I am so deeply concerned about the Trump administration's reckless actions--actions that have left our country more vulnerable than at any point in recent memory.

Just last month, FBI Director Kash Patel testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the FBI has experienced a 300-percent increase in terrorist cases opened this year alone, on top of a 30-percent increase in foreign espionage cases.

At the Senate's Intelligence Committee's annual threat assessment hearing, Director Gabbard reiterated that foreign terrorists remain intent on striking the United States and our citizens, that a large number of cyber and intelligence actors continue to target our critical infrastructure, and that these adversaries possess weapons capable of hitting U.S. territory and disabling vital U.S. systems.

Indeed, in an interview earlier this month, Director Gabbard repeated:

Terrorism continues to pose the greatest both short- and

long-term threat to the American people.

Whatever one thinks of the individuals delivering these messages, the assessments themselves leave no ambiguity of the dangers confronting the United States. Yet, in spite of these clear and present threats, the Trump administration has chosen a course of action that weakens our defenses and leaves Americans more vulnerable to the very risks its own officials have publicly described.

Since Inauguration Day, the President and his handpicked FBI Director--again, Kash Patel--have forced out thousands of experienced agents for reasons that appear more political than professional--for example, for refusing to acknowledge who actually won the 2020 election or FBI agents being thrown out for prosecuting the violent criminals who attacked the Capitol Police on January 6 or being pushed out for simply being friendly with someone critical of the President.

Alarming court filings suggest that even Director Patel has privately acknowledged that many of these actions may be illegal yet justified them by saying that his keeping his position depended on carrying them out.

The list of those purged reads like a who's who of the Bureau's most decorated public servants.

Those agents forced out include former Acting Director of the FBI Brian Driscoll, who rose through the FBI's ranks in some of its most elite units, including the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team. In 2015, he supported U.S. Special Operations in rescuing an American humanitarian aid worker, Kayla Mueller, from ISIS. Special Agent Driscoll would later rise to the head of the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group-- the FBI's elite team in charge of dealing with terrorists, child abductors, bomb threats, and hostage situations.

For his service, Agent Driscoll was awarded the FBI's Medal of Valor and Shield of Bravery, only to have Director Patel fire him because he would not purge agents whom the President deemed politically disloyal.

Other purged individuals include Bobby Wells, who joined the FBI shortly after 9/11 and spent decades in counterterrorism. He eventually became the head of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, leading efforts against al-Qaida, ISIS, and other global networks. Notably, he helped bring to justice the mastermind of the Kabul International Airport bombing that killed 13 American servicemembers--an accomplishment publicly touted by the President. Yet the President fired him shortly thereafter.

This list includes Michael Nordwall, who was the head of the FBI's Criminal, Cyber, Response and Services Branch, who led efforts to combat ransomware attacks, online fraud, and sophisticated cyber intrusions targeting critical U.S. infrastructure.

Further, the list includes Ryan Young, who was the head of the FBI's Intelligence Division, overseeing the collection and analysis of all intelligence on domestic and foreign threats, trying to make sure that field offices had the situational awareness to prevent attacks.

Other senior agents were forced out from dozens of FBI field offices nationwide--from Washington to Miami, to New Orleans, to Las Vegas and Seattle. Among those heads of FBI field offices forced out was Special Agent Jacqueline Maguire, who was the lead investigator into the five hijackers of American Airlines Flight 77, whose expertise was critical to understanding 9/11 and preventing further attacks.

Most recently being pushed out includes Steven Palmer, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and the third head of the FBI's elite Critical Incident Response Group.

In just 3 months--3 months--three separate heads were fired.

As head of the Critical Incident Response Group, Mr. Palmer led teams tasked with responding to terrorist attacks, mass shootings, hostage crises, high-risk national security incidents--work that required split-second decision making under extraordinary pressure. He was fired not for failing his duties, not for misconduct, and not for political disagreements about law enforcement; he was fired because the American people learned that Director

Patel had been using the FBI's $60 million jet at $20,000 a flight to go on dates with his girlfriend.

To make matters worse, recent reporting indicates that Patel now has also pulled agents off of an FBI SWAT team to provide a security detail for that very same girlfriend--an unprecedented use of some of our Nation's most elite units, ordinarily assigned to deal with terrorism, hostage situations, or mass shootings; thousands of FBI agents all forced out not because they failed to do their job but because they refused to bend the knee to partisan politics.

As if these individuals were not enough, the truth is, the FBI, in recent months, has reassigned between 25 and 45 percent of its agents who handle counterterrorism, cyber, espionage, child sexual abuse, and other critical missions. What have they been reassigned to? Well, they have been reassigned to immigration, while our office hears regularly that they want to get back to the cases that they had been working on and instead are stuck on a detail where they do nothing.

As a matter of fact, data reveals a 33-percent decrease in hours spent on child exploitation cases this year compared to previous years.

Firing agents who investigate terrorists, foreign spies, cyber hackers, and child predators doesn't make America safer, especially when the President's own intelligence officials warn publicly and repeatedly of the many threats facing our Nation.

Just this summer, the ODNI issued a bulletin warning of al-Qaida and ISIS plots targeting the homeland. And just last month, the FBI disrupted ISIS terrorist plots in Michigan and New Jersey that might have been aimed at Halloween. I shudder to think what would have happened if the FBI had missed those plots, if the terrorists had semiautomatic rifles that suddenly let loose on kids trick-or-treating.

The FBI Agents Association, which represents over 90 percent of all active FBI agents, issued a sobering warning earlier this month that Director Patel ``disregarded the law and launched a campaign of erratic and arbitrary retribution'' and that his actions ``make the American public less safe.''

This is the FBI Agents Association. They don't make these kinds of comments. How far do you have to be pushed to basically say the current Director of the FBI is making America less safe?

But this political purge is not simply limited to the FBI. Since April, the National Security Agency--the Agency in charge of spying on communications of our adversaries--has been without a permanent Director or Deputy Director after President Trump fired Gen. Tim Haugh and his Deputy, Wendy Noble, at the behest of conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer; the same for the Defense Intelligence Agency, whose Director, Gen. Jeff Kruse, was fired after the DIA provided a fact-based assessment that contradicted the President's false televised claims that the United States had ``obliterated''--President Trump's words ``obliterated''--Iran's nuclear program.

The pattern of reckless firings has extended to nearly every corner of our national security enterprise: Hundreds of workers who were responsible for maintaining our country's nuclear weapons, fired; staff managing foreign assistance programs ranging from detention of ISIS terrorists in Syria to air defenses in Ukraine, fired; hundreds of analysts monitoring China and Russia, fired, including a 29-year veteran of the CIA who supported President Trump's Alaska summit with President Putin whose undercover identity was publicly and incompetently disclosed by DNI Tulsi Gabbard; more than one-third of CISA--the Agency established for the absolutely explicit purpose of protecting our critical infrastructure, water, power, and our elections to prevent those entities from being attacked by cyber tools--a third of that Agency, fired, even as major cyber attacks hit State and local governments in at least 44 States, including a massive ransomware attack on Nevada's online government systems in August, a ransomware attack in July on local government networks in St. Paul, MN, and a cyber attack on city systems in Mission, TX, in February--folks are slow to respond--a third of CISA, it is a relatively new Agency but has been making progress, all fired.

The irony is stark: Despite persistent efforts by China, Russia, Iran, and other adversaries, the 2020 Presidential election was one of the most secure in history, thanks in large part due to steps taken during the Trump administration's first term to safeguard our critical infrastructure. Yet now, much of that hard-won protection has been dismantled, leaving Americans more vulnerable than ever.

Cyber Command--which under GEN Paul Nakasone disrupted the Russian troll farms in 2017--lacks a permanent Commander. The Foreign Influence Task Force, stood up by President Trump in his first term to share information with State and local partners about foreign interference in our elections, that task force has been completely disbanded. All the while, the administration's own intelligence reporting warns--and, again, I am going to go back to a quote:

Beijing will continue to expand its coercive and subversive

malign influence activities to weaken the United States . . .

is likely to feel emboldened to use malign influence more

regularly in the coming years, particularly as it fields AI

to improve its capabilities.

That is what China is saying.

Russia:

Moscow's malign influence activities will continue for the

foreseeable future and will almost certainly increase in

sophistication and volume.

Iran's growing expertise and willingness to conduct

aggressive cyber operations make it a major threat to the

security of U.S. networks and data.

The administration's own comments say these are threats we can't avoid. Yet you dismantle the foreign malign influence center, you fire a third of the people who are supposed to be responding to cyber attacks, you take FBI agents who were working on cyber and stick them on the immigration detail. This does not make America safer.

The truth is, the pattern is unmistakable: Political loyalty is now valued over competence, and the very institutions created to protect Americans are being dismantled right before our eyes.

We can no longer pretend that politics and national security are separate. Every day that we allow this purge to continue is a day we leave Americans more exposed in their homes, on the streets, and online.

The next attack will not wait for Congress to act. The next threat will not ask permission. And when it comes, the consequences will not be measured in polling numbers or election results; they will be measured in lives lost, infrastructure damaged, and national security compromised.

This is the moment to stand up to defend our intelligence Agencies; to protect those agents; to allow the intelligence community to speak truth to power, even when the power doesn't want to hear it; and, frankly, at the end of the day, to safeguard the American people. If we fail that and don't stand up for these men and women who have put their lives on the line, if we don't stand up for keeping classified information classified, if we don't stand up and say to those who undermine our infrastructure by cyber attacks, if we don't stand up for those terrorists planning, we will bear the cost later--a cost that could be catastrophic.

I think we are a better country than this. These men and women deserve our support, and, unfortunately so far, they have not gotten that support. We can and must do better.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I do want to thank my friend from North Dakota. We see things slightly different, but one thing I think we could probably agree on: Do you know who is getting paid? The House of Representatives, who have been on vacation since the middle of September. And, gosh, wouldn't it be great if they were actually on the floor debating this issue as well, as opposed to getting a taxpayer- paid vacation for over a month?

Unanimous Consent Request--S. 3039

Mr. President, I think one of the things we could all kind of agree on is that our Nation's public servants are not political pawns.

I say with respect to my friend from Wisconsin, you know, the so- called Shutdown Fairness Act, in my view, is anything but fair. Frankly, this entire year has been anything but fair for all of our Federal employees who show up every single day to serve the American people. Because remember, before Russ Vought even set foot in the Office of Management and Budget, he bragged that he wanted Federal workers--his words, not mine--to increasingly be ``viewed as . . . villains'' and ``put them in trauma.'' Think about that. This wasn't some political misstatement or slip of the tongue; it is, frankly, a mission statement.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what we have seen from Mr. Vought, from President Trump, and from those enabling them. In just 9 months, they have forced out or driven into early retirement more than 148,000 Federal employees. That is not efficiency or reform; it is an assault on the very people who work every day for the American people. And God knows we could improve but also make government perform.

Now, let's be clear. It is not this side of the aisle--Democrats who have cherry-picked a few favorite programs to protect. We have been consistent in calling out this administration's totally reckless regard for the vital services the American people rely on to keep them safe and secure and standing up for those folks who deliver those services.

So forgive me when I say I don't think this Shutdown Fairness Act has anything to do with fairness. Once again, Federal employees are being treated not as partners serving the American people but as punching bags for Vought and the President's political agenda.

Right now, the President is trying to RIF another 4,000 Federal employees--not just, I believe, unfairly, but actually illegally, based upon a court's recent decision. Thank goodness the courts have stepped in.

As a matter a fact, many of us were at the OMB headquarters next to the White House just last week, meeting with Federal employees, demanding that Mr. Vought and his team listen not to us--you don't have to listen to us; we are on politically different sides--but listen to the Federal workers and make sure that we get the government reopen, not try to leverage this for some kind of political win.

We are talking about special education programs that support kids with disabilities. We are talking about the CDC, whose experts track outbreaks and try to keep us safe. We are talking about a program called the CDFI Fund at Treasury--a program with broad bipartisan support that helps invest in access to capital in rural communities and in urban communities.

Again, on this one, I have to thank Mike Crapo and a whole lot of my Republican colleagues for being willing to push back.

Let's be crystal clear. These actions are not some accident. This is a deliberate choice, a deliberate effort to hold Federal workers hostage in order to jam through an agenda. At the end of the day, it is going drive up healthcare costs for millions of Americans.

Instead of sitting down with us and working to keep premiums affordable, they are using the very Federal workers--I have a ton of them in Virginia--as political pawns. It is wrong, it is cruel, and it is not going to work.

That is why I am proud to join both Ranking Member Peters, who will be here, I believe, shortly, and my good friend from Maryland Senator Van Hollen on legislation to ensure that not the Trump administration picks and chooses who we ought to go ahead and pay but legislation to ensure that all Federal workers--and, by the way, the contractors who work side by side with them--get paid during this shutdown.

I mean, at the end of the day, this is a moment for every Senator to decide: Are you going to stand with the Federal workers who keep the government running or are you going to stand with those who want to traumatize them and make them all be viewed as villains?

This is an actual chance. In a few minutes, we are going to have to make sure that those workers can feed their families, pay their mortgages, while this Republican shutdown drags on.

There is a lot of language on this floor about who wants to support Federal workers. Well, you are going to shortly have a chance--every Senator will have a chance--to prove whether you are on the side of not selectively paying Federal workers but paying all Federal workers, as we try to bring this shutdown to an end. I urge my colleagues to do the right thing. Let's get it done. And I thank Senator Van Hollen for his leadership on this issue.

I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, I don't normally come to the floor to give somewhat lengthy remarks, but today I am doing so because of a deep and, frankly, rising concern for the future of our intelligence community and, in turn, the security of the United States.

For months now, we have watched President Trump's administration, led in this arena by his handpicked Director of National Intelligence Ms. Gabbard, systemically undermine the men and women whose mission is to keep this country safe. These are professionals who serve under Republican and Democratic administrations alike. They are career officials who put duty before politics, who swear an oath not to any President but to the Constitution of the United States.

Yet as this administration fires and denigrates these very men and women, as expertise that takes literally decades to build is being thrown away as it conflicts with political talking points, as assessments grounded in fact are being shelved in favor of conspiracy theories, our adversaries are conspiring, sharing intelligence and military capabilities and strategizing over how to weaken the United States while advancing a very different authoritarian vision for the world.

At the same time, I fear the integrity of our intelligence is being sacrificed on the altar of partisan convenience.

This is not some kind of inside-the-beltway turf battle, and it is not another partisan disagreement. I believe at stake is something much more fundamental: whether America will continue to have an intelligence community free to speak truth to power or whether political pressure will blind us to the very real threats our Nation faces.

(Mr. BUDD assumed the Chair.)

History shows us what happens when intelligence is ignored, manipulated, or kept from those who need it most. In 1941, the U.S. Navy intercepted communications showing that Japan was planning to attack Pearl Harbor. That knowledge ended up being of little use because it was not communicated to the people who could have taken action to protect the fleet. The result was the devastating surprise that cost thousands of American lives.

In the aftermath, Congress resolved that we could never again afford to be blindsided. So in 1947, in a bipartisan way, Congress created the Central Intelligence Agency, the modern Department of Defense, and other institutions to ensure that unfiltered, unbiased intelligence is provided to the President, to Congress, and to our military. These institutions are meant to protect us from surprises and to give policymakers the truth, even when it is inconvenient or uncomfortable.

Now, for the most part, this system has worked, and all of us who work up here know it has never been perfect. The abuses revealed by the Church Committee in the 1970s made clear why strong congressional oversight is essential. That is why the Senate Intelligence Committee was established in 1976 and our House counterpart the following year.

Today, while not flawless, these committees--of which I know the Presiding Officer is a member--remain the best check we have to ensure that intelligence Agencies uphold American values and laws and avoid repeating past mistakes--and hopefully learning from them when they do occur. Even with our modern system of congressional oversight, we have seen tragic failures. Intelligence failed to predict the collapse of the Soviet Union. We failed to connect the dots before 9/11. And perhaps most foreboding, in the runup to the Iraq war, intelligence was distorted to fit policy preferences. Intelligence about weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaida were inflated and cherry-picked. Analysts who even at that time raised doubts were ignored.

The result was a devastating war in Iraq, fought under false pretenses, that cost literally thousands of American servicemembers their lives and limbs. But we learned from those failures.

After the September 11 attacks, Congress placed additional safeguards and created a new position: the Director of National Intelligence. The objective was to better coordinate our intelligence Agencies, to avoid the so-called

groupthink, to remove silos amongst our now 18, 19 intelligence Agencies, and to ensure that analysts could provide thorough, candid assessments--again, even when the truth was uncomfortable or unwelcome.

That was the commitment I asked President Trump's nominee and the current Director of National Intelligence, Ms. Gabbard, to make during her confirmation hearing, and she assured our committee and the American people that she would protect the independence of the intelligence community to ensure that the IC is never politicized. She even pointed to the runup to the war in Iraq as the clearest example of what happens when intelligence is bent to fit policy and the President is told only what he wants to hear. She pledged that she would never allow those mistakes to be repeated on her watch.

Mr. President, but in only 6 months, we have seen the opposite from this administration. We have seen career FBI agents, people who have risked their lives for this country, forced out of their positions simply for investigating crimes committed in the January 6 insurrection. These were professionals following the law, performing their sworn duties, and yet their service was treated as disloyalty. Careers were ended and decades of expertise were discarded just for doing the job they were entrusted to do.

We have seen the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the National Intelligence Council dismissed because their well-documented, evidence- based assessment of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua criminal network did not align with the administration's preferred narrative. These analysts presented carefully sourced intelligence showing that the gang of bad guys acted, actually, independent of the Venezuelan Government, not at the behest of foreign officials. Yet their findings were rejected and their leadership positions removed simply because the truth didn't fit a politically convenient story.

And again, to be clear, there is no question that Maduro's regime in Venezuela and the TDA are ruthless actors who pose real threats, but punishing officials--punishing intelligence officials in particular-- for telling the truth only weakens our ability to confront them.

We have seen the three-star general leading the Defense Intelligence Agency pushed out after analysts produced a straightforward, evidence- based assessment showing that Iran's nuclear program had not been obliterated, as President Trump so loudly claimed. Rather than face those facts, the administration decided to punish the messenger, and he was let go from DIA.

We have seen, more recently, analysts, literally with decades of experience on Russia, stripped of their security clearances or reassigned at the very moment that their years of expertise is needed most.

More recently, DNI Gabbard has personally revoked the clearances of at least 37 individuals in a transparently political act of vengeance in a single stroke of a pen and, at least in one case, exposing an official working undercover. That alone--putting someone who has worked undercover and identifying that identity--in past administrations would have been grounds for firing.

We have seen statutory requirements to keep Congress fully and currently informed ignored, oversight stymied and obstructed, and inspectors general who are supposed to keep their eyes on these Agencies--inspectors general and their personnel silenced, forced out, or removed.

And I remind my colleagues, in terms of oversight for the intelligence community, that is not a right that all 100 Senators have. There are literally 17 of us. As chair or vice chair over the last few years, I am part of the so-called Gang of 8. If we don't do our jobs, nobody is watching all of these intelligence Agencies.

Even more damaging, we have seen highly sensitive intelligence declassified and released, clearly for political purposes, without proper coordination with the Agencies responsible for protecting sources and methods--that is how we do our work and who are the people involved. The disclosures actually risked revealing the identities of assets--and those are human beings--and the techniques we rely on-- those are the technology and skills we have--and the credibility of ongoing operations, all for the sake of advancing a political narrative. The very tools that protect lives and maintain America's strategic advantage are being treated as leverage in a partisan game.

Let's remember, the so-called Russia hoax and that assessment, which this administration continues to disparage, was a coordinated, unanimous finding by the entire intelligence community. Our committee-- on a bipartisan, unanimous basis--reviewed it and validated it extensively. Not a single one of my Republican colleagues objected to its findings, including the current Secretary of State, then-committee chairman Senator Rubio.

And what did that assessment actually conclude? I think every one of us understood that Russia conducted a sweeping, systematic campaign to interfere in our 2016 election; that Moscow's goal was to sow chaos, to undermine faith in American democracy, and specifically to boost Mr. Trump's candidacy. These findings were not partisan talking points; they were sober judgments of career professionals, backed by evidence, and affirmed by both parties in Congress.

And during the first Trump administration, they responded to that report appropriately and put resources to make sure the 2020 election was the safest election on record. Kudos to the first Trump administration in doing that.

But with all of this happening, as troubling as all of this is, what may be most astonishing is who seems to be calling the shots now: not seasoned national security leaders, not career intelligence professionals, but conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a figure who has called the 9/11 terrorist attacks an inside job, who described herself as a ``pro-White nationalist'' and a ``proud Islamophobe,'' and who has made openly racist and anti-Muslim statements. This is not someone with even a shred of credibility, let alone the experience or judgment we should demand from those influencing U.S. national security decisions.

Yet, time and again, we have seen senior officials pushed out of their posts because Ms. Loomer decided they were not sufficiently loyal to the President. National Security Council staffers, people well-known and respected on both sides of the aisle, including staffers who worked for my Republican colleagues in the Senate, were shown the door at her demand; the two top officials at the National Security Agency, including a well-respected four-star general, Timothy Haugh, forced out, along with the Agency's general counsel, again at Loomer's behest.

These are critical posts in one of our most important intelligence organizations, vacated not because of misconduct or failure but because of the whims of a political provocateur whose public record is filled with hate and conspiracies. And don't take my word on these actions. Ms. Loomer's own social media feed claims all of these firings and dismissals almost as trophies.

And just a few weeks ago we saw something that I believe should trouble every Member of this body, regardless of which party you belong to. My staff and I had arranged a visit to the National Geospatial- Intelligence Agency located in my State of Virginia so that I could go ahead and do my constitutional duty of oversight and, in that meeting, meet with intelligence professionals who also happened to be my constituents. Yet, at the last minute, that visit was blocked--again-- and apparently, as she claimed, by Laura Loomer.

What does it say about the state of our national security when a self-proclaimed White nationalist and Islamophobe with a personal vendetta against U.S. Government officials--and, by the way, no security clearance, no sworn duty to defend the Constitution--can dictate who serves in critical intelligence positions and even prevent Members of this Chamber from conducting basic oversight?

I have to ask again: Why is this administration going to war against the very professionals sworn to keep our country safe? Why are decades of service and sacrifice being tossed aside?

Why? Because they think they are still obliged to provide the truth and speak truth to power. But, instead, it appears that sometimes those truths

are inconvenient because sometimes their assessments are not what the DNI and the President want to hear.

These safeguards we put in place and the oversight this body provides--again, only 17 of us have seen these classified programs-- these safeguards only work if intelligence officers know that they can tell the truth without losing their jobs. If analysts who analyze the facts and try to come up with conclusions believe their careers will be destroyed for offering inconvenient assessments, then we will only get intelligence the White House wants.

Imagine the consequences if our intelligence community is forced to spend its time chasing down conspiracy theories instead of monitoring terrorist networks, cyber threats, or foreign adversaries. Imagine if analysts stop flagging real dangers because they fear political retaliation. Imagine if experienced officers walk away from service altogether because they know their expertise will be diminished or punished. That kind of environment doesn't just weaken our intelligence community, it puts every American family at risk.

Again, this is not some kind of partisan point. Democrats and Republicans alike have relied on the intelligence community to keep the country safe. Every President, whether they liked what they were hearing or not, has depended on accurate, independent analysis to make decisions that affect millions of lives.

That is what makes this current moment so alarming. We are dismantling trust in institutions that literally took generations to build. We are eroding morale among some of the most dedicated professionals in public service. And I fear that we are sending a clear message to young officers, whether they are at the CIA or any of the other intelligence Agencies: Don't bother building a career in intelligence if you plan on telling the truth.

Meanwhile, these aren't actions in a vacuum. Our adversaries aren't slowing down. Cyber attacks, disinformation campaigns, nuclear proliferation, terrorist attacks, transnational criminal organizations--these threats are real, and they are not going to wait for us to get our house in order.

If we continue to allow politics to dictate what intelligence is acceptable, we are effectively flying blind. That is why, again, I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle: Please, for God's sake, take this seriously. We can disagree about policy, but we cannot allow the facts themselves to be corrupted.

The intelligence community must remain independent, professional, and committed to the Constitution above all else.

I have had the opportunity in my tenure on this committee to work with a lot of these men and women. I didn't know many of them before I was on the Intelligence Committee. They are dedicated professionals. I never asked a single one what their party affiliation was. They oftentimes put their lives in harm's way and, candidly, never get the attention that our military does. They work in secret.

The truth is, these professionals and the work they do deserve to be respected, honored, and listened to because if you corrupt the intelligence and bend it to political wills, we have seen constant examples of what happens.

The truth is, the American people deserve nothing less.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I was absent on Saturday, August 2, 2025, for rollcall vote no. 485. Had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 186, Andrew Puzder, of Tennessee, to be Representative of the United States of America to the European Union.

Mr. President, I want to thank my friend from Washington State. I want to follow some of her concerns. It is pretty remarkable, so I do rise with grave concern to speak in opposition to the nomination of Joe Kent to lead the National Counterterrorism Center.

Others may have already said this, but this is not a nomination we should treat lightly. The Director of NCTC plays a central role in asserting and integrating intelligence on terrorist threats, both foreign and domestic. That person must be trusted to tell the truth and to uphold the core principles of the intelligence community: objectivity, nonpartisanship, and fidelity to fact. Unfortunately, Mr. Kent has shown, time and again, that he cannot meet the standard.

Now, let me acknowledge at the front end that I respect Mr. Kent because he spent much of his adult life in service to this country. He enlisted in the U.S. Army at 18. He served for two decades as a Green Beret. He deployed overseas 11 times before working as a field operative for the CIA. That record of service deserves recognition.

And I do not question Mr. Kent's devotion to our country. However, that service, while admirable, cannot overcome a consistent pattern of questionable judgment and false statements, at odds with the objectivity he would be expected to uphold as Director of NCTC.

In May, Congress received clear written evidence that Mr. Kent, while serving as Chief of Staff to Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, sought to manipulate intelligence to match a political narrative promoted by President Trump. Specifically, after the National Intelligence Council assessed that the Venezuelan Government was not directing the movement of Tren de Aragua--the Tren de Aragua gang--into the United States, Mr. Kent pressured career analysts to alter that conclusion, not because of new intelligence but because he feared the report would ``be used against the DNI or POTUS.'' Let me say that again. Mr. Kent pressured career nonpartisan intelligence analysts to change their conclusions not to reflect the facts but somehow to protect Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard.

The remarkable thing that happened next is that when the analysts stood firm, they were fired, sending a chilling message to every intelligence officer tasked with protecting this country.

Let me be crystal clear. Tren de Aragua is a violent and dangerous transnational gang, and the Maduro government are pretty bad folks. And nobody that I know of--least of all me--is minimizing the threat that Tren de Aragua poses or the importance of tracking their ideas and their activities in the United States. But our national security decisions must be based on facts, not politics.

When intelligence professionals conclude, based on the best available information, that the Venezuelan Government is not coordinating with that gang, their analysts--analysis--I think, has to be respected, even if it contradicts a political talking point.

Distorting that analysis to score political points not only undermines trust in the intelligence community, it risks misdirecting resources and attention away from the real threats we face.

Unfortunately, this incident is part of a much larger pattern, underscoring that Mr. Kent lacks the judgment and commitment to truth required of such an important position.

Mr. Kent has openly embraced the lie that the 2020 election was ``rigged'' and ``stolen,'' a lie that the Senator from Washington indicated helped fuel an insurrection against our democracy, and he has defended those who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, referring to them as ``political prisoners,'' and falsely claimed that the FBI and intelligence community were involved in directing the violence that occurred that day.

I can tell you, I was here that day. That was not directed by the

I ask unanimous consent that we move up the 1:45 vote to start right now.

Mr. President, I was absent on Thursday, July 17, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 414. Had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 96, Aaron Lukas, of Arkansas, to be Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.

Mr. President, I was absent on Thursday, July 17, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 415. Had I been present, I would have voted yea on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 108, Bradley Hansell, of Virginia, to be Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security.

Mr. President, I was absent on Thursday, July 17, 2025, for rollcall vote No. 416. Had I been present, I would have voted nay on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar No. 91, Arielle Roth, of the District of Columbia, to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information.

Mr. President, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I ask that further reading be dispensed with.

Mr. President, I rise today--I know many of us have--with deep concern about the administration shuttering USAID, firing thousands of State Department personnel, and retreating from America's place in the world. These actions threaten our national security and our economic interests.

Africa has the world's fastest growing population, projected to be home for 25 percent of the global population by 2050 and has enormous reserves and strategic benefits.

I can tell you, back in Virginia we benefit greatly from the vibrant and diverse African diaspora populations.

U.S. engagement with African nations is essential. It makes us safer and develops economic opportunities for partnership. This is in America's strategic interest.

Our adversaries get this, too, and China has been jumping at the opportunity to make inroads as we retreat from Africa.

This administration's haphazard retreat from our commitments in Africa make us all less safe. Rescinding these economic support and development funds is harmful today, but it is, in the long run, a clear and avoidable catastrophe, one that mortgages our strategic interests, our credibility, and our security.

I urge my colleagues to support my motion.

Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 2847 and ask it be reported by number.

I ask the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Colleagues, we all know on January 29 of this year, 67 individuals lost their lives when a military helicopter and a passenger jet collided near Reagan National Airport. This tragedy underscores the need for more safety improvements at National Airport.

The reconciliation bill increases, actually doubles, the amount of rent that National and Dulles pay the government. But it doesn't use any of that money to make those airports safer. And we all use those airports.

There is no good rationale for increasing those rents and not using them for aviation safety.

My amendment would increase aviation safety and security. It also honors the victims of the recent midair collision: first, to implement the NTSB's and FAA's preliminary and final recommendations on any safety measures resulting from the crash at National; second, to establish and maintain a permanent memorial for the victims of the crash of January 29. And the families strongly support this amendment; and, third, to undertake projects directly related to the safety and security of flights from both Dulles and National to other airports across the country.

Some of those airports include Charlotte, NC; Portland, ME; Charleston, SC; Indianapolis, IN; Wichita, KS; Louisville, KY; Nashville, TN; and Cleveland, OH.

I also want to thank my colleagues Senators Kaine, Van Hollen, and Alsobrooks for cosponsoring this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support the amendment.

Mr. President, do I have any remaining time?

I urge my colleagues to adopt the amendment.

Vote on Amendment No. 2847

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, for too long, stablecoins have operated in a regulatory gray area, putting consumers, markets, and national security at risk. The bipartisan GENIUS Act brings much-needed oversight and standards to the $250 billion stablecoin market. It also creates guardrails for responsible innovation and will enact sensible consumer protections for payment stablecoins. As an early supporter and negotiator of the final version of the bill, I pushed for provisions which clearly preserve State consumer protection laws in the negotiated rule of construction in section 7(f)(4). This provision is commonsense and furthers the goal of ensuring that consumer interests come first.

Mr. President, I agree with my colleague from Hawaii.

I ask unanimous consent to move the 12 o'clock vote up, to start it now.

Mr. President, I was absent on Tuesday, June 10, 2025, for rollcall vote no. 299. Had I been present, I would have voted nay on the confirmation of Executive Calendar No. 49, David Fotouhi, of Virginia, to be Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Mr. President, first of all, I want to thank my colleague. I agree with her comments about how we need to not just pay lipservice to our veterans or the fact that for 70 years, America has used soft power through organizations like USAID in ways that have been incredibly important and have kept our country and the world safer.

I thank the Senator for her comments and, frankly, the others who have been on the floor.

We have been talking about, I think, unfortunately, the myriad ways the Trump administration is undermining our security and, quite honestly, making Americans less safe. Now, as vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee, I have some additional thoughts to add about the way this administration is endangering our national security with its reckless, sloppy mishandling of classified information, by firing people who keep our country safe, and by abandoning and alienating the very allies whose support is crucial for our security, prosperity, and global influence.

Now, let me not go way back in time. Let's just look at what we have learned in just the last 24 hours.

Yesterday, we learned that President Trump apparently had a meeting in the Oval Office with a self-described pro-White nationalist, proud Islamophobe, and conspiracy theorist who has called 9/11 an inside job carried out by the U.S. Government.

The Presiding Officer is from Pennsylvania, where many of the victims of 9/11 took brave actions and Flight 93 crashed. Many of the victims of 9/11 were in my State as well when the Pentagon got attacked.

So the idea that someone and that any administration would let anyone with these kind of views--and it is not just that 9/11 was an inside job; she questioned Governor DeSantis's wife's breast cancer. If anyone would have let that kind of individual within 100 yards of any White House in the past, we would have all said: This is beyond belief. But according to press reports, the President is actually taking staffing advice from a person whose rhetoric is steeped in hate, misinformation, and dangerous conspiracy theories.

First, yesterday, we learned that the President dismissed several members of his National Security Council staff because this person, who is so far out that even the MAGA crowd thinks she is extreme, Laura Loomer, told him to do so. Some of these staff are actually well known to Republican Senators because they worked for them.

So I implore my colleagues to just judge for themselves whether they think it is good for our national security to have these staff members thrown out of the building at the behest of a podcast host who, as I said, has actually accused First Lady Casey DeSantis in Florida of exaggerating her struggles with breast cancer.

This same individual has claimed that school shootings are staged and suggested that the deep state used an atmospheric research facility in Alaska to create a snowstorm over Iowa. This is whacky even for MAGA world. Yet this individual is in the White House giving staffing advice to the President, and it appears the President is acting on that advice.

If that wasn't bad enough--and this was, again, the last 24 hours-- the Senate Intelligence Committee received notification that--in the middle of the night--the President has fired the Director and Deputy Director of the National Security Agency.

Gen. Timothy Haugh and Wendy Noble are career officials who have spent decades working to protect our country, serving under both Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Wendy Noble joined the National Security Agency in 1987, working her way up to become the top civilian leader of the NSA. And throughout his distinguished career of more than 30 years in the Armed Forces, General Haugh has exemplified the very best of military service: dedication, integrity, and an unwavering commitment to our country.

Again, this morning, we learned that these firings, too, were done at Loomer's behest--an unprecedented politicization of our intelligence community.

I ask my Republican colleagues: How much longer will this go on before you find the courage to speak up and say ``enough''? How much longer will we permit this administration to politicize, attack, and hollow out our intelligence Agencies?

If we go back to the beginning of the administration, I guess we maybe shouldn't be surprised because one of President Trump's first acts in office was to fire some of the most experienced agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including top leaders in counterintelligence, cyber security, and counterterrorism.

Now, in a move that was even hypocrisy by modern political standards, a few weeks ago, in his joint address to Congress, President Trump boasted about the recent capture of the architect of the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing at Kabul Airport in which 13 American servicemembers were killed. This welcome achievement was the result of extensive investigative and intelligence work, but when President Trump was boasting about this, he made no mention of the fact that just a few days earlier, he had literally fired--fired--the FBI leader responsible for overseeing that investigation.

I ask anyone who is listening: How is America made more secure by that? How is America made more secure by firing the staff responsible for overseeing the safety and security of our country's nuclear stockpile? How is America made safer by firing the people responsible for responding to cyber attacks like Salt Typhoon or the Chinese that have literally infiltrated all of our telecom networks? How are we made safer by firing the researchers and scientists responsible for preventing diseases like Ebola from reaching our shores?

Now, this is in addition to firing hundreds of intelligence officers, who have received specialized training and been subjected to extensive security vetting--at, I might add, considerable expense to the taxpayer--so they can actually carry out some of the Nation's most sensitive classified work, often in spite of great personal danger, as the 140 stars carved into the CIA's Memorial Wall attest.

Can anybody tell me how firing probationary officers without cause and apparently without regard for merit or accomplishment, recognizing that in virtually every one of these cases, the taxpayers spent literally hundreds of thousands of dollars getting them a security clearance and then putting them through training? How is that making us safer or, for that matter, a more efficient use of taxpayer dollars?

I believe this administration just simply doesn't take protecting our national security very seriously. How else do you explain their sloppy, reckless behavior with classified information?

It has been more than 10 days since we first learned that President Trump's top advisers were using an unclassified, commercial messaging app to discuss details of a planned military strike while U.S. pilots were flying into enemy air defenses. And the remarkable thing is, it has been 10 days, and no one has been held accountable. I can assure you, the men and women flying those planes were in danger if that information had been disclosed.

One thing I know--and I saw this last weekend when I was down in Virginia Beach in Chesapeake, VA. That region is called Hampton Roads, and it is where the Norfolk naval station is. It is where the USS Truman, the aircraft carrier which the planes launched from to attack the Houthis, is home-ported.

Folks in that community knew, and they let me hear it. They knew that

their friends and loved ones' lives had been put in danger because of the sloppy, careless treatment of this classified information. They also knew very well that if any rank-and-file enlisted military or intelligence officer had so carelessly jeopardized our national security, they would have lost their security clearance and their jobs, no questions asked.

The remarkable kind of irony and hypocrisy here is that a nearly identical event involving a Homeland Security employee who accidentally included a journalist in an email chain with even less sensitive information resulted in that employee being punished immediately. So a low-level employee, the rules apply to. The Secretary of Defense, the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Advisor-- they bear no responsibility?

No one has been held accountable. Not Waltz, who initiated the group chat. As we have now come to find, this one Signal chat was not a one- off; it was a series of at least 20 of these chats, which we don't have full background on. Not Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who gambled with the lives of our fighter pilots by sharing the details of weapons, targets, and timing nearly 3 hours before military operations were scheduled to begin. And sure as heck not Tulsi Gabbard, who, as Director of National Intelligence, is charged with keeping our Nation's secrets safe from our adversaries but appears to have boldly lied about this incident before my committee.

But what is so frustrating is that this is just part of a pattern for this administration, which, during its first few weeks in office, exposed the name of CIA officers over an unclassified email. Those men and women can't serve abroad anymore.

The same group, driven by the DOGE bros, publicized the classified head count and budget of a U.S. intelligence Agency and posted online the location of a classified government facility.

We spend a lot of money trying to keep certain things secret. And yet they post this as supposedly a property up for sale. All of this sloppiness is deeply damaging, not only to the morale of the men and women who serve in the military and the intelligence community, but it is deeply damaging to the intelligence relationships upon which our security depends.

The intelligence we gather to keep America safe is frequently contingent on friends who tip us off or have access to sources that we lack. Israel, one of the best sources of intelligence in the Middle East is, according to public reports, furious that the Signalgate breach exposed a sensitive intelligence source on the ground in Yemen.

I have got to tell you there is nothing that requires Israel or, for that matter, any of our allies to share this kind of intelligence with the United States. These are relationships that depend on mutual trust. And the truth is, other countries--and I have already started to hear-- may now be reluctant to share information, knowing that the Trump administration can't be relied on to protect sensitive sources and methods.

Whether it is the President's bellicose threats to annex Greenland, the trade war that he has launched that is melting down the market and robbing people of their retirement funds, or this sloppy, reckless mishandling of America's classified information, the one thing that is true without a doubt is that America's credibility around the world is being severely endangered.

Already, longstanding allies like Canada, Australia, and Portugal have said they are reconsidering buying American-made F-35 fighters because they no longer feel they can count on the United States or, for that matter, American businesses to stand by our commitments.

Does anyone realize--I have got to believe my Republican colleagues realize this--how unimaginably foolish and shortsighted it is to have a policy where you piss off Portugal, Canada and Australia like this. How does that make us safer?

The amazing thing about these relationships is, even if they reverse course, as they have done so many times, that trust you can't put back in the bottle when the trust has been broken. We have already heard that from the Prime Minister of Canada. I fear that we will feel the ripples of the erosion of trust from our workforce, American businesses, and from our international partners for many years to come.

Make no mistake about it. All of these actions will make America less safe, and unless we stand up and take back the powers that were granted in the Constitution to this body, unless we stand up and demand that our intelligence community not be politicized and still able to speak truth to power, unless we stand up and say to our friends around the world--70-years-plus of allies that have kept our world safe--if we allow these actions and others to go unabated, we are shirking our duty, making America less safe and making the world less safe.

In a moment, Mr. President, I am going to yield the floor, but I see my friend the Senator from California. I just want to commend him. He was chair of the Intelligence Committee in the House before he came to this Chamber, and he has suffered for speaking truth to power, for standing up for the rule of law, a level of attack and abuse, oftentimes personal, that no American-elected official should have to stand for. If we allow that kind of behavior to continue, as well, we are less safe.

Let me remind you, especially the folks listening: This is not a partisan issue. We have seen Republicans Members of the Senate threatened to the point where they had to hire security for their family because they decided to speak truth.

Our country is better than this. We just need some of the good Americans who we work with on a day-in and day-out basis to find their voice and say: On these matters of national security, there is no partisan divide. There is no MAGA version that makes our country safer.

We will have a chance to debate and talk about this and amendments like this tonight. I hope our colleagues will find the strength to finally speak truth to power themselves.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I call up my amendment No. 1310 and ask that it be reported by number.

Mr. President, in a good-faith effort to try to move the evening along, I have such a no-brainer amendment that it should pass by voice. We all know we care about national security in this Chamber. My amendment simply says: Let's not send

classified information over nonsecure commercial applications.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. President, how much time do I have left?

Mr. President and colleagues, let's not obfuscate. We all know that if any lying military officer or any lying CIA officer had tweeted so carelessly this classified information, they would be fired immediately.

Now, we can punt on this or we can send a message to the men and women of the intelligence community--who, frankly, need a little bucking up after the NSA Director got fired today--and the men and women of the military that we respect classified information and keep it valuably secret. Vote for this amendment. Thank you.

Vote on Amendment No. 1310