Floor Statements

Mr. President, I rise today to tell a story of one family's tragedy but also of two wonderful people who turned that tragedy into helping others and finding solutions.

On May 15, 2014, a 19-year-old Wisconsinite named Archie Badura died of a fentanyl overdose.

Two years later, I met his mother Lauri Badura, who testified before a field hearing I held in Pewaukee, WI, together with an emergency room doctor named Dr. Tim Westlake, who testified about the growing problem that he was seeing in his emergency room with overdoses and, in particular, overdoses with, I think, a drug that we all heard was somewhat new, fentanyl, a schedule II drug; one used in medicine but one that had been altered, the molecule changed, and produced in China and shipped through our Postal Service and was killing people like Archie Badura.

It was probably the first time I heard of what was happening to fentanyl. And so Dr. Westlake, because he was seeing the tragedy firsthand, was developing a piece of legislation that he was proposing in Wisconsin as well as on a national level.

The piece of legislation I introduced in 2017 was called the SOFA Act. The reason I called it the SOFA Act--and that stands for Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogs--is because Lauri Badura, again, who lost her 19-year-old son, turned her tragedy into helping others.

She was the go-to person for other families who also lost a loved one through overdoses, and she started an organization called Saving Others for Archie. The acronym was SOFA. So I thought it only appropriate, when working with Dr. Tim Westlake on this piece of legislation that would recognize the growing problem of these analogs, of these fentanyl-related drugs that were killing and poisoning our citizens--I thought it only appropriate to come up with a piece of legislation named after that organization with that same acronym, SOFA.

So on July 13, 2017, I introduced SOFA for the first time here in the U.S. Senate.

On November 9, 2017, because of Tim Westlake and Lauri Badura's tireless effort, a State piece of legislation, the SOFA equivalent, was signed into law in Wisconsin. And basically what this law does--it is a pretty simple law--it just allows law enforcement, the DEA, to view these fentanyl-related substances as a class under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.

Prior to this bill, prior to these regulations, law enforcement had to view each new molecule, each new analog as a separate drug, and they could not arrest, they couldn't prosecute, they couldn't put people in jail for selling these and poisoning our cities.

So Dr. Tim Westlake recognized that problem. I recognized that problem, and so we introduced the SOFA Act. And once DEA saw it, they thought this was a pretty good idea, and they utilized their regulatory authority and passed a regulation on February 6, 2018. They issued a temporary scheduling order that placed ``certain fentanyl-related substances in schedule 1 for 2 years.''

The text of that regulation was identical to the text of the SOFA law that I had introduced earlier in 2017.

Now, unfortunately, they could only issue that regulation having an effect of 2 years. So as it was about ready to run out, Congress extended that regulation in an act of Congress, and we have extended it six times. President Biden has signed that extension five times. But the problem is, the extension of that regulation runs out on December 31 of this year.

Now, the Biden administration--I think it is important to understand--in its 2021 budget proposal, called for classwide fentanyl scheduling. The DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said:

The permanent scheduling of all fentanyl-related substances

is critical--

Is critical--

to the safety and health of our communities.

She added:

Class-wide scheduling provides a vital tool--

A vital tool--

to combat overdose deaths in the United States.

Now, why have we extended this regulation six times? There is no need for it. We could pass the law, which we have tried to do a number of times.

But the reason we keep extending it is because it has worked. It has helped stop the flow of these precursor chemicals coming out of China. China has actually cracked down on these analogs within China. So the regulation worked. The SOFA Act is vital, according to Anne Milgram.

Something else I want to point out about the SOFA Act is, in an almost unprecedented--this is very rare--in 2018, all 50 States' attorneys general, plus the attorney general from the District of Columbia, including current HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was an attorney general for California at the time, signed a letter to congressional leadership urging the Congress to act expeditiously and pass the SOFA Act.

This is such a commonsense piece of legislation. It works. It reduces the number of types of fentanyl on the streets killing our citizens, killing our youth, killing people like Archie Badura.

Again, the DEA had a regulation for 2 years. Congress has extended that regulation six times. All I am asking is for the Senate to pass this commonsense, lifesaving piece of legislation by unanimous consent.

And so, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1006 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

I ask this in the name of Archie Badura and on behalf of Dr. Tim Westlake and a wonderful woman, a wonderful Wisconsinite named Lauri Badura.

Would the Senator from Illinois yield?

So I want to just make the point that there is nothing in the SOFA Act that would prevent that research from continuing, and if a molecule was found that is helpful, it can be scheduled separately.

This is just targeting the deadly drugs that are not helpful. So there is nothing in this that would prevent that type of research, which is why, you know, we have--Congress has reauthorized this or extended this six times, and the Biden administration supports this. They say it is vital that we are able to class all these fentanyl- related molecules together so that we can enforce our laws and prevent death.

So, again, there is nothing in here that prevents the research, which I would completely support. Again, molecules are amazing things, and changing them can change the characteristics, but we have to recognize how deadly fentanyl is.

We have gone from, you know, slightly more than 50,000 overdose deaths in 2015, the year after Archie Badura died, to over 107,000 last year, and we are on a path to break that record too.

So, again, this has been supported on a bipartisan basis. We have extended this.

I just have to say that the research argument just doesn't hold water.

Would the Senator yield again?

Fentanyl is being used in medicine today, and it is on schedule II. So they can do the research off of that drug on schedule II. There is nothing preventing that--nothing whatsoever.

Mr. President, again, I find that unfortunate. I would hope that the Senator from Illinois would not at least object to Senator Grassley coming on the floor looking for another extension of this.

Again, the DEA Administrator says this is vital. So I hope that, at a minimum, we can extend this for a seventh time, and then maybe we can come back when some of these issues are resolved and maybe finally pass SOFA possibly in the next Congress.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me first also express my condolences and associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Texas. The tragedy is horrific. It is hard to think of anything more awful than what happened in Texas and in other schools over the last few years.

Asylum Rule

Mr. President, I come to the floor today for another reason--in support of using the Congressional Review Act to disapprove of and prevent the implementation of a rule titled Procedures for Credible Fear Screening and Consideration of Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection Claims by Asylum Officers. I will refer to this rule as the ``asylum rule'' to make it a little bit simpler. As the title suggests, there is an awful lot to this, but the reason we ought to disapprove of it is actually quite simple.

This rule will go into effect at the end of this month, on May 31. On May 31, what this new rule will do is it will allow the USCIS, asylum officers, to begin granting asylum without review by an immigration court.

It is important to note that section 240 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs removal proceedings, states:

[a]n immigration judge shall conduct proceedings for deciding

the inadmissibility or deportability of an alien.

Now, an immigration court is an adjudicative court. It is a separate unit of government from a USCIS officer, who is within the Department of Homeland Security in the executive branch. It is a check and balance on executive action. It is a very necessary check and balance on an executive who is not faithfully executing the laws, as we have today with President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas.

On May 1 of this year, news reporter Bret Baier asked Secretary Mayorkas in an interview:

Is it the objective of the Biden administration to sharply

reduce the total number of illegal immigrants coming across

the southern border?

The obvious answer to Bret Baier's question is, That is the goal--to reduce the flow of people coming into this country illegally.

That ought to be every administration's goal. That is what a President and an administration would do if they were faithfully executing the laws; but listen to Secretary Mayorkas's reply, his answer.

Secretary Mayorkas stated: ``It is the objective of the Biden administration to make sure that we have safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system.''

I first must note that our legal system is horribly broken. It is that legal system that has produced this result. Now, I don't expect the viewers to look at and to be able to see everything on this chart, but you can go to my website and download this, and you will see the cause and effect of various directives, of various rules, of various regulations, and of various court orders and proceedings to cause this explosion--this out-of-control flow--of illegal immigration.

By the way, it all started back in 2009 when then-ICE Director Morton issued a directive directly contravening the plain language of the law that required detaining individuals whose asylum claim was being adjudicated. So we stopped detaining them.

Then, of course, in June 2012, President Obama, through his DHS Secretary, created the DACA memorandum, which was an open invitation to unaccompanied children coming to this country because they knew that, once they got here, they would be able to stay.

If you take a look at the history here, the gold represents single adults coming into this country illegally and being apprehended. This is on a monthly basis. Blue is family units exploiting our very broken asylum system, where the credible fear standard gives you a free pass into the country. Red represents unaccompanied children.

It is important to note that back in 2014, when President Obama declared it a humanitarian crisis, about 2,000 people were being apprehended at the border on a daily basis--2,000. Now, again, because of different policy choices, the word gets out--and because of different court decisions--and people in Central America and throughout the world realize that we are not following our asylum laws. We have a virtually open border. We are engaging in ``catch and release.''

So President Trump had to deal with a surge in 2019 of more than 4,000 people per day in a given month, and you can see that surge here. But President Trump took action. He engaged. He implemented the Return to Mexico policy. He made agreements with the Central American countries and Mexico, and we pretty well stopped the flow of unaccompanied children and family units. We actually reduced the flow of single adults who were exploiting our broken immigration system.

Then, during the Presidential debates, Democratic candidates, including President Biden, declared to the world that they weren't going to deport people; they were going to offer people who were coming into this country illegally free healthcare.

You can see, even during 2020, as we were building the walls--and we had the Return to Mexico policy in place--that single adults realized there might be a change in policy, and they started flooding our border. If you will notice, we went from, on average over about 10 years, about 30,000 single adults per month coming into this country to the last 2 months, when it has been over 150,000 or closer to 160,000, 170,000 single adults. Throw on top of that, at almost the minute that President Biden came into office and dismantled those successful programs, we then had a new flood, a new surge, of family units in blue and unaccompanied children flooding our border and exploiting our asylum laws.

This new rule that is about to take effect at the end of this month, the asylum rule, again, circumvents, is contrary to stated law that says immigration judges, immigration courts, need to make that asylum determination, not members of the administration, not USCIS officers.

What this rule does is it gives that power to grant asylum--an awesome power that Congress never meant to give to the administration-- to USCIS officers and only allows a judge to take a look at it if the asylum claim is denied by the USCIS officer. This isn't going to do anything to reduce the backlog. What this will do is this increase the flow. This is another signal throughout the world that we have an open border policy.

The only restraint right now is title 42, and this administration is working actively to overturn a court order that says you must keep title 42 restrictions in place. And if the USCIS officer isn't as generous as we fear they all will be and actually denies asylum, you are right back there in immigration courts. So the only purpose of this rule is to increase the flow, to accomplish Secretary Mayorkas's stated goal of making sure we have a safe, orderly, and legal pathway for individuals to access our legal system. In other words, this administration's policy on the border isn't to secure it, isn't to reduce the flow; it is to make the processing and dispersing of illegal immigrants more efficient so more will come.

Last year, one and a quarter million people either encountered and dispersed or came in as known ``got-aways,'' came to this country illegally and were dispersed. That is a number that is larger than the population of eight States. That is how out of control this crisis is. Yet Secretary Mayorkas won't even call it a problem, much less a crisis.

So it is obvious how harmful this rule is to our Nation and to our national security. An open border is a national security threat.

I urge my colleagues to join me in using the Congressional Review Act to disapprove of this rule and prevent its implementation.

With that, I yield the floor.

Madam President, today America grieves. There is nothing partisan about being a parent and grandparent. I cannot imagine--I cannot imagine--the grief felt by the parents of those children. Unless you have experienced it, none of us can.

What is the solution? There is no one solution. Let's be honest about that. Following Sandy Hook, following Parkland, I met with the parents of those horrific and senseless tragedies. I have been blessed to get to know three parents quite well: Tom and Gina Hoyer, and Max Schachter. Tom and Gina are the parents of Luke Hoyer; Max is the father of Alex Schachter--two of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School slaughter in Parkland, FL, that occurred on February 14, 2018.

In getting to know Tom and Gina and Max, you get some sense of the level of grief. I mentioned there is nothing partisan about grief. I listened to President Biden's remarks last night, I think the point he made that pierced my heart, because President Biden has known tragedy, is when he said that those parents in Texas, they are asking themselves will they ever sleep again.

So we all grieve. We are all looking for solutions. The good Senator from Delaware said: ``We must take action.''

So what I have always valued about Tom and Gina and Max is these are three individuals, parents who do know the pain, that still grieve the loss of their sons, and yet they have not approached trying to find solutions in any partisan way whatsoever. They are trying to find areas of agreement.

They advised the Federal Commission on School Safety. They came up with a pretty commonsense action. It may not solve all the problems, but it is a good idea. It is such a good idea that as chairman of the committee--Subcommittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, we codified it, we passed it unanimously out of our committee in November of 2019. It is called the Luke and Alex School Safety Act. It is pretty simple. It just creates a clearinghouse of information of the best practices for school safety.

It involves numerous Departments--Department of Health and Human Services, Justice, Homeland Security. All must approve what these best practices are. It ensures the parents, teachers, school officials, other stakeholders have input into what those best practices are. It doesn't allow the clearinghouse to mandate any school take any certain action.

And maybe, most importantly, it publishes the available grant programs and Federal resources available for school safety. Again, it passed out of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs twice, unanimously, once under my chairmanship, once under the chairmanship of Senator Peters. There is nothing partisan about this bill whatsoever. It is just a good idea that can save lives.

It was such a good idea that under the previous administration, they set up that clearinghouse. It is up and it is operating. So all this bill does at this point is serve as a model for what is happening. All this bill does now is codify it, to make sure this clearinghouse stands the test of time, that it will always be there to provide those best practices on school safety.

Now, I am very sensitive to the moment in time we are sitting here right now. We should let the Nation and those parents grieve. I don't want to politicize anything about this moment.

So I called up Max, I called up Tom and Gina and asked them what would you like me to do? They have been trying to get this codified, passed into law for 4 years. I can't explain why it is not law. Just last month, the Senate passed the Pray Safe Act, which was basically it took that bill, the Luke and Alex School Safety Act and just applied it to churches. That passed by unanimous consent--no objection.

I tried to attach this bill to that bill, but for whatever reason, somebody is objecting. I have no idea why. None.

Again, it passed our committee unanimously twice. It is a good idea. It could save lives. It is an action when people are calling for action following this tragedy.

So I know I see the Senator from Florida that would also like to speak to this bill before I ask consent.

I thank the Senator from Florida for those comments.

I just want to again emphasize the fact that I just spoke with Max and Gina and Tom. These are parents of children who lost their lives in a school shooting. These are parents that have come up with a solution--a nonpartisan solution--got it recommended by the Federal Commission on School Safety.

They told me that the day after Parkland, had a parent from Sandy Hook had a piece of legislation that they had been trying to get passed but couldn't, it would help. They would have been 100 percent supportive of that piece of legislation, come to the floor, and pass it by unanimous consent, irrespective of the timing.

They asked me to come to the floor today to ask my colleagues to lay aside partisanship, to do something for these families, provide them some measure of comfort by passing a completely nonpartisan bill that could make a difference, that could save a life. There is no reason not to pass this bill today in this Chamber at this hour.

So, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 102, S. 111.

I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

As chairman of Homeland Security, I have passed more than 300 pieces of legislation out of committee, and over 130 of those became law. Very few of those--almost none--were partisan in any way, shape, or form. The approach I used to have that kind of legislative success is, rather than focus on issues that divide us, I concentrated on areas of agreement.

Today, I brought to the Senate floor a nonpartisan bill, a bill crafted by the parents--the parents--who lost their sons in one of these horrific tragedies. It passed out of our committee twice unanimously. Those parents asked me

to come today to please pass this bill; take some action; provide some comfort to all the parents who are grieving, to a nation that is grieving.

So I came to the floor today, and I will not engage in partisanship other than to say it is just sad--it is just sad that this body can't pass this bill when, about a month ago, they passed an identical bill that applied to churches. This one applies to schools. Yet it is inappropriate, according to the majority leader, to pass this nonpartisan bill by unanimous consent? This is a very sad day for the U.S. Senate.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I call up my motion to instruct conferees, which is at the desk.

Madam President, this is truly one of the more inappropriate additions that the House made to this bill: to ban the production of farming of mink for the production of fur. I have no idea why they have included it here. It makes no sense to be included. Actually, in Wisconsin, it supports hundreds of jobs and produces exports to China.

So my motion simply instructs the conferees to reject any proposal that would ban mink farming.

I want to thank Senators Romney, Daines, and Boozman for their support of this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support American farmers by voting in favor of this motion to instruct.

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

Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley.

What Senator Grassley and I have showed over the course of six speeches are the actual bank records of financial transactions tying President Biden's son Hunter and his brother James to businesses that are essentially arms of the communist Chinese regime. But the Biden business ventures include activities in many more countries than just China.

In our September and November 2020 reports, we showed a vast web of Biden family foreign financial entanglements that were largely ignored by the media and falsely labeled ``Russian disinformation'' by our Democratic colleagues. As outrageous as the suppression of our reports and the false attacks were, perhaps the most egregious behavior came from 51 former intelligence Agency officials who lent their names and reputations to an effort designed to convince the American public that Hunter Biden's laptop had ``all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.''

Without any evidence backing their assertion, they engaged in their own information operation by signing a public letter right before the election. Their letter was actual disinformation, coming from what are supposed to be trusted former members of our U.S. intelligence Agencies. They should all be ashamed and held accountable for spreading this disinformation. By signing that disinformation letter, they reinforced false claims that the records on the laptop were not legitimate.

By casting doubt on evidence of the Bidens' corrupt practices, these former intelligence officials interfered in the 2020 election to a far greater extent than Russia could have ever hoped to achieve. Their willing accomplices in the press amplified this disinformation letter and, by doing so, were equally guilty of egregious election interference.

In August 2020, I wrote a public letter detailing the history, purpose, and goals of my oversight and investigations. In that letter, I laid out the timeline of Joe and Hunter Biden's involvement in Ukraine. The timeline is very revealing.

It starts in February 2014. That was the month of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Two months later, on April 16, 2014, then-Vice President Biden met with his son's business partner Devon Archer, now a convicted felon, at the White House.

I just want to pause and just let that sink in a little bit. Devon Archer is now a convicted felon. He got a meeting in the White House with the Vice President of the United States. That is kind of a big deal.

The press didn't ask many questions. Five days after that meeting in the White House, April 21, Joe Biden visited Ukraine, and the media described him as the ``public face of the administration's handling of Ukraine.'' The next day, on April 22, Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma. What a coincidence.

On April 28, 6 days later, British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma's owner Mykola Zlochevsky. Let that sink in a little bit. Six days after Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma, a day after Vice President Biden visited Ukraine, which was 5 days after he met with Devon Archer in the White House, British officials seized $23 million from the corrupt owner of Burisma.

On May 13, 2014, 3 weeks later, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma. What a coincidence.

Because of the findings in our reports and the excellent investigative journalism on the part of John Solomon, we also know that Hunter was involved with Yelena Baturina, the corrupt and now- sanctioned wife of the former mayor of Moscow, during the exact same period of time.

On February 14, 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an investment firm cofounded by Hunter Biden.

Between April 4 and April 5, 2014--again, the same month that Joe Biden met with Devon Archer in the White House and Devon became a member of the board of Burisma--Hunter Biden and Devon Archer sent emails about meeting with Baturina, potentially relating to a business deal in Chelsea, NY.

On April 13, 2014, 9 days before Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer discussed a potential deal involving Baturina. Archer wrote that Baturina ``confirmed green light to fund deposit.'' Archer continued:

Just spent two hours on the phone with Kiev. I am confident

at this point this is a good if not life changing deal if the

Ukraine doesn't collapse in the meantime.

It is quite interesting to see how much significant activity involving the Bidens and corrupt actors in Russia and Ukraine occurred within a 6-week period, only 2 months after the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. It sure looks like they intended to cash in on the turmoil in Ukraine.

In my August 2020 letter, I listed a number of questions about then- Vice President Biden's interaction with Hunter Biden's business partner and other family members' foreign financial dealings. In making this letter public, my hope was that the press, the very uninquisitive press, would begin to ask then-Presidential candidate Joe Biden these important and legitimate questions.

It should come as no surprise that the corporate media was completely uninterested and failed to conduct any investigative journalism. Nearly 2 years after I wrote this public letter, the mainstream media has still not

adequately pressed President Biden for answers to these very legitimate questions; for example, No. 1: Why did Joe Biden meet with Devon Archer at the White House on April 16, 2014? What did they discuss? Did they discuss anything related to Ukraine, Hunter Biden, or Burisma?

No. 2, was Joe Biden aware that Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma 6 days after that meeting, 1 day after he visited Ukraine?

No. 3, does Joe Biden believe Burisma and its owner are corrupt?

No. 4, when did Joe Biden first become aware that Hunter Biden also joined the board of Burisma?

No. 5, when did Joe Biden first become aware of how much money Hunter Biden was being compensated by Burisma? Senator Grassley and my report showed it was close to $4 million.

No. 6, what does Joe Biden know about Hunter or James Biden's dealings with China?

No. 7, what does Joe Biden know about financial benefits his brother and sister-in-law have obtained because of their relationships to him?

Investigative reporter John Solomon has added a few more questions to my list, including: No. 1, what, if anything, did Joe Biden know about his son's dealings with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina?

No. 2, a 2017 series of memos referred to a Chinese business deal that involved Hunter Biden and included a 10-percent equity for the ``big guy.'' What did Joe Biden know about this specific deal, and who was the ``big guy''?

No. 3, emails on Hunter Biden's laptop, now in the possession of the FBI, refer to shared accounts or bills between Joe Biden and Hunter. Did Hunter ever give Joe Biden any money, gift, or financial benefit from Hunter's business dealings?

After a long-overdue analysis, the New York Times and the Washington Post have finally admitted that records from Hunter's laptop are authentic, which means--although they will never admit this--that Senator Grassley and I were right, and they were wrong.

It is interesting to read how limited and muted their mea culpas are. My guess is that they learned a lot from their coverage of Nixon's Watergate scandal coverup. They learned that when you have been caught in a coverup--and that is what has happened here--you try to limit the damage by telling a little bit of the truth. In the intelligence world, this strategy is called a ``limited hangout.'' The Watergate coconspirators called it a ``modified limited hangout.''

Regardless of what you call it, what the New York Times and the Washington Post are doing is not telling the whole truth. I doubt they ever will. But just in case they decide to pursue the truth with a little bit more rigor, they can use the above list of relevant questions as a good starting point for what they should be asking President Biden.

For our part, Senator Grassley and I will continue to ask tough questions, review more information and records, and transparently provide that information to the American public. We intend to pursue and uncover the truth.

I will now turn the floor back over to Senator Grassley for his closing remarks.

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

Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, as my colleague, the senior Senator from Iowa, has shown, Hunter Biden and James Biden received millions of dollars from companies connected to the communist Chinese regime. Frankly, it is worse than that. These companies were effectively an arm of the Chinese Government.

This isn't Russian disinformation; these are hard facts backed up by bank records of actual financial records and transactions that prove just how connected the Bidens were and how compromised President Biden probably is.

I use this next series of transactions to prove my point.

The first chart here shows a bank record showing a $1 million wire transfer into the account of Hudson West III from CEFC Limited on November 2, 2017. As Senator Grassley and I have already established, CEFC is effectively an arm of the communist Chinese regime. It is also important to note that at the time of this transfer, in November 2017, Hunter Biden was already invested in and providing management for Hudson West III. So a company that was effectively an arm of the Chinese Government transferred $1 million in November 2017 to a company that Hunter Biden is managing and is invested in.

I also bring up the second record. Focus on the $1 million wired out on March 22, 2018. Again, this is a record from Hudson West III's bank account. Like the previous record, this is showing the transfer of $1 million, but this time the money is being transferred out of Hudson West III to OWASCO, another one of Hunter Biden's firms. This transfer took place on March 22, 2018, a little less than 5 months after the $1 million transfer from CEFC to Hudson West III.

Hunter is transferring $1 million between two firms he manages and has ownership in. So what is the purpose of these two $1 million transfers? This next record seems to answer that question. This record shows OWASCO's receipt of the March 22, 2018, $1 million transfer. It also shows what the transfer is for on the OBI line. ``OBI'' is an abbreviation for ``originating beneficiary information.'' It is like the memo line on your personal check; it tells you really what that check was about. In this case, the OBI indicates the transfer is being made for ``Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping representation.''

So, to recap, on November 2, 2017, Patrick Ho's company, CEFC, wired $1 million to Hunter Biden's company, Hudson West III. On March 22, 2018, Hudson West III wired $1 million to OWASCO, another Hunter Biden company. The bank record clearly states that the $1 million payment was being made for the purpose of representing Patrick Ho.

Represent him for what? Here is where things get interesting. We know that Patrick Ho was arrested by U.S. authorities in November 2017 for international bribery and money laundering charges. Keep in mind that this arrest occurred in the same month that Patrick Ho's company, CEFC, is wiring $1 million to Hunter Biden's company, Hudson West III. According to the Department of Justice, ``Ho orchestrated and executed two bribery schemes to pay top officials of Chad and Uganda in exchange for business advantages for CEFC China, a Shanghai-based multibillion dollar conglomerate that operates in multiple sectors, including oil, gas, and banking.'' These are crimes for which Patrick Ho is eventually convicted and sent to Federal prison for committing.

So the company that Patrick Ho was making bribes for sends $1 million to a company Hunter Biden manages and is invested in. That company, in turn, transfers a million dollars to another Hunter Biden company for the purposes of representing Patrick Ho, who is eventually convicted of international bribery and money laundering.

Guess what Patrick Ho did around the same time he was arrested by the FBI for corruption and bribery. He contacted James Biden, President Biden's brother. Patrick Ho's decision to call the Biden family around the same time he got arrested is revealing, particularly in light of the fact that the same month, a million dollars just happened to be transferred to Hunter Biden's company.

Now, Hunter Biden isn't a criminal defense attorney. Patrick Ho was charged and convicted for bribery and related Federal offenses and crimes. So what kind of representation was Patrick Ho's company paying Hunter Biden's firm to provide? Were they paying for his firm's legal expertise or for Hunter's political connections?

In March 2021, Senator Grassley and I asked the Justice Department about Patrick Ho. Why? Because there is a Federal court filing that says the Department has FISA records on Patrick Ho. We requested these records. In response, the Department would not confirm whether they even had his records. Unfortunately, the Attorney General refuses to clarify that outrageous contradiction for Congress.

Oh, and one more tidbit. In a recently uncovered audio extracted from his laptop, Hunter Biden referred to Patrick Ho as the ``[expletive deleted] spy chief of China.'' Let that sink in a minute. Hunter Biden referred to Patrick Ho in an audio as the ``[expletive deleted] spy chief of China.'' This quote alone tells you that Hunter Biden knew exactly who he was dealing with. He knew exactly who he was dealing with. He was dealing with the ``[expletive deleted] spy chief of China.'' Now, that fact should alert the media and our Democrat colleagues to seriously consider the implications the Biden's family vast web of foreign financial entanglements have in the conduct of this administration's foreign policy and our national security, but I am not holding my breath.

In October 2020, Senator Grassley and I requested to interview Hunter and James Biden about their financial dealings. If they had nothing to hide, they could have volunteered to come in and sit for an interview. If there was an innocent explanation for these foreign financial transactions, they could have used that interview to clarify what those transactions were about. Unfortunately, rather than being transparent, honest, and forthcoming, they declined to speak to us. Their silence speaks volumes.

Fortunately, facts are stubborn things. As the Bidens, our Democrat colleagues, and the media are learning, it is difficult to keep them hidden forever. Senator Grassley and I will continue to investigate the Biden family's foreign financial entanglements and provide the American people with the truth to the best of our ability.

Our challenge is that the deep state does not give up its secrets easily. New evidence of Biden family influence peddling is surfacing on a regular basis, often coming from records from Hunter Biden's laptop-- the same laptop, by the way, that the media and deep state foreign intelligence agency officials inferred--strongly inferred--was, you guessed it, Russian disinformation. And their guile worked.

Prior to the election, people bought the fact that that laptop was probably Russian disinformation. It wasn't. As the New York Times just admitted about a year too late--more than a year too late--that laptop is authentic, and the evidence it is producing is real. But, of course, that laptop wasn't Russian disinformation, nor is any of the information we presented in our reports and here on the floor of the Senate.

We may never know all the details of the Biden family foreign entanglements or the full extent to which those entanglements compromise our current President, but I am pretty confident I know who does know--intelligence operatives in Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea. Elements within our U.S. intelligence agencies probably also know; they are just not going to tell us or you, the American people.

Senator Grassley and I will return for our third speeches in this series on the Biden family's foreign financial entanglements.

Until then, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Madam President, I first want to thank the senior Senator from the State of Iowa for his tenacity in pursuing the truth and ignoring all of the false attacks lobbed against us during the course of our multiyear investigations into corruption at the highest levels of the Federal Government.

Both of us have been firsthand witnesses and at the same time victims of the dishonesty of our Democratic Senate colleagues and their willing accomplices in the media.

When it comes to our investigation into the vast web of foreign financial entanglements of the Biden family, those attacks have had one goal in mind, to cover up the extent to which President Biden might be and almost certainly is compromised.

Over the course of our investigation into how Hunter Biden used his father's position and name to enrich himself and his family, the dishonest press published countless stories reporting on the Democrats' false charge that Senator Grassley and I were soliciting and disseminating Russian disinformation.

Once we issued our September and November 2020 reports, which were based almost exclusively on U.S.-sourced documents and interviews with U.S. citizens, the media largely ignored it. When they did write a story, they declared that our reports found nothing new, a classic media coverup.

I have always said the bias in the media is revealed far more in what they don't report than what they actually do report. But all the false attacks did not deter us. We have continued to uncover the truth and, fortunately, our reports also served as a catalyst for others to come forward and for more investigative journalists to keep digging.

The American people deserve the truth. That is why we are presenting additional evidence today and over the next few days. For example, this is the first time this document is being made public. As Senator Grassley described in detail, it shows that money from CEFC, which is effectively an arm of the Chinese Government, went directly to Hunter Biden.

Bank records like this piece of evidence are pretty hard to deny and sweep under the rug. Our reports were chockful of irrefutable evidence like this, and yet the media buried those details in an attempt to keep it hidden from the American people.

Because the mainstream media and our Democratic colleagues had no substance to refute our reports, they reverted to their time-honored tradition of lying, making false accusations against us, and engaging in the politics of personal destruction.

Again, their goal was to destroy the credibility of our reports before the American people even had a chance to read them. They were fully aware that the lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put on its shoes. For example, listen to what New York Times journalist Nicholas Fandos said about our report: ``lack of meaningful new information'' and, again, ``overlap [of the] Russian disinformation campaign.''

The then-Democratic minority leader was quoted saying about our report, ``as if Putin wrote it, not United States Senators.'' A Democratic Senator described our investigation as being ``rooted in disinformation'' from Russian operatives.

Separately, a Democratic Senator also said about our report:

Bottom line: the Johnson-Grassley investigation is

baseless. It's laundering Russian propaganda for circulation

in the U.S.

But, of course, all those quotes were disinformation, disinformation designed to distract all of us from the truth. As Senator Grassley reiterated, our reports were based almost exclusively on government records from the Obama administration and transcribed interviews of government officials.

So how did the Democrats and the liberal media allies carry out this false attack on us? We describe part of what they did in section 10 of our September 2020 report. Their disinformation and smear campaign against us in our reports was extensive, but in the interest of time, I will give you a shorter Cliff's Notes version.

On July 13, 2020, then-Minority Leader Schumer, Senator Warner, Speaker Pelosi, and Representative Schiff sent a letter to the FBI to express a purported belief that Congress was the subject of a foreign disinformation campaign. The letter included a classified attachment that had unclassified elements that attempted to tie Senator Grassley's and my work to Andriy Derkach, a Russian agent.

The Democrats speculated that, based on this unclassified information, Senator Grassley and I had received materials from Derkach. This was false. Nothing could be further from the truth, but this information purportedly linking Senator Grassley and I to Derkach was leaked to liberal media outlets to start a false narrative to smear us.

Until news reports of this false allegation surfaced, I had never even heard of Andriy Derkach. We immediately and forcefully denied the false allegation, but Democrats and the media continued to spread the lie. To this day, no one has ever apologized to either of us for spreading that lie, even though it was proven conclusively to be a lie and disinformation.

Next, my staff and Senator Grassley's staff did a transcribed interview with George Kent. During that interview, Democratic staff members introduced Derkach's materials into our record. Then Democratic staff members asked Mr. Kent about it. He stated:

What you are asking me to interpret is a master chart of

disinformation and malign influence.

That was Mr. Kent's evaluation of the Derkach disinformation that Democrats were spreading that they entered into our record.

So the actual truth of the matter is that Democrats--not Senator Grassley nor I--introduced known Russian disinformation into our investigatory record. They did the exact thing they were falsely accusing us of doing.

Again, not my staff, not Senator Grassley's staff, Democrats were disseminating Russian disinformation just like they did with the Steele dossier. Then-Ranking Members Wyden and Peters sent me and Senator Grassley a letter asking for an intelligence briefing relating to our investigation.

Now, such a briefing was completely unnecessary, but it was an effort by our Democratic colleagues to further falsely taint our investigation, hoping to discredit it and discredit the truth.

On July 28, 2020, Senator Grassley and I reminded them that the FBI and relevant members of the intelligence community had already briefed the committees in March of 2020 and assured us that there was no reason to discontinue our investigation.

Then, in August 2020, Senator Grassley and I were provided a briefing from the FBI, a briefing that we did not request that was also leaked to the press to further smear us.

This unsolicited FBI briefing was also not necessary and was completely

irrelevant to the substance of our investigation.

The FBI briefers did tell us that they weren't there to ``quash, curtail, or interfere'' in our investigation in any way.

No government entity ever warned us that our investigation into the Biden family's financial deals was connected to any kind of Russian disinformation campaign--because it wasn't.

But, again, the substance of that FBI briefing was later leaked and contorted to smear us, which was exactly why we suspect we were given the unsolicited briefing in the first place.

Those briefers promised confidentiality. Clearly, that confidentiality was breached and resulted in another smear operation on Senator Grassley and me to deflect allegations of corruption and conflict of interest that could compromise a President Biden.

To date, we do not know who all was involved in this smear campaign, but even after repeated requests, Director Wray and Director Haines have refused to come in and fully explain who requested and directed this briefing and why it was provided.

I think we know why it was provided.

So to review, senior Democrats and liberal media cooperated to smear Senator Grassley and me with false accusations of receiving and spreading Russian disinformation. They created documents, leaked them, asked for briefings, and then leaked those, too, and then they themselves disseminated Russian disinformation.

You can't make this up.

Fortunately, they failed to discredit our investigation because we stayed true to government records. We stayed true to the facts and the evidence. And the evidence is stunning, and it is growing.

Over the next few days, Senator Grassley and I will come to the floor to present additional evidence that has not yet been made public. These records show extensive connections between the Biden family and elements of the communist Chinese regime. We are talking high-dollar transactions, some of which we have already highlighted in our September and November 2020 reports, but our speeches will introduce new financial documents into the record for all to see.

Now, we expect Democrats and the media to continue to use their power to smear us and cover up for the Bidens. But the truth has a power of its own, and we intend to continue to reveal the truth.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, oftentimes when we talk rising crime, we talk about statistics. For example, last year in Milwaukee, there were 194 murders.

As I prepared to give remarks yesterday, I got the stat that there were 26 murders already this year. That is an 86-percent increase. Unfortunately, last night there were two more murders, and now it is up to 28.

Seventy-three law enforcement officers were intentionally killed in the line of duty last year. That is the highest it has been since 1995.

We had three police officers shot in a 2-week period at the end of January. Those are just some of the statistics, and I am sure you have heard a lot more on the floor here today. But one thing I don't think we talk about enough are the victims.

I heard President Biden's Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, last week. I guess she was monitoring different TV stations, and she remarked that one commentator was talking about soft-on-crime consequences, and she giggled and said what does that even mean?

Well, I will talk about what it means. An excellent article in the Just the News a couple days ago had some heartbreaking examples of those consequences.

Last week, we held an event about the open border, about the catch- and-release policies of this administration, record levels of people coming into this country illegally and what that represents from a standpoint of national security and homeland security and crime.

In Alabama's Chilton County, two illegal immigrants, ages 27 and 28, have been charged in the murders of three adults found shot and burned in an SUV.

In another recent case, a Florida father who believed he was taking in a 16-year-old migrant minor from Honduras, a Good Samaritan, was killed by that migrant who turned out to be much older and involved in crime.

In Florida, a 5-year-old girl riding in her mother's car was crushed to death when an illegal immigrant from Honduras crashed into the car. The driver admitted he got into the car after drinking six cans of 32- ounce beers.

In Harris County, TX, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador is charged with exiting his vehicle during a routine traffic stop and fatally shooting the sheriff's deputy in the face.

Those are just a few examples of the consequences of soft-on-crime policies. Those are crimes that were committed by illegal immigrants that take advantage of the catch-and-release policies on the border.

But we are not only just experiencing catch-and-release on the southern border, we also have catch-and-release in our criminal justice system--these no-bail, low-bail policies promoted by generally Democrat district attorneys in cities governed for decades by Democrats.

We had a tragedy in Waukesha, WI. It never should have happened. This was during the Waukesha Christmas parade, when children lined up on the street, on the curb, waiting to see Santa Claus--instead they saw a slaughter. Six innocent people lost their lives. Sixty-two people were injured--their lives forever altered.

And it didn't have to happen because the murderer had been let out on a thousand-dollar bail after having run over the mother of his child with that same SUV. That is the result--that crime, those 6 innocent victims, those 62 innocent victims who were injured, their family members, their loved ones are the consequences of soft-on-crime policies of Democratic governance.

So as horrific as those 6 murders were, as horrific as the 62 injuries were, what I can't get out of my mind are those little children sitting on the curb waiting to see Santa and instead witnessing the slaughter. How do they ever recover from that? Is that something that Jen Psaki ever thinks

about? Is that something that President Biden ever thinks about?

As Jen giggles about the consequences, these are serious consequences. We need to get tough on crime. We need to put violent criminals in jail and leave them in jail so they don't create more victims.

I yield the floor.

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

Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I come to the floor of the Senate today to make a few points and ask a few questions.

First of all, can we all acknowledge that there is so much that we do not know about the coronavirus, about COVID, the disease, or about the COVID vaccines? Our response to COVID, as a result, has been a reaction to very imperfect information.

So, very early in the pandemic, I gave those individuals in a position to have to make very tough decisions with imperfect information a great deal of latitude in making those tough calls, but over the course of the months, we have learned a lot.

We have always been told to follow the science, but it sure seems our healthcare Agencies--as I refer to them, the COVID gods; the Dr. Faucis of the world, the Agency heads, the Biden administration, the mainstream media, and social media--have never allowed second opinions. There has been one narrative, and they simply have not been willing to consider alternative measures.

So a question I think we should all be asking ourselves is, Does that response work? Over 780,000 Americans have lost their lives. The human toll of the economic devastation of the shutdowns, the year of lost learning for our children, the psychological harm to our children, the record overdose deaths, the increase in suicides--I don't know how you can take a look at America's death rate--the last time I looked, it was a couple weeks old; about 220 per 100,000 population. By the way, Sweden was at 145 per 100,000 a couple of weeks ago. I don't see how anybody can take a look at the response imposed in our country by the COVID gods and say it was a success.

So acknowledging the fact that there is still so much we don't know, I would

appreciate a little modesty on the part of the COVID gods. I would appreciate that we actually follow the advice that I have always heard when dealing with a serious medical condition: Get a second opinion. Get a third opinion. As I said, that is not allowed.

I think it also calls for a little respect for our fellow citizens. These are some tough decisions. They are tough decisions whether or not you want to get vaccinated.

Even more gut-wrenching than tough decisions based on these idiotic and pointless vaccine mandates is, do I subject to the coercion, to the pressure, to the fear of reprisal and take the jab or lose my job? These are tough decisions.

I am a big supporter of Operation Warp Speed. I have had every vaccination until this one because I had COVID. The COVID gods aren't acknowledging natural immunity. They are not acknowledging vaccine injuries. They are not acknowledging the fact that even if you are fully vaccinated, you can still get COVID and you can still transmit COVID. So what is the point of a mandate? But, of course, that is not what we are getting from the COVID gods.

This weekend, something happened that is not unusual. My words were taken completely out of context, twisted, distorted, and I was relentlessly attacked.

I would like to respond to those attacks that were headlined:

``Fauci calls Ron Johnson's AIDS comment `preposterous.'''

Fauci said:

I don't have any clue of what he's talking about.

``Fauci Blasts Ron Johnson for Saying He `Overhyped' AIDS: `Preposterous!'''

``Anthony Fauci Rips GOP Sen. Ron Johnson's `Preposterous' Accusation He's `Overhyped' COVID.''

So what did I say? That sounds terrible. Well, what I said was in response to radio talk show host Brian Kilmeade's question asking about the Omicron variant.

He said: It looks benign. I mean, mild symptoms; mostly people under 40.

So I answered his question about Omicron, talking about Muller's ratchet. It is a phenomenon. It makes sense--how viruses generally mutate, how they become more contagious because they want to replicate, so they become more contagious but generally less lethal because it doesn't have replication if you kill your host. Now, nothing is guaranteed, but that would be the general direction of the variants of the coronavirus. Why would we assume anything worse? But that is what the COVID gods are doing. They are assuming the worse. They are using every new variant to keep us in the state of fear that they have created to maintain control over our lives and rob us of our freedom, to impose freedom-robbing vaccine mandates, again, that are preposterous--there is a good use of that word--that are pointless, that are idiotic.

But after talking about that state of fear, I went on to say:

By the way, Fauci did the exact same thing with AIDS. He

overhyped it.

Now, full stop, that is where the news media stopped and then accused me, falsely, of downplaying AIDS. I have never, nor would I ever downplay the tragedy that is AIDS, that is COVID. These are serious, deadly diseases. They have killed hundreds of thousands. I would never downplay them.

When I said ``overhyped,'' I explained exactly what I was talking about in the next six words. I said:

He created all kinds of fear, saying it could affect the

entire population when it couldn't. . . . [H]e's using the

exact same playbook [for] COVID.

Here is the key point that I want to talk about a little bit later: ignoring therapy, pushing a vaccine. The solution to this pandemic, I have always thought, was early treatment. We still haven't robustly explored early treatment, and that is a travesty.

Now, Dr. Fauci wanted to show us that this criticism of him, creating a state of fear, is preposterous, but let's go to what he actually said back in May of 1983.

Now, I was alive in May of 1983. I understand how unsettling this new disease was. I understand the state of fear, the legitimate state of fear. But responsible health officials should not have stoked it, and Dr. Fauci did. He authored an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association stating ``the possibility that routine close contact, as within [any] family household, can spread the disease.'' He added:

If indeed the latter is true, then AIDS takes on an

entirely new dimension.

And then:

If we add to this the possibility that nonsexual, non-

blood-borne transmission is possible, the scope of the

syndrome may be enormous.

Now, it is important to note that these aren't off-the-cuff comments; this is in a column he wrote with forethought. Dr. Fauci knew what a delicate time we were in as the public awareness of this disease was emerging, when people were already frightened by what they were hearing. He was in a position of authority. He knew what he said carried weight and would be disseminated, and it was.

The following day's headlines--the United Press International published a story headlined ``Household contact may transmit AIDS.'' The next day, the Associated Press ran a story asking ``Does AIDS spread by routine contact?'' The same day, the New York Times article read ``Family Contact Studied in Transmitting AIDS,'' and it invoked Fauci's article in discussing the possibility of transmission between family members.

He stoked the fear, and it, quite honestly, continues to this day. He stigmatized AIDS patients for years with his fearmongering.

Now, less than 2 months later, in June of 1983, Dr. Fauci flip- flopped and he publicly contradicted his own fearmongering by stating:

It is absolutely preposterous--

He likes that word, by the way--

It is absolutely preposterous to suggest that AIDS can be

contracted through normal social contact [by] being in the

same room with someone or sitting on a bus with them.

I mean, you heard what he said 2 months earlier, right? If he felt it was so preposterous on June 26, why had he raised the fear, stoked the fear, just 2 months earlier?

It is interesting. I just found out last night that not only did he write that article stoking the fear, he started giving interviews. I have seen an interview where he basically used the exact same words. But now he denies it. He wants to deny the reality of what he said and what he did. He wants to rewrite history.

By the way, when it comes to the AIDS crisis, rewriting history, I am not the only one who is accusing him of that. In an article published-- or updated last on December 6 in 2017, in the Huffington Post, in their comment platform, which I guess has since been taken down, an author of a book--his name is Sean Strub--wrote an article--wrote a blog for HuffPost.

The book Mr. Strub wrote was ``Body Counts: A Memoir of Politics, Sex, AIDS, and Survival.'' And he describes it, as he recounts how slow the Federal Government was in publicizing the use of Bactrim and other sulfa drugs to prevent PCP, which is the pneumonia that was then the leading killer of people with AIDS, in addition to its longtime and well-known use to treat that type of pneumonia.

So let me quote from Mr. Strub's article. He said:

Dr. Anthony Fauci is rewriting history. He is doing so to

disguise his shameful role in delaying promotion of an AIDS

treatment that would have prevented tens of thousands of

deaths in the first years of the epidemic.

The article goes on to say:

In 1987, pioneering AIDS activist Michael Callen begged

Fauci for help in promoting the use of Bactrim as PCP

prophylaxis and issuing interim guidelines urging physicians

to prophylax those patients deemed at high risk for PCP.

The article goes on:

Had Fauci listened to people with AIDS and the clinicians

treating them, and responded accordingly, he would have saved

thousands of lives. In the two years between 1987, when

Callen met with Fauci and 1989, when the guidelines were

ultimately issued, nearly 17,000 people with AIDS suffocated

from PCP. Most of these people might have lived had Fauci

responded appropriately.

Another doctor, Dr. Barry Gingell--I am continuing with the article here--

a medical advisor to Gay Men's Health Crisis, met with

Fauci to plead for his support, they didn't just say there

was ``this preliminary activity and some small trials,'' as

Fauci claims. They explained that many frontline AIDS

physicians, following the lead of Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, were

already using Bactrim effectively to prevent the recurrence

of PCP. The science was clear. A decade before, clinical

trials by Dr. Walter

Hughes had proven its efficacy in preventing PCP in other

immune-compromised populations, like children with leukemia.

It continues:

Fauci refused to acknowledge the evidence and, according to

one account, even encouraged people with AIDS to stop taking

treatments, like Bactrim, that weren't specifically approved

for use in people with AIDS.

Dr. Sonnabend wrote in 2006:

Why, in the case of AIDS, was Bactrim, a known preventative

measure against PCP, introduced so many years after a need

for it had been recognized? To this must be added the

question of why this neglect, the consequences of which can

be measured in the tens of thousands of lives lost, has

received almost no attention.

The media has continued to cover for Dr. Fauci.

The article goes on:

If we don't tell the truth about the history of the AIDS

epidemic, it will be subject to more whitewashing--

As we witnessed this weekend. My aside.

--more distortions and more rewriting to suit the legacies

of the officials in charge. These are the same officials who

seem incapable of ever acknowledging or taking responsibility

for mistakes they made--mistakes that cost our community

thousands of lives.

Now, why did I take so much time to read an excerpt from this article from 2017?

It is because it is the major point I was making in my comments to Brian Kilmeade. Dr. Fauci, he is using the exact same playbook for COVID as he did for AIDS: ignoring therapy like Bactrim or the cornucopia of cheap, generic, repurposed drugs that are available, that are being used successfully to treat COVID and save lives.

The solution, I have always felt, has always been early treatment. But, again, Dr. Fauci is ignoring therapy and pushing a vaccine.

Why?

There are multiple medical experts who have looked at this, who are treating COVID, who are doing the research, who say upwards of 500,000 lives were needlessly lost because we ignored and, I would argue, sabotaged early treatment with cheap, generic, repurposed drugs.

In fact, the FDA completely trash-talked one of these repurposed drugs, a Nobel Prize-winning drug termed by the World Health Organization as a miracle drug, Ivermectin, calling it horse paste; saying: Come on, you all; you are not cows.

Fake news stories saying that people are lining up, clogging hospitals because of overdoses of Ivermectin, only to find out that is a completely false news story--like false studies published in medical journals that had to be withdrawn 2 weeks later early in the pandemic, which also poisoned the use of some of these repurposed drugs.

Let's take a look at some facts. Let's take a look at some facts that, when I go on media and I describe these facts, I am censored by the COVID gods; I am removed from YouTube, as is sometimes the radio talk show host.

But let's look at the facts of drugs versus the vaccine. Now, many of you will be shocked by this because this is all being censored. This information, this is not allowed. Again, there is one narrative; it is the narrative of the COVID gods. No second or third opinions are allowed. No questions are allowed to be asked, much less answered.

So let's take a look at Ivermectin. I have got two columns here: Total adverse events reported to either the FAERS system--the adverse event reporting system from the FDA for drugs--and the VAERS system-- the vaccine adverse event system reported through the CDC.

So the top three. First of all, Ivermectin. Over 26 years--26 years of reporting--Ivermectin has about 3,756 adverse events reported in through FAERS. So that is adverse events. In terms of deaths, it averages about 15 reports of deaths per year.

Now, let's get something straight here. There are two main criticisms of FAERS and VAERS. It doesn't prove causation. I get that. But it also dramatically understates the adverse events.

So, again, we are going to use this as a comparison.

Ivermectin: 15 deaths per year, on average, over 26 years of usage.

Hydroxychloroquine: 23,355 total adverse events over 26 years. On average, about 69 deaths--death reports per year.

How about the seasonal flu vaccine?

Again, 26 years' worth of history: 198,776 total adverse events reported on VAERS, but an average of 80 deaths per year for the seasonal flu vaccine.

I look at these, and I go: These are pretty safe drugs. No drug is 100 percent safe. No human body is exactly the same. But you have to look at these drugs as having a very safe and reliable safety profile.

So if you have COVID--and let's face it, the current NIH guideline on COVID is to do nothing: go home, foray it alone, isolate yourself, hope you don't get so sick you have to check yourself into a hospital.

The only thing they are recommending for use is monoclonal antibodies. Try and get those. I have talked to so many constituents that haven't been able to. Either they are not sick enough or they become too sick or it has taken too long.

So, virtually, the NIH guideline continues to this day: Do nothing.

Now, a quick aside: How many other diseases is that the recommendation? Isn't it always early detection allows for early treatment, produces better outcome?

Of course, that is what we recommend for every other disease, except COVID because Fauci ignored therapies and pushed vaccines. He has just been--he has got his blinders on. It is vaccines, vaccines, vaccines.

And then they scaremonger both Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.

I don't know. Are you afraid of those? If you have got COVID, would you give those a shot?

I certainly would. And, by the way, I am not a doctor; I am not a medical researcher. But I have been in contact with doctors who have the courage and compassion to treat. And so when I have a friend or a constituent who calls me and says, ``What can I do?'' I refer them to a doctor who treats them.

And I have example after example of these things working, keeping people out of hospitals and certainly preventing death. I know it is anecdotal, but the evidence is mounting, and it is getting to the point of being--I think it is at the point of being irrefutable.

So now let's compare this to the drugs of choice of Dr. Fauci and the COVID gods. Let's take a look at Remdesivir. The studies were weak. They changed the endpoint of reducing death--because it didn't--to reducing days in the hospital. But they still rushed through the emergency use authorization, and it has been the treatment, because it is blessed by the COVID gods, that hospitals will apply.

Now, in fairness, hospitals also do dexamethasone. They will do other things--corticosteroids. Pierre Kory testified before my committee in May of 2020 about corticosteroids.

But Remdesivir is the big one; over $3,000 a dose when these cost 20 to 50 bucks, total, as part of a multidrug, multivitamin--vitamin D, zinc. Remdesivir: 6,500 adverse events. I don't have it here. 1,612 deaths so far since it has got its emergency use. That is an average of 921 a year. That is Remdesivir.

Now let's look at the COVID vaccine, and this will shock you. It should shock you because nobody is talking about it. And when a guy like me talks about it, I get censored, I get vilified, I get attacked.

927,740 total adverse events. And, remember, one of the criticisms is VAERS dramatically understates the number of adverse events.

Total deaths: 19,532. Now, again, I realize VAERS doesn't prove causation, but almost 6,000 of these worldwide deaths occurred on days 0, 1, or 2 following vaccination.

I know Fauci, I know Janet Woodcock, I know Francis Collins are not concerned about this. I am concerned about this. Other people who have been able to avoid the censors and see this, they are concerned about it. They are making those tough choices. They also realize COVID can be a deadly disease. They have to make an informed decision whether or not to get vaccinated.

Shouldn't they have all the information?

But they are not being given all the information. It is about time they are.

Let me conclude by just asking--for the audience, really--why do I continue to push these truths?

And they are truths. There is no misinformation up here. This is the truth. These aren't my numbers. This isn't my data. This is the CDC and the FDA's data.

Why do I continue to talk about these things when I get attacked, when I get vilified, when I get ridiculed, when I get censored?

It is pretty simple. It is because I have acknowledged the vaccine- injured. I have held events to let them tell their stories--like little Maddie de Garay, 12 years old. Now she is 13. She participated in the Pfizer trial. She is in a wheelchair. She can't eat. She has a feeding tube.

Pfizer has ignored her, cast her aside.

They are not paying for her medical bills. That is a scandal right then and there. Brianne Dressen participated in the AstraZeneca trial: paralyzed from the waist down. Fortunately, she has gotten her leg function back. But she is not whole. She is not cured.

Ernest Ramirez: he lost his only son, his best friend. He is a single dad.

I have given the vaccine-injured--the survivors, I have given them a forum to tell their stories, and the media just shrugs. All they want is to be seen and heard and believed so they can be cured or so they can prevent other people from experiencing their trauma.

The real reason I continue to tell the truth--although I am attacked--is because not only have I given these individuals a forum to tell their stories, but I have seen their tears. I have hugged the vaccine-injured, the surviving spouses, the surviving parents, the surviving children.

Why won't we acknowledge these truths? Why won't we acknowledge the vaccine-injured?

Until we do, until we acknowledge what the root cause of the illness might be, how is there any hope of healing them?

So again, our response to COVID has been a miserable failure. We must acknowledge that. We can't deny reality. We need to embrace early treatment because we are going to continue to need early treatment.

The vaccines aren't 100 percent guaranteed effective. New variants will emerge. We are going to have to treat. Better start now and might as well give these cheap generic, widely available drugs a shot.

With that, I yield the floor.

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

Mr. President, on Sunday, November 21, 2021, a Christmas parade in Waukesha, WI, meant to usher in a season of peace on Earth, good will toward men, turned into a nightmare. An 8-year-old child and 5 adults were murdered, 62 others were injured. Some of the injured, including three children, remain in critical condition, their lives forever altered.

Families with their children who came to see Santa Claus, high school bands, the Dancing Grannies instead witnessed a horror that will leave lifelong psychological scars. First responders and law enforcement who rushed in to administer first aid and compassionately deal with the tragedy will be burdened by their terrible memories for the rest of their lives.

But as is so often the case, in the midst of an awful event caused by the worst of humanity, the absolute best of humanity is fully revealed. This is what we are witnessing in Waukesha. The healing process has already begun. It began immediately as members of the community came together to help the victims and survivors.

The very next evening, hundreds of people gathered at an interfaith prayer vigil to pray for healing and strength. I had the privilege of attending that vigil and speaking to members of the community, first responders, and those who knew the victims. It was a moving experience that I will never forget--sorrowful and yet hopeful.

From that experience, I have no doubt that the citizens of Waukesha will recover from this tragedy, but it will take time and a great deal of effort. It will also be the responsibility of civil society to administer justice for this heinous act of evil because the victims and the community of Waukesha deserve justice.

Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to bring back the six innocent lives who perished: Virginia Sorenson, Leanna Owen, Tamara Durand, Jane Kulich, Wilhelm Hospel, and Jackson Sparks, who was only 8 years old.

We can pray for healing for those broken in both body and spirit and also pray for those who helped them heal. We can also show our support by offering a moment of silence here on the floor of the U.S. Senate, which I will ask for following the remarks of my colleague from Wisconsin whom I now yield to.

Mr. President, I now invite the Senate to observe a moment of silence in memory of and to recognize those killed, injured, and forever impacted by the attack on the Waukesha Christmas parade on November 21, 2021.

(Moment of silence.)

Thank you, Mr. President.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.