Floor Statements

Mr. President, soon, we will cast important votes here in the Senate on surveillance law. I rise today to share some important new developments about the surveillance practices of this administration, which are vital to this debate.

Today, I want to start by warning my colleagues: Any Senator who votes to reauthorize this law without real reform will be directly responsible when the Trump team abuses their spying powers to go after Americans. I want the Senate to know the alarm bells are loud and getting louder.

Senators know the surveillance law known as section 702 of FISA expires on Monday. I have been on the Intelligence Committee since the law was written. It is undeniably a useful tool that American intelligence agencies rely on to collect information about foreigners outside the country. The problem is that 702 lacks adequate safeguards to protect Americans whose emails and texts or other communications can get swept up in this surveillance. So you could have Americans doing legitimate, often sensitive, important work--journalists, foreign aid workers, people with family overseas, even women seeking abortion medication from a provider overseas.

Reformers argue that 702 should only be reauthorized with stronger protections--protections for constitutional

rights--and that is particularly true when there are blaring alarms warning of abuses, some of which Congress has yet to be told about. I am going to highlight now some of those alarm bells.

For years, there have been jaw-dropping abuses of section 702. Government officials have searched through 702 data to find Black Lives Matter protestors, political campaign donors, elected officials, even a State judge who complained about police abuses.

Opponents of reform say that the problems with the law have been fixed. The facts show otherwise.

One of the biggest flaws in section 702 is what is called the ``backdoor search loophole.'' Mr. President, 702 is supposed to be an authority aimed at foreigners outside the United States, but the government is currently allowed to trawl their way through the vast collection of 702 data to conduct warrantless searches for Americans' communications. Last year, the FBI increased the number of warrantless searches it conducted for Americans' communications by more than a third. That is concerning enough right there. Yet it gets worse.

The number of so-called ``sensitive'' warrantless searches--which can target elected officials, journalists, or the leaders of political organizations--more than tripled during the first year of the Trump administration. The FBI has refused to say why. Given Trump's enthusiasm for investigating journalists and political opponents, this, too, is a blaring alarm warning of abuses that Congress has not been told about.

The government is also circumventing warrant requirements by using a credit card. A few weeks ago, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed that the FBI is actually buying up Americans' location data. If the government wanted to compel companies to hand over this information, it would need a warrant, but through a loophole in the law, government Agencies--we are talking about the FBI, ICE, CBP, and the Pentagon--can buy this sensitive information from sleazy, shady data brokers with essentially no oversight.

The fact is, if you are going to close the data broker loophole, the time to act is now. You are not going to get another chance this year.

Yet another blaring alarm went off a few weeks ago. On March 17, the FISA Court--the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court--found major compliance problems with section 702. These problems are directly related to Americans' constitutional rights.

In the past, the government would work with that court to fix these kinds of problems. Today, the press reports that the Trump administration is appealing the court ruling so that they never--never, Mr. President--have to fix the problems.

This raises a serious question: How can Congress reauthorize the authority while the appeal is pending and nobody knows what reforms are actually needed? I am going to have a lot more to say about this part.

The court ruling needs to be declassified. Americans ought to have the ability to understand what their government is up to.

I will remind my colleagues there is another separate, secret law problem with section 702. Multiple administrations have relied on a secret interpretation of 702 that directly impacts the privacy rights of Americans. The Director of National Intelligence, unfortunately, has turned down my request to make this information public, so I have written a classified document that explains the problem in more detail. I have made it available in a secure room at Senate Security. I urge this afternoon in the strongest possible way--I encourage my colleagues to read it so Senators can hear the alarm bells loudly warning us of abuses that Congress hasn't been told about.

We are also being warned about the impact of new technology on Americans' constitutional rights. I want to talk, for example, about the implications of artificial intelligence on this debate, and these are fairly new developments that I think most Senators have not heard.

The CEO of one of America's largest AI companies sounded this warning several weeks ago. He did it in a message about his firm's multimillion-dollar contract with the Department of Defense.

Here is what this AI CEO said:

AI-driven mass surveillance presents serious, novel risks

to our fundamental liberties. To the extent that such

surveillance is currently legal, this is only because the law

has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities

of AI. For example, under current law, the government can

purchase detailed records of Americans' movements, web

browsing, and associations from public sources. . . .

Powerful AI makes it possible to assemble this scattered,

individually innocuous data into a comprehensive picture of

any person's life--automatically and at massive scale.

This is one of the most powerful voices in the field of AI. I am citing somebody who really understands the underpinnings of what AI is all about, and he is warning Congress about the impact of AI-powered surveillance.

Let me repeat that. One of the most powerful voices in the field of AI is warning Congress at this time about the impact of AI-powered surveillance. I hope my colleagues will listen to him.

I recently wrote to several leading AI companies to ask them about whether government agencies could use their products to analyze information on Americans collected through this kind of bulk surveillance. None of them denied that their products could be used this way.

I want America's intelligence and law enforcement agencies to take advantage of new technologies that can help them protect public safety and national security, but new tools require new rules. Without new rules, you can count on the executive branch to run roughshod over Americans' privacy rights and constitutional freedoms. It is not hard to see how these capabilities could be abused--especially to target immigrants, people attending protest rallies, women seeking abortions, and Donald Trump's other perceived enemies.

The fact is, there is a bipartisan, bicameral group of Members that I am part of that has worked together to come up with a solution to these kinds of challenges.

Among other important reforms, our bill would require the government to get a warrant if it wants to deliberately read an American's emails or texts. That would be whether the information is collected under FISA or outside of FISA. And it would finally close the data broker loophole.

The fact is, what we are hearing about now, these new developments which are breaking weekly about government surveillance, ought to give the U.S. Senate--every Senator--Democratic, Republican, Independent-- ought to take some pause here. My last floor statement on surveillance was only a month old, and I have read through a whole laundry list of stunning new developments that have emerged since then.

I am truly amazed that some of my colleagues seem ready to give the executive branch a blank check to keep trampling on Americans' constitutional rights. Congress can and must protect Americans' security and Americans' rights at the same time.

Ben Franklin said anybody who gives up their liberty to have security really doesn't deserve either. We ought to be thinking about that at this crucial time.

I urge my colleagues to insist that the renewal of section 702 include real reforms--actual black-letter text--to protect Americans' privacy rights. Senators ought to oppose any extension--any extension-- that does not include the kinds of reforms I have been talking about this afternoon.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, it is tax day, April 15--the anti-holiday.

This tax day, in particular, is a tough one. Tax day 2026 is a reminder that Donald Trump and Republicans will put the interests of giant corporations ahead of the interests of typical Americans. There is no clearer example of Trump corruption in practice than betraying taxpayers and killing the Direct File Program as a favor to his allies.

Here is what this is all about: When it comes to taxes, Democrats start with the proposition that for the vast majority of Americans-- wage-earning workers whose taxes really aren't complicated--filing your taxes ought to be free and easy. Our view is you shouldn't have to pay a penny to perform your basic civic duty.

That is why, back in 2022, after years of hard work, we passed funding for the IRS to build a Direct File Program, a way for taxpayers to file directly with the IRS online for free. The IRS launched a pilot project for 2024. They expanded it in 2025. Hundreds of thousands of people used Direct File. It was hugely popular--in effect, a beloved program. A lot of people are skeptical that the government is still capable of building useful things. Direct File proved the skeptics wrong. It proved that the Federal Government can still come up with great public services from the ground up.

Well, the tax prep giants saw it as a threat, and over the years, I saw them spend millions to try to defend the status quo that was failing. The prep giants unleashed a tidal wave of lobbying to try to squash the program before it reached escape velocity. They found some willing partners in Republicans here. Going into this year, Trump and Republicans killed Direct File. Millions of Americans should have had an opportunity to use it to file for free, but now, they are back at the mercy of the tax prep companies.

The Republicans who killed Direct File say it is no big deal because there are other free options out there, programs that partner with the private companies. The reality is that tax prep companies have already demonstrated they can't be trusted. The worst example was with Intuit. When Intuit was involved with the Free File Program, it was caught burying the free option on a website you couldn't find with a traditional search engine. It steered users toward options that battered them with upcharges and misleading marketing. Finally, they quit offering Free File when they got called out on what were genuinely underhanded tactics.

My view is, the debate over this subject isn't that complicated. The government requires people to file and pay taxes, so the least the government can do is to make the filing process simple and free and as painless as possible. Donald Trump and Republicans don't agree because they destroyed a wonderful, new public service when they shut down Direct File.

My Finance Committee colleague Senator Warren has been a terrific partner and a champion of Direct File. I have enjoyed working with her over the years on this critical issue. I am behind her effort 100 percent as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee to revive Direct File. We are not going to let this go no matter how long it takes, and I urge all of my colleagues here in the Senate--as it used to be bipartisan--to support Direct File.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, Donald Trump has been trying for quite some time to coerce the States into handing over their voter lists since his first term. That is so he and Stephen Miller can create a list of people they do and, most importantly, don't want to have voting in Federal elections. It would allow Trump to block his political enemies.

His Executive order is a desperate attempt by a failing President to cling to power by taking control over how States run their elections, and the reason I am here is its effect on States like Oregon that rely on vote-by-mail.

I am the country's first U.S. Senator elected completely by mail, and I can tell you the people of my State understand better than anyone that vote-by-mail is safe, easy, and effective. We have been doing it for over 30 years. Oregon is one of nine States that currently conducts elections by mail.

Trump talks a big game about vote-by-mail being riddled with fraud. As usual, he exists in his own reality. States that use mail-in voting experience fewer instances of voter fraud than any other system. A review of the vote-by-mail system by Oregon's Legislative Fiscal Office found that, from 2000 to 2019, there were approximately 61 million ballots cast, and, of those, 38 criminal convictions were obtained for fraud, amounting to a 0.00006 percent fraud rate.

So let's be clear. First of all, this Executive order is unconstitutional. The Constitution explicitly grants States the power to establish the times, places, and manner of elections, including creating and managing voter lists. That power does not rest with the President.

The State of Kansas passed a similar law that was struck down by the courts because it illegally blocked 31,000 eligible voters from registering to vote.

Second, this Executive order is illegal. The creation of a national voter database would give the Trump administration unprecedented access to private voter data. Forcing the Social Security office to share private voter data with another Agency is a clear violation of the Privacy Act.

When news dropped about the Executive order, I immediately wrote to Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano, demanding more information about this data-sharing agreement. This would force Social Security employees to put aside their real jobs--helping seniors and Americans navigate Social Security benefits--and, instead, they would have to execute Trump's voting witch hunt.

Americans are already being forced to endure long waits to receive their hard-earned benefits because of Trump's intentional mismanagement of the Agency. Under the order, they would have to wait even longer because the Agency is too busy doing Trump's illegal, unconstitutional, and unethical bidding.

From day one of his Presidency, Donald Trump has shown as much consideration for the personal privacy of the American people as a bull in a china shop. He essentially handed over the keys to the kingdom when he gave Elon Musk and DOGE unfettered access to the government's internal data systems. We still don't know who ended up having access to the data. Now he wants to do it again--this time, to create a database of voters that allows him to pick and choose who can vote. What he would be doing is weaponizing a fundamental democratic right-- the right to vote--and potentially target his enemies.

Given this administration's track record of mishandling and weaponizing Americans' personal information and data, we can be sure this is a blueprint for who-knows-what with respect to chilling abuses by the Trump administration. There is no legitimate justification for a provision like this.

Anybody who facilitates Donald Trump's directive to create a voter database would be a willing and blatant voter suppressor. They would be as culpable in this travesty as Donald Trump.

Vote-by-mail makes it possible for millions of Americans to make their voices heard. Stephen Miller would tell you that if you can't vote by mail, you can vote another way. That will have drastic consequences for millions of rural Americans, seniors, and people with disabilities. They would be shut out--no voice in our democracy.

An elderly woman living in Eastern Oregon would be forced to drive for hours to the nearest election office to cast a vote. If she doesn't have a car or if she can no longer drive, she would have to find a neighbor or a friend to drive her.

If your mom lived in a nursing home, she wouldn't be able to cast her ballot by mail. You would be forced to find time in between running your kids to soccer and holding down a full-time job to get her to a polling place.

This is exactly what Donald Trump hates about vote-by-mail: It encourages voter participation. It makes it easier for people to be heard, and it makes it harder for Trump to rig elections in his favor. He is terrified of vote-by-mail because, if he doesn't suppress votes, he knows he can't win. It protects the constitutional right to vote.

From his postmarking rule changes to consolidating the Postal Service, shutting down mail processing facilities, and now this, he is in the spaghetti-throwing phase of his midterm election strategy. He knows his platform of pardoning pedophiles and making life more expensive is going to lose him the midterms. Instead of trying to lower costs and improve life for ordinary families, he is hell-bent on making it harder for people to vote.

His Presidency is failing, and the Republican platform becomes more unpopular by the day. That is why they are making such a desperate attempt to get the SAVE Act passed before November. Republicans know they don't have the support in the Congress--certainly not to overhaul Federal elections and enact a voter suppression bill. They are wasting our time debating it because not one of them--not one--has the backbone to stand up to Donald Trump.

Oregonians will be damned if we let Donald Trump do away with how we conduct our voting so Donald Trump could rig another election.

I will fight to make sure Trump's election-rigging scheme dies the death it so richly deserves on the floor of the Senate.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I come to the floor today to sound the alarm on a crisis that is a freight train speeding toward the Western United States in the form of what could be one of the worst wildfire seasons in modern history.

I was home in Oregon this month where I received a fire briefing from officials in Southern Oregon. What I heard that day was just jaw- dropping. Snowpack is at historic lows at home. Some parts of the State have less than 10 percent of their normal snowpack. Our beloved Crater Lake received its lowest snowpack in 100 years.

At the time when snowpack should usually be peaking, it is completely gone less than a month into spring. Western States, including Oregon, were already suffering from horrendous drought, and now this year's record low snowfall is going to make it worse.

Simply put, there is no water, and come summertime, Oregon is going to be like a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames. This is a recipe for disaster, but it has been made even worse by Donald Trump's failed leadership when it comes to preparing us to deal with wildfires. Last year, for example, DOGE took a sledgehammer to Federal wildfire programs.

Between funding cuts that bullied Federal employees into taking early retirement and pressure campaigns to leave public service, it was a tough time. Mr. President, 1,400 qualified firefighters left the Forest Service in the first year of the Trump Presidency.

These are known as red card holders. They might work in other areas of the Forest Service as technical support. They might work in administrative roles, but they are trained, qualified firefighters who can be called up in particularly bad years. That is this one.

And to make matters worse, firefighting personnel were caught in the crosshairs of Trump and Vance's immigration agenda of chaos and cruelty. While immigrants put their lives on the line to battle fires, Trump's immigration enforcement officers were actually arresting them and removing them from the fire line. Let me repeat that so there is no confusion: arresting firefighters in the middle of fighting fires--the safety of our communities be damned as long as Donald Trump gets a FOX News segment. These are immigrants who chose to put their lives on the line to defend all of us. And how were they repaid? Donald Trump repaid them by arresting them on the frontlines and throwing them in detention centers while the fires were actually still raging.

Locking up firefighters isn't an immigration agenda that makes us safer. It is so self-sabotaging, it makes your head spin.

The fact is, Donald Trump has actually kneecapped the ability to reduce fire risks altogether. Thinning and prescribed fire are proven, science-backed tools to reduce the risk in the woods. Each year, during the colder months, hazardous fuel treatment is conducted to reduce the build up of fuels in our forests that act as kindling for fires during the summer.

Last year, I asked the Trump administration for an update on how much treatment they had actually done in the woods. The Forest Service Chief confirmed to me in September that the administration's treatment levels were roughly a million acres below previous years.

Just a few weeks later, Donald Trump plunged us into the longest government shutdown in the country's history. That put hazardous fuel treatment on hold and set treatment levels back even more.

Now, last week, I got another letter from the Chief confirming the current treatment levels remain significantly behind their levels at the end of 2024.

So the administration wants to call this a win, saying they almost met their treatment goals. Here is some breaking news for Donald Trump: It is easy to do a victory lap about your achievements when you set the bar on the floor.

So here is the current lay of the land: Hazardous fuel treatment levels are down millions of acres. The Forest Service is still down 1,400 firefighters and countless other employees. Budget cuts have yet to be restored. Oregon and the rest of the West have massive fuels buildup in our forests and no water.

So what are Donald Trump and his assistants doing? It sure isn't staffing up the Forest Service with qualified firefighters.

It is not making sure States have enough money to prepare for the blazes to come.

It is not keeping up our forests to reduce fire risks.

It sure as hell isn't funding FEMA, the Agency that plays a critical role in helping our communities recover from wildfires and remains mostly shut down under the failed leadership of Donald Trump. In fact, Donald Trump has so slashed staffing at FEMA, cutting the Agency's ability to respond to emergencies, that we are concerned about the days ahead after watching what happened with the floods in Texas Hill Country last summer.

Donald Trump is play-acting as a dictator, starting illegal wars in the Middle East. And now he wants Congress to give him $200 billion so that he can keep bombing Iran.

I am going to wrap up by saying it this way: Let's use that $200 billion here at home. Let's use it to manage the forests.

You should know that the picture that I have painted of my State also looks like it is going to affect something like two-thirds of the West, and I know my colleague is interested in following that.

We should be reducing the risk of fires that burn down homes and livelihoods. Let's use the money that Donald Trump wants to put into the war to hire and pay the courageous firefighters that put their lives on the line every year, lives that we always care about, especially because they are protecting our communities.

True to form, Donald Trump always finds a way to make things worse. Just last week, in the midst of the brewing catastrophe I have described, Donald Trump announced he is going to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service. At my 11 townhall meetings across the State here over the break, I heard about this recently.

The Agency is the one that is in charge of preparing for and fighting wildfires, and Donald Trump is doing away with existing experts and authorities from the region to, no doubt, be replaced with people who will do his own bidding.

So Donald Trump defunded 57 research stations dedicated to researching the impact of drought and forest management on wildfire risk. The administration called it a harmless reorganization.

Anybody with a pulse can see this for what it really is: an intentional stunt to kneecap firefighting capabilities and leave Oregonians literally in the line of fire.

Come summertime when these blazes are strong, the Forest Service will be in complete upheaval, too busy rearranging offices and desk chairs to fight fires. I guess that is what Donald Trump intended in the first place.

This is like needing open-heart surgery, and a few weeks before your operation, learning that the hospital has replaced your heart surgeon with Hannibal Lecter.

It is another casualty of the Trump crusade to sell off our forests and public lands to billionaires and corporations.

The bottom line, Mr. President--and you and I have talked about this--public lands are just that, they are public. Once you sell them off, you can't get them back.

Donald Trump doesn't care as long as his billionaire buddies and the Epstein class get to build their own personal resorts.

I will close with this. Donald Trump campaigned on cheaper eggs and lower gas prices. Instead, aided and abetted by Republicans in the Congress, he is doing everything to drive up costs and, as I am pointing out with respect to the West, making Americans less safe. Winners under the Trump Presidency are the people at the very top, the corporations and the Epstein class. He sure as hell isn't looking out for the working people who feel like they are getting pushed off an economic tightrope.

When our communities are ablaze this summer, there is going to be no time to waste, no time to wait for the training of new firefighters because Donald Trump fired everybody who was qualified, no time to do fire risk reduction work. Donald Trump has set Western States up for failure this fire season, and I very, very much fear the outcome in the West will be catastrophic.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, before he leaves the floor, let me thank my colleague from California for very important remarks with respect to this issue. And I am very pleased to be able to join Leader Schumer and Senator Cortez Masto on the floor to talk about energy costs and particularly clean energy jobs.

Here is what people need to know about our resolution: American families and businesses from coast to coast have been getting battered by rising energy costs. Data centers are gobbling up energy while Americans get roasted during hotter summers and freeze during icy winters.

Donald Trump got back into office last year, and instead of bringing down costs, he and fellow Republicans sabotaged wind and solar--the cheapest and cleanest ways of getting energy on the grid. Then we had to deal with utility costs continuing to rise. The cost of trucking consumer goods shot up around the country. And Republicans looked at a multitrillion-dollar global market for clean energy--absolutely explosive growth and upside for whoever dominates that kind of manufacturing, and they said the United States isn't interested in being a leader. They surrendered to China and the Europeans.

If that wasn't enough incompetence and mismanagement, Donald Trump started a war that is driving energy costs into the stratosphere. Americans didn't even have to think about the Strait of Hormuz before a month ago. Now every time they pull up at the gas station to fill up the tank, they are reminded that Donald Trump singlehandedly created an energy crisis unlike anything we have seen in generations.

And it is not just about the price Americans pay at the pump; this is rippling through our economy. As I noted, utility bills are continuing to rise. The cost of trucking consumer goods? Continuing to rise. The cost of food in grocery stores? Continuing to rise because fertilizer and fuel are more expensive. We could spend the day with more and more examples.

Donald Trump doesn't seem to know or care about this. When he talks about the war he started, it sounds like he is not sure what is going on. When he talks about energy production in our country, it seems like he is stuck in the middle of the last century. It is a nightmare scenario for American families and businesses getting buried by rising costs today.

On top of that, the job market is in sorry shape. The Trump economy isn't producing the jobs Americans need. That is particularly true in manufacturing.

So my colleagues and I are putting forward a proposal that is a first step toward fixing the energy crisis in the country. We believe it is common sense. It would overturn a regulation from the Trump administration that tied up wind and solar projects with a whole lot of additional bureaucratic redtape.

Almost a decade ago, I wrote a set of tax credits for clean energy in the Inflation Reduction Act. It was a very new approach to energy policy. It kicked off a manufacturing boom unlike anything that has been seen in decades.

Donald Trump and Republicans killed much of it in 2025, and they specifically targeted wind and solar. They clobbered those industries by cutting off the tax credits as of 2027. If that wasn't enough, Donald Trump and the Treasury Department tied them up with even more redtape last summer.

So here is what our proposal is all about. Leader Schumer, my colleague from Nevada, and I say in our resolution: Let's ditch the extra redtape. That is what I hear Democrats and Republicans say most of the time: Ditch the redtape. That way, more projects could get underway. We would get more energy on the grid helping to fight the cost increases people deal with all around America.

It is a real head-scratcher to me why anybody would oppose this commonsense resolution. If you do, you are voting for higher energy prices for your constituents at home.

My view is, the entire Trump approach to energy production and energy costs ought to go into the dustbin. It is not working. But what my colleagues and I have put forward is not a total rewrite of the law. It is one step--a practical, commonsense step that we believe ought to get support from both sides.

So that is what we are saying on our side: Let's get rid of some system-clogging redtape. Let's get more projects underway and produce more energy, and let's fight these terrible energy hikes.

That is what we are after. That is what my colleagues and I are trying to do. I urge the Senate to support our resolution. And I want to thank Senator Cortez Masto and Leader Schumer for their excellent work over many months.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I give notice of my intent to object to any unanimous consent agreement regarding Executive Calendar No. PN681-2, PN835-2, and PN793-2, the promotions of Lieutenant Colonel Vincent J. Noble, Lieutenant Commander Thomas P. MacNeil, and Colonel Thomas M. Siverts.

When serving in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, in March 2007, Vincent J. Noble took part in the killings of 19 Afghan civilians, firing indiscriminately at civilian vehicles and bystanders. A military inquiry found that in response to a suicide bomb attack, Noble's platoon went on a rampage across a 7-mile stretch of highway, massacring unarmed civilians on sight. An investigation revealed that Noble asked marines to lie, that he submitted a false version of events to his company commander, and violated an order from the commanding officer, which explicitly directed the battalion to not operate in or around Jalalabad, according to military records. In June 2008, the Commander, Marine Forces Central Command, found Noble guilty, in accordance with his plea, of violating article 133, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer, of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Allowing marines under an officer's command to kill civilians indiscriminately is a serious war crime. Those who commit or allow such actions or make false reports about those actions should be held accountable and certainly withheld from promotions within the military.

Thomas P. MacNeil served in Mosul, Iraq, in 2017 as part of Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher's platoon. Gallagher stabbed to death a wounded and captive teen boy and held him by the hair in one hand and his knife in the other as photos were taken. MacNeil also posed in certain pictures with the body. MacNeil was implicated in the court martial of Gallagher when Gallagher was accused of committing war crimes in Iraq. The Commander of the SEALs at the time, Rear Admiral Collin Green, pushed for Chief Gallagher and others, including MacNeil, to be stripped of their Tridents. President Trump intervened multiple times to prevent the Navy from disciplining Gallagher, and in 2019, then-Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly also intervened and decided to drop the Navy's review of MacNeil and others. While MacNeil was the junior member of his platoon and eventually testified against Gallagher, he exercised poor judgement as an officer and should not be promoted within the U.S. military.

In March 2023, Thomas M. Siverts appeared on an episode of a podcast known as ``The Berm Pit,'' which is antisemitic and racist. Siverts's participation in a podcast whose hosts espouse such bigotry raises serious questions about his character and professionalism, which are both relevant to his promotion to brigadier general. To date, the Marine Corps has not provided me with a copy of this podcast episode to verify the nature of his participation in this podcast, nor has Siverts publicly apologized or expressed regret for his association with this podcast.

Mr. President, yesterday, I rose to explain my opposition to the nomination of Joshua Rudd to be the Director of the National Security Agency and to lead Cyber Command. During his hearing, General Rudd failed to demonstrate a bare minimum understanding of the constitutional limits on NSA activities.

His responses to questions about privacy rights and transparency were deeply troubling. He wouldn't commit to the Agency's past policy of not purchasing and using very sensitive location data on Americans, and he wouldn't rule out secretly violating public policies and guardrails on NSA activities.

While I admire the nominee's many years of military service, he does not have a background in national signals intelligence activities or cyber operations that would qualify him for this position.

Now, he is not the first unqualified nominee. In fact, there are currently no qualified, Senate-confirmed officials in charge of cyber security.

The country faces serious cyber security threats. This is truly a five-alarm fire. Yet the President keeps nominating officials to key cyber security roles who have less knowledge of the topic than an undergraduate computer science major.

General Rudd is the wrong person for the job, and I oppose his nomination. But if the Senate confirms General Rudd despite his lack of familiarity with basic constitutional principles, it is all the more essential--truly important--that the Senate pass legislation to protect against surveillance abuses.

So this morning, I am going to take just a few minutes to discuss why the government's surveillance activities are dangerously broad and how Congress can protect the privacy of Americans and protect the security of our country.

I intend this morning to talk about three issues that are going to come before Senators in the next 3 weeks. Let me repeat that. These three issues will be before Senators very shortly. They are section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, surveillance of Americans by ICE, and the dangerous ways that artificial intelligence can be used to surveil American citizens.

As most of my colleagues know, there is a section in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act--it is section 702--that expires in just a few weeks. Congress is going to soon debate its reauthorization.

I have been doing this for a while, and I know how it usually plays out. Opponents of reforming section 702 don't want a real debate where Members can decide for themselves which reform amendments to support. So what happens is there is an inadequate bill that is brought up, magically shows up a few days before the authorization expires, and Members are told: Holy Toledo, there is just no time to do anything except pass that bill. And it is always said that if the Senators vote for any amendments, the program dies, and terrible things that we don't want to have happen will all happen, and it will be the Senators' fault.

So this morning, I want to make sure that people know you shouldn't buy into this. It is a disservice to our constituents and to the constitutional responsibilities we all have. The Senate can have a debate. The Senate can consider amendments on the merit.

One more point I will return to later: Senators should not accept secret interpretations of the legislation they vote on.

The country needs to have an open debate about the surveillance authorities that directly affect the privacy and constitutional rights of Americans, and it is a debate that shouldn't exclude the American people.

So, first, let's lay some groundwork for this discussion. This important law is section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It authorizes a warrantless surveillance program. The FISA Court approves the overall program, but it doesn't review the individual targets. Picking targets is up to the government. Targets do not have to be suspected terrorists or spies; anyone the government believes possesses foreign intelligence information is fair game.

The targets are supposed to be foreigners, but there are lots of them. The most recent public data was for 2024 when there were more than 291,000 targets, which is more than triple what it was 10 years before.

Some of these targets are going to be talking to Americans, and the communications of Americans are going to be collected by the government. In many cases, these will be law-abiding Americans having perfectly legitimate conversations. Journalists, foreign aid workers, people with families overseas all could have their communications swept up in the surveillance just because they were talking to somebody outside the country.

We don't know exactly how many Americans' communications are swept up by what the government calls incidental collection. That is because the government refuses to tell us. But we know it is large; we know it is increasing. So the question Congress needs to consider is how to target foreign threats while protecting the rights of Americans.

Ben Franklin said that those who would sacrifice liberty for security are going to lose both and deserve neither. But smart policies, which are something I feel particularly strong about, give you both. They are not mutually exclusive. Liberty and security--you can have both, but you need smart policies.

With that principle in mind, the best way to protect the rights of Americans

is to ensure the government can't conduct searches for Americans' private conversations in all that 702 data without a warrant. Smart policies should include certain exceptions to the warrant requirement, and the law should allow for warrantless searches in emergencies, but as a general matter, the government shouldn't be allowed to comb through all that collection of Americans' communications without court oversight.

For years, there has been jaw-dropping abuse of these searches. That has been done especially by the FBI. Some internal administrative changes were made as a result. Two years ago, when Congress last reauthorized 702, opponents of reform made a big deal about those changes. But let me give you an example of how the changes from the 2024 reauthorization bill fell short.

There is a category of searches that is considered especially sensitive. It includes searches for elected officials, Presidential appointees, Governors, political candidates, American political organizations and the people who lead them, as well as media organizations and journalists. All are involved in this area.

So what did the last reauthorization bill do to ensure that the government wasn't abusing its authority by combing through all those communications to look for journalists and Governors and Senators? The so-called big reform was to require the approval of the Deputy FBI Director for those sensitive searches.

Until 2 months ago, the Deputy FBI Director was Mr. Dan Bongino. As most of my colleagues know, he is a longtime conspiracy theorist who has frequently called for specious investigations of political opponents. This is the man whom the President and the U.S. Senate put in charge of these very sensitive searches.

His replacement is Deputy Director Andrew Bailey, who is another highly partisan election denier who recently directed a raid on the Georgia election office to justify the conspiracy theories of the Trump administration.

I don't know about my colleagues, but their so-called reform doesn't make me feel better. I think we are all going to feel worse. But it is even worse than it appears. The FBI has refused to even keep track of all the sensitive searches the Deputy Director considered. The inspector general urged the FBI to just put this information into an easy spreadsheet, and they refused to do that. That is exactly how much the FBI does not want oversight.

There are a lot of other reforms that are desperately needed to 702. Later this week, I will be introducing bipartisan, bicameral legislation to enact critical reforms to government surveillance-- including 702. I am not going through all of the reforms today, but this is a bipartisan, bicameral effort. And I especially want to point to a new provision of 702 that urgently needs to be repealed.

Two years ago, during the last reauthorization debacle, something really bad happened. Over in the House, existing surveillance law was changed so that the government could force anybody with access to communications to secretly collect those communications for the government. As I pointed out at the time, that could mean anybody installing or repairing a cable box or anybody who was responsible for a Wi-Fi router. It was a jaw-dropping expansion of authorities that could end up forcing countless ordinary Americans to secretly help the government spy on their fellow citizens.

When the provision was introduced, the Biden administration knew it had a problem. This was such a dramatic and disturbing expansion of section 702 that the Biden Justice Department had to promise it would only use these authorities in certain narrow situations.

My colleague from Virginia, who is my seatmate on the committee, acknowledged that the law as written was badly flawed, and he vowed, to his credit, to fix this overbroad provision at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately, it has not been fixed yet.

The Biden administration refused to tell the public when it would use this dangerous, incredibly broad provision. The Trump administration certainly isn't providing any details about it. So Congress isn't having a real, informed debate about this staggering provision and whether this vast and dangerous expansion of surveillance is justified.

I can tell you my view. This expansion of the government's authority is not justified, and even if it were narrowed to the circumstances that the Biden administration described in secret, I believe it is time to get rid of the provision.

But here is the other thing: Whatever secret promise the Biden administration made about using these unchecked authorities with restraint, the current administration isn't going to feel bound by that. So whatever the previous administration intended to accomplish with the provision, there is absolutely nothing preventing the current administration from conscripting the cable guy, tech support men and women, and others to secretly spy on Americans.

The past 15 years have shown that unless Congress has an open debate about surveillance, the laws that are passed cannot be assumed to have the support of the American people. That is fundamentally wrong. Right now, the government is relying on secret law with regard to section 702 of FISA.

I already mentioned that the provision that was stuck into the last reauthorization bill could allow the government to force all sorts of people to spy on their neighbors. I have explained the details of how the Biden administration chose to interpret it and how the Trump administration is going to interpret it and that it is all a big secret. Americans have the right to be confused and angry that this is how the government and Congress choose to do business.

There is another example of secret law related to section 702, and it affects the privacy rights of the American people. For years, I have asked various administrations to declassify it. Thus far, they have all refused, although I await a response from DNI Gabbard. I strongly believe that this matter should be declassified and that Congress needs to debate it openly before 702 is reauthorized. The fact is, when it is eventually declassified, the American people are going to be stunned that it took so long and that Congress had been debating this authority with insufficient information.

Now I want to briefly explain why our coalition is attaching all of these other reforms to a section 702 bill. The reason is that no matter how concerned the public is about abusive surveillance, trying to address this problem with a piecemeal approach--pushing one specific reform after another--would be impossible. So a comprehensive approach that attaches these reforms to legislation reauthorizing 702 is the most effective way to deal with the problems.

So let me stress, if you are concerned about ICE and CBP and how they are collecting information on Americans--even as they terrorize our towns and cities--supporting our surveillance reform legislation is the one way you can do something specific about it now.

For example, our bipartisan reform bill takes on an issue I have been working on for years. It is the government's purchase of private information on the American people from one of the sleaziest industries in America, which is the one run by the data brokers. Both ICE and CBP have purchased and used Americans' location data--highly sensitive information--that can reveal what medical clinics you go to, what protests you are involved with, and the friends and family you see.

The Agencies have made various arguments to justify collecting these records, including the false assertion that all Americans have actually consented to location data being collected.

I want to emphasize that the government, in these cases, bought the records of millions of Americans' movements without any warrant or court oversight whatsoever. If the FBI wants to wiretap just one person's phone or to obtain a week's worth of location information about where that person went from a phone company, the Agency would need to go to a judge and justify the surveillance. That is what the Constitution requires. But if the government wants to buy that very same location data about millions of Americans, the government maintains that it doesn't need anything except a credit card.

In 2023, it was forced to shut down a program to purchase the location data of our people due to scrutiny that had been done by the inspector general and Congress, but last year, there were

public reports that it had resumed this dangerous practice, and ICE is currently stonewalling congressional oversight on it.

Location data is not the only sensitive information on Americans that the government is purchasing without a warrant. Web browsing information--what websites Americans visit--is obviously very private. Just imagine the government looking over your shoulder all the time when you are using your phone. It is almost equivalent to spying on your thoughts. That is what happens when the government gets together with these sleazy data brokers. And it is not just ICE; the Pentagon, the IRS, Customs and Border Protection, the FBI, the Secret Service-- all of them have purchased Americans' location information or web browsing information.

The government's purchase of all of this private information ought to be enough, but I want to wrap up by talking about how artificial intelligence could be used on these records.

Artificial intelligence tools are designed to comb through enormous datasets, find patterns, and identify behaviors of interest to the government. A few years ago, Americans may have believed that their personal information would be overlooked in an ocean of data. Now we know AI can be looking at everybody.

I have been warning for nearly a decade that data available for purchase from companies was just as sensitive as information the government collects directly. Creating AI profiles of Americans based on that data represents a chilling expansion of mass surveillance that must not be allowed.

As my colleagues are aware, the Trump administration decided to single out one company over the weekend for punishment because the company didn't want its artificial intelligence tool used for the mass surveillance of Americans. The company's CEO said that if the government's purchase of Americans' locations, web browsing, and other sensitive data is currently legal, it is only because the law has not yet caught up with the rapidly growing capabilities of AI.

That in a nutshell is the problem our bipartisan legislation will fix--update the law to current realities and stop the government from buying data on Americans from sleazy data brokers. It has to be addressed in a section 702 reauthorization bill which Congress will actually consider, because if legislators don't seize this opportunity, technology will just get further and further ahead of the law, and Americans will rightly have little faith that Congress is interested in protecting their privacy.

Now, with this thought, I am going to close. We are considering a nominee to be the Director of the NSA who refused to answer whether the government needs a warrant to spy on people in the United States. He would not commit to maintaining the NSA's policy of not purchasing location data without a warrant. He wouldn't commit to telling the American people if the NSA violates the policies and guardrails of successive administrations that were made public. This nominee wouldn't even promise to tell the Senate Intelligence Committee about these matters.

I am urging my colleagues to oppose this nomination. Regardless, I am urging that the issues related to privacy and the rule of law raised by this nomination are considered in comprehensive surveillance reform legislation.

I am part of a bipartisan coalition, and our bipartisan, bicameral bill, the Government Surveillance Reform Act, is going to be introduced shortly. I would be glad to talk to colleagues, regardless of their party and philosophy, about it, and I urge them to support the legislation.

I yield the floor.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I rise to speak in opposition to the nomination of Joshua Rudd to be Director of the National Security Agency.

During his confirmation hearing, General Rudd demonstrated a lack of familiarity with basic constitutional rights, and that ought to be a bare minimum qualification for this extraordinarily important post.

His response to questions about privacy and transparency were simply unacceptable. For example, I asked the nominee if he would pledge to not secretly violate existing public guardrails on the National Security Agency surveillance. He refused.

For Americans trying to understand the incredible scope of the National Security Agency surveillance operations and the broad authorities under which the NSA operates, these practices are essential. The Agency plays a central role in conducting surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. That law is known as FISA. It gets a lot of attention from the American people and from Congress because it is public law. The Congress debates the reauthorization of FISA section 702 every few years.

But the NSA also conducts extensive intelligence and surveillance operations outside of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and they do it pursuant to the Executive order 12333. And when NSA operates entirely under that Executive order, on this, there is no usual judicial oversight, not even from the FISA Court.

The bottom line for the President and my colleagues, congressional oversight is often dependent on what the Executive branch wants to disclose. The potential for abuse is staggering.

In 2005, the New York Times revealed that the NSA had conducted an illegal warrantless wiretapping program. For four years, the program had been hidden from the American people. By the way, it was also hidden from Congress. I was a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and even the committee wasn't told about the program. This is one of those infamous decisions that you hear about in situations-- what is called the Gang of 8--where the intelligence community informs only the committee's two leaders and instructs them not to tell other members or staff.

So when the committee's vice chair Jay Rockefeller was told about the program, he put together a handwritten letter to the Vice President-- Vice President Cheney. He said he had concerns but that on his own, he couldn't even fully evaluate the program; and so the program continued for years--no oversight, no opportunity for Congress to address it through legislation.

This history demonstrates what happens when the NSA's enormous capabilities are abused--abused by administration officials who are willing, unfortunately, to break the law. And, unfortunately, that is an accurate description of the executive branch and this administration.

It is indisputable that constitutional rights in America are under attack right now. For example, we only recently learned that 9 months ago the administration secretly decided that the government didn't need a judicial warrant to break into a private home; in other words, the administration thinks it can just ignore the Fourth Amendment.

And if the administration is going to ignore the Fourth Amendment to break down doors, what assurance would there be that they wouldn't also tap Americans' phones without a warrant? Why should anybody believe they wouldn't do it secretly and make sure that the public or the Congress or even full Intelligence Committees weren't aware?

When it comes to surveillance, I subscribe to Ben Franklin's principle. Franklin said:

Those who would give up liberty for security will lose both

and deserve neither.

The fact is--and I work on this every single day--we need both. That is not a partisan proposition.

Refusing to promise to not violate the Constitution doesn't make us safer. That is why I was particularly focused on General Rudd's understanding of the constitutional limits on the operations of the

Madam President, I object.

Madam President, just very briefly, because my friend is on the floor, I think we both agree that this position needs to be filled. What I am so troubled by is, on issue after issue, where we needed to see experience and savvy in concrete areas to do what Ben Franklin said--Ben Franklin said we need security and liberty, and smart policies will give you both. And, unfortunately, in the questions that I and others asked of this nominee, he simply had no involvement in the past in these questions.

For that reason, I continue to believe that this nomination is a mistake, and it is why I am opposing the nomination tonight.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today, I want to recognize and honor the life of Kurt Paul Pfotenhauer, an extraordinary public servant and three-decade friend who passed away on January 21.

Kurt was, first and foremost, a man of deep Christian faith. He was guided in his public service not only by his conservative political beliefs but by that faith, his integrity, his humility, and his sense of responsibility for others.

When I first met Kurt, he had been named Senator Gordon Smith's chief of staff. Gordon and I were brand new Senators, and we had a Mount Hood-sized mountain to climb. That is because we were to fill the giant shoes of two retiring, very powerful U.S. Senators from Oregon.

Kurt and my chief of staff executed an agreement between Gordon and I to set aside our political differences whenever possible and go to bat for the

State of Oregon. That included making sure that our respective congressional and political staffs abided by that agreement. That last bit, as Senators know, sometimes can be easier said than done.

We quickly learned that Kurt's word really meant something. Trust can be awfully difficult to make happen in politics, even with those in your own political party, but we came to see that Kurt's word, in fact, was his bond. Our staffs learned to work together--occasionally through gritted teeth--and Kurt and Gordon always upheld their end of the agreement.

Those years of the Oregon bipartisan partnership with Gordon and Kurt were extraordinarily, extraordinarily important to me. I believe they were fruitful years, and we owe so much of that credit for all the collaboration to the leadership and decency of Kurt.

After Kurt left the Congress and Gordon's office, he went on to a very successful career in the financial services sector. He culminated his years there as executive vice president and vice chairman of First American Title Insurance. I know his colleagues there feel an enormous loss, too, because Kurt was the kind of individual who conducted himself professionally and lived his life daily in a way that served as an example, particularly to young people around him.

Kurt was generous with his time, his financial resources, and especially with his heart. He believed in the communities that he was a part of and he was beloved by the communities that he touched. His commitment to service was reflected in a lifelong dedication to always trying to help others. For decades, Kurt and his wonderful wife, Nancy, were sole supporters of The Children's Light Home orphanage in India. He served on the board of directors for the Opens Doors Foundation, and he helped provide mortgage and rental assistance to the many families that had disabled kids.

His support for those in need continued even in his final days. He extended help at that time to a chemo patient from out of town who lived out of the cab of his truck on his chemo days at the Mayo Clinic. Kurt helped his fellow patient with lodging. That, Mr. President--and I say this on behalf of all Oregonians who got to know Kurt--tells you what Kurt Pfotenhauer was always about, the Kurt we knew and the Kurt we loved.

He fought an incredibly courageous 18-month-long battle against cancer. Kurt used that time creating special memories with his beloved wife Nancy and their five kids and grandchildren. Family was everything to Kurt.

I want to extend a special thank-you to all of them for sharing Kurt with all of us here in the Senate, and I want to extend a heartfelt thank-you to Kurt's family on behalf of Oregonians and our Nation for all that he did to make our country and the great State of Oregon a better place.

Kurt's many wise and kind deeds on Earth are going to continue to create opportunity, and opportunity is what our country is all about. Opportunity is when we are at our best, and, my God, Kurt Pfotenhauer created a lot of opportunity for generations, in Oregon and in our country, to have a better life in the days ahead.

Kurt served as a trusted adviser and confidant to me, and that will be something I will always miss. My former chief of staff and I are always going to remember and love our friend Kurt Pfotenhauer. May his memory be a blessing to all who knew him and to all who have studied what he has done to make a difference. May people reflect on that in the days ahead and may it be a comfort.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, late last week, when I first scheduled this consent request that is relating to Jeffrey Epstein's bank records, I was not expecting it to be set against the backdrop of Donald Trump dragging America into yet another war in the Middle East.

I will address the horrific crimes and worldwide financial network of Mr. Epstein in a minute. Right at the outset, I need to address the actions of the Trump administration this past weekend.

This is a war the American people do not want, a war that has already cost American lives, a war the President and his scheming advisers have not even tried to justify, a war Donald Trump kicked off at his private club minutes before stepping out to celebrate at a glitzy fundraiser where attendees spent $1 million per plate.

Now, I remember the debate about the Iraq war 20 years ago, including the bad faith attacks against those of us who opposed it from the start.

No doubt there will be a replay of that debate. There will be some who say: War is on. It is time for everybody to line up behind the President and every other issue has got to go by the wayside. That is wrong.

It has been clear from the beginning that the core principle for this administration is that Donald Trump gets to do what he wants, no matter the cost, when he wants to. It doesn't matter to him how many American soldiers die as a result of the war. It doesn't matter how many people lose their health insurance or their livelihoods as a result of his policies.

And in the case of Mr. Epstein, it doesn't matter how many pedophiles and sex traffickers continue to walk the streets and prey on the vulnerable while the Trump administration hides essential Epstein files from the public.

The position of this administration is that Donald Trump can't do anything wrong. He gets to do what he wants, and everybody else has to obey. Ultimately, the American people aren't going to have it. I won't either, and that was the message in my town meetings this past weekend.

The last thing that I am going to do is to slow down or walk away from our 4-year investigation into Epstein's trafficking network because Donald Trump decided to kick off another open-ended war in the Middle East. So I am going to take just a few minutes to lay out why the Senate needs to pass my legislation demanding the release of the Epstein bank records that are at the Treasury Department.

Here is what Americans needs to know. Four years ago, my investigators on the Finance Committee began digging into the so-called tax planning that Jeffrey Epstein performed for one of the titans of Wall Street. That man was Leon Black. That relationship spawned sprawling financial ties, and Black had a curious story about their relationship. Here was a guy worth billions and billions of dollars, really a money-making machine.

He already employed the best tax and estate planning experts in the Nation.

But over the course of several years, Mr. Black paid Jeffrey Epstein $170 million for what he claimed was tax and estate planning advice.

Keep in mind that Jeffrey Epstein wasn't a tax lawyer or an accountant. The rates Black paid him were astronomical compared to what he was paying the experts that he already employed. So my investigators kept digging. What we found and what has been confirmed in more recent Epstein reports is that this story is a sham.

Jeffrey Epstein wasn't really doing serious tax and estate work, and Black's lawyers had to keep tabs on the advice he did give, which was often shoddy.

Our investigation grew. In late 2023, we reached out to the Biden Treasury Department and sought copies of the bank records that it had on Mr. Epstein. The Biden Treasury Department wouldn't give us the files, but they allowed my investigators to review them in-person and to take notes.

That is how I am aware today that there is a massive file of Epstein records at the Treasury Department. These are detailed bank records, a roadmap of Epstein's financial history.

In fact, they are filings made by banks specifically to alert Federal law enforcement to suspicious payments--evidence of possible financial crimes. They are designed to help the Treasury investigators in the Justice Department root out crimes like money laundering and trafficking.

My investigators reviewed a large portion of them on Valentine's Day 2024. We learned that Jeffrey Epstein made 4,725 wire transfers adding up to more than $1 billion in and out of his JPMorgan bank accounts in the decade after 2003.

We learned that he moved hundreds of millions of dollars more through accounts at Bank of New York Mellon and Deutsche Bank. We learned that he used Russian correspondent bank accounts to process hundreds of millions in payments associated with trafficking in Russia and Eastern Europe.

In the portion of the Epstein bank records that my investigators saw, there could be more than $1.5 billion in suspicious Epstein transactions laid out for law enforcement to review.

Mr. President and colleagues, this is a staggering amount, and it is inexplicably high based on what is currently known about Epstein's sources of income. These Epstein records are not among the files the Justice Department has released over the last few months.

The bill Congress passed requiring the release of the DOJ Epstein files doesn't affect the records at the Treasury Department at all. And the kicker, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is hiding these bank records from Senate investigators.

The Secretary refused repeatedly to turn them over, and he has refused to let us see what we already know is there. The administration came in with a whole lot of bluster about whether they were going to release the Epstein files. So I wanted to give them a chance to make good on their word.

I requested the complete set of files from the Treasury multiple times last spring and summer. Both times, I got denials. Secretary Bessent has even gone out in public and downplayed their significance. He has denied the Treasury has any investigative role with the Epstein files at all.

At an appearance last summer, he said the Epstein files were ``sitting there'' at the Treasury Department and that the Department's job was only to ``collect them.''

He said ``there were no files, per se, just hundreds and thousands of reports'' and ``our job is simply to collect the reports.''

Let me be clear on this: Secretary Bessent is not telling the American people the truth. A person with his background in finance absolutely knows perfectly well what the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network is all about. That is the law enforcement office within the Treasury Department that collects the bank records.

And the Secretary hasn't shied away from getting involved in other investigations. He has the Treasury Department launching all kinds of efforts to help the Trump administration's deportation campaign in Minnesota.

So the Secretary wants to have it both ways. When it comes to investigating people in communities the Trump administration considers to be adversaries, the Treasury Department and Mr. Bessent are totally aggressive. When it comes to investigating pedophiles with connections to Donald Trump, the files remain locked away.

So let me explain why it is important to break the Bessent hold on these documents. They would help investigators learn who funded and who enabled Epstein. They would help us see where his payments went. They would help us identify any connections to organized crime. They would help us learn more about Epstein's patterns, for example, how he controlled women and girls by controlling their accounts.

They would help reveal how Epstein's henchmen, including those who still control his estate, assisted in his crimes. That is the kind of information the Treasury Secretary's stranglehold on these documents is hiding from investigators. We have waited long enough.

But a week ago, there was a stunning news report that prompted my decision to come to the Senate floor with the unanimous consent request I will make today. CBS News reported on the existence of a mystery Epstein investigation going back to 2010, an investigation the public knew nothing about until now. It was spearheaded by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and its targets were Epstein and 14 others. It dealt with drug trafficking and money laundering in New York and the Virgin Islands.

The existence of this probe was revealed by a long memorandum prepared by one of the law enforcement agencies involved. That is an agency that specialized in breaking up transnational organized crime. Most of the 69-page memo was redacted, but the outlines are there. This was a major investigation that began in 2010 and ran at least into 2015.

So now, I am working on obtaining an unredacted copy of this memorandum from the Drug Enforcement Administration. There is no reason for the Trump administration to withhold it. It literally says ``unclassified'' at the top of every page. I have got several other questions about the investigation's conclusion and its findings.

One obvious takeaway is that the Senate cannot allow the Treasury Secretary to keep the Epstein bank records hidden any longer. The evidence out in public is clear. This wasn't some small-time operation run by Epstein and Maxwell. It is a miscarriage of justice that they are the only two persons who face prosecution in the United States.

Epstein's network spanned the globe. It involved extraordinarily powerful and wealthy people. It involved serious financial crimes and huge flows of money. And now, based on the revelation of a Drug Enforcement Administration investigation, we now know as we stand here today it may have involved drugs and drug cartels.

The Treasury Secretary in an administration that was interested in justice would have a team of highly skilled investigators digging through the Epstein bank records to assist with prosecutions.

Instead, Mr. Bessent, Pam Bondi, the entire Trump group in Congress, and the administration is covering up for pedophiles, sex traffickers, and, quite possibly, drug cartels.

If they are not going to do any investigating, the Senate ought to be able to step in. That is what my bill is all about. It mandates that the Treasury turn over these Epstein bank records to Senate investigators.

We will do the job the Trump administration should have started on day one. And there is an important new reason to pass the bill. There is a lot of Epstein-related news that breaks nearly every day.

I would wager that a lot of banks where Epstein and his network did business are following the news, maybe following this discussion, and taking a second look at his transactions.

It is entirely possible that there are new bank filings coming in today, and they are flagging a new set of suspicious transactions that deserve investigation. The Treasury Secretary is blocking that investigation from happening.

Before I wrap up, I just want to note this: I first sought these documents in 2023, and that was under a Democratic administration. I requested copies of

them again in 2024 after my investigators reviewed a portion of them in-person at the Treasury Department.

I am still frustrated that the Biden administration didn't provide them. So nobody has a right to claim that we didn't come out on this issue in a bipartisan way.

My investigation will move forward in other directions as well. I continue to believe that some of the biggest banks on Wall Street were among Epstein's biggest enablers. JPMorgan, BNY Mellon, Deutsche Bank, and others had opportunity after opportunity to blow the whistle, and they just kept looking the other way.

These aren't itty-bitty banks in Utah or Oregon. These were big Wall Street banks, and they looked the other way.

And particularly in the case of JPMorganChase, the evidence shows they knew what Epstein was up to, and they looked the other way because he brought in mountains of cash. They waited until after he died to flag more than 99 percent of his suspicious payments. By then, it was too late to do any good in terms of stopping him.

So now, Congress must change the rules, and I intend to push this to make sure that this kind of bank reporting to prevent this kind of horrendous situation where so many young women and families were hurt-- I am going to make sure that this situation doesn't happen again.

There is a lot more to come from my investigation. From the beginning, I have welcomed participation from both sides, and that still stands. And my colleagues here in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, know that my door is open to all of them.

We are going to stay at it until we have all the facts because they are not blue and red. And then I am going to have a major reform effort so the Wall Street banks can never, never, never hurt the American people the way they have by handling the Epstein investigation.

I strongly hope my colleagues will support my request to pass my bill, the Produce Epstein Treasury Records Act. There is no excuse for the Secretary of the Treasury to continue blocking our access to the Epstein bank records.

So, therefore, Mr. President, notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged from further consideration of S. 2746 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the Wyden substitute amendment, which is at the desk, be considered and agreed to; that the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, I am going to be very brief.

First of all, as my colleague knows, we are talking about a different set of files. I am concerned about the Treasury Department. What my colleague is talking about is essentially the Justice Department.

And what is needed here is more investigations rather than less, and nobody has the expertise that we have on the Senate Finance Committee. The Treasury Secretary knows that, and that is why his strategy is just to slow-walk this. He is just hoping this disappears.

Well, I have said it at home, and I have said it again at a townhall meeting: I want everybody to know that we are not going anywhere on this. We are going to stay at it until all the information comes out. We are going to have a bank reform proposal.

My colleague is on the Banking Committee. I look forward to him seeing my bank reform proposal because these Wall Street banks behaved abominably.

They saw what was going on. I happen to think one of the reasons they did it is because they liked the fact that Epstein was giving them referrals.

So my colleague and I agree on a number of issues. Pharmaceutical benefit managers would be one. But we couldn't disagree more on this. And until the slow-walking ends, the investigation that I have launched and has taken place over 4 years and has blown the whistle on a lot of important steps, it is a beginning. We will stay at it until we have got real reform.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, we will make this really brief.

I have made a number of requests specifically for the information that my colleague has now described as something that is going to come out.

I will believe it when I see it.

What I do know is the Treasury Department has stonewalled us every single day through the Trump administration.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, this legislation prohibits any individual--senior citizens, people with disabilities, our veterans, refugees, and the poorest of the poor--from sending money to friends or family overseas for any reason. That prohibition includes American citizens as well. So if you are a veteran who served our country and who counts on your VA benefits, you had better not provide any financial support to your grandmother living abroad or, under this legislation, you could be fined $100,000.

The legislation comes straight from a very cruel playbook: First, target public programs that provide a lifeline to low- and middle- income people; second, smear the recipients of this help by characterizing them as fraudsters; and third, use the exaggerated claims as a pretext to slash funding. That was the playbook at the heart of the Republicans' major legislation, which made the biggest ever cuts to healthcare and food assistance in the history of America.

Why were those awful cuts made that are causing hospitals to shutter their labor and delivery units and slash staff? To fund the ICE surge that has led to untrained Federal agents roaming the streets of America's communities, committing violence with impunity.

That major legislation also lavished tax breaks onto the ultrawealthy while doing nothing to crack down on the billions that wealthy tax cheats don't pay their fair share with each year.

This legislation represents a dark heart--a dark heart of the Republican agenda: Scapegoat those who don't have a voice while letting the wealthy and well connected get off the hook.

If my colleagues on the other side really were worried about money leaving the United States, I can tell you, as the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, they can look at their own tax laws that encourage giant corporations to ship jobs and factories overseas. They ought to figure out why the Trump economy is driving investors and their dollars away from America and into foreign markets.

It would be an understatement to say this legislation is a solution in search of a problem. This legislation is obviously some kind of messaging bill that would challenge the very foundations of what draws people from all over the world to America--the chance to imagine and create a better life for themselves and their families.

For those reasons, I object.

I yield the floor.

Since my colleague is talking about my family's background, you might be interested to know that my parents fled the Nazis in the thirties. Not all got out. And we were especially proud of my two parents, who weren't at all interested in coming to America for any benefits, as my colleague is suggesting; they persuaded themselves that they should be in our Army. My dad was one of the famous Ritchie Boys, renowned for their service to the country, writing the propaganda pamphlets we dropped on the Nazis. So my colleague is way off base with his comments about my family.

Finally, you might want to do some checking. When I first read this, I thought maybe my colleague and his staff just didn't get the text written correctly because the people who are really upset now are the veterans, people who wore the uniform of the United States, who my colleague is putting in a hardship situation, according to staff.

I just wanted to make sure the record was correct.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I oppose the nomination of Joshua Rudd to be Director of the NSA. His responses to questions posed to him at his confirmation hearing, as well as to written questions, reveal a lack of familiarity with basic constitutional rights that is incompatible with the position for which he has been nominated.

The NSA's surveillance authorities are vast and, if anything, underappreciated by the American people. The Agency plays a central role in executing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act , but also conducts extensive operations outside of FISA and pursuant only to Executive order. The potential for abuse is enormous, as we saw when the Agency secretly conducted an illegal, warrantless surveillance program that it hid not only from the public but from Congress.

Our country faces a dangerous moment in which constitutional rights are under attack. For example, we recently learned that the administration secretly decided that the government doesn't need a judicial warrant to break into a private home. In other words, the administration is trying to invalidate the Fourth Amendment.

It was in that context that I asked General Rudd what he would do if directed to target people in the United States for surveillance without a judicial warrant. I offered him the opportunity to answer with a yes or a no. I didn't get an answer. I proposed that he offer general thoughts on the matter, but got nothing of substance. I did everything in my power to allow him to demonstrate some understanding of the basic guardrails of NSA's authorities and got nothing but vague assurances about following the law.

There were other topics on which General Rudd's responses were disappointing. He wouldn't associate himself with NSA's previous commitment not to buy and use Americans' location data. He also refused to say whether the government should be allowed to mandate backdoors into encryption used by Americans.

His responses related to transparency were also troubling. In addition to statutes and the Constitution, NSA is bound by numerous procedures and guardrails which are publicly available. So I asked General Rudd whether, if the NSA were to operate in violation of those procedures and guardrails, he would inform the American people. He refused to make that commitment. He even refused to promise to inform the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The Director of NSA has another job, that of Commander of U.S. Cyber Command. The demands of this job are mind-boggling. The cyber threat to the United States cannot be overstated. And, as SALT TYPHOON demonstrated, our adversaries have succeeded in inflicting serious damage to U.S. national security. The Commander of CYBERCOM needs to have a sophisticated understanding of this threat and how it has evolved over time. He or she needs to be able to see this threat in its geopolitical context and to fully grasp both the technical capabilities and the policy options that might help counter the threat. General Rudd, despite his service, does not have the background that would allow him to immediately step into this role. He is not qualified for this job. And, when it comes to the cybersecurity of this country, there is simply no time for on-the-job learning. The threat is just too urgent for that.

For these reasons, I oppose the nomination.

Mr. President, this month marks the 15th year since the people of Bahrain took to the streets to peacefully protest oppressive practices by the Bahraini Government and champion democratic reform in their homeland. As protestors engaged in civil disobedience, the Kingdom of Bahrain brutally repressed its citizens, claiming the lives of dozens, and injuring hundreds. Despite 15 years passing since Bahrainis demanded their leaders enact reform, the country continues to engage in systematic human rights abuses against its citizens. I will continue to stand in solidarity with the Bahraini people for as long as it takes to achieve accountability and ensure the fundamental rights of Bahrainis are upheld.

The Government of Bahrain continues to impose restrictions on expression, assembly, and association. During the first 6 months of 2025, there were 37 documented violations against activists, writers, and internet users.

Even after 15 years, Bahraini elections are neither free nor fair, and authorities systematically exclude and repress opposition voices. The government continues to bar former members of the opposition parties from running for Parliament or sitting on boards of governors of civil society organizations.

The Bahraini Government restricts religious freedom, resorting to state violence against its Shia population. In July 2025, during an Ashura commemoration, Bahraini authorities launched a campaign of arrests and summonses, violently targeting 60 citizens.

Despite significant releases of political prisoners since 2024, many continue to be arbitrarily detained, including those with a connection to the 2011 protests. Twenty-six individuals remain on death row despite credible allegations of torture during their interrogations and unfair trials. In April 2025, authorities detained 22 citizens. Several were linked to peaceful activism or suspected of intending to organize demonstrations. They were forcefully taken during raids at their homes, workplaces, or in public spaces. This sharp increase in detentions appears to be a preemptive effort to silence dissent, sending a chilling message to citizens engaged in peaceful opposition.

During the United Nations' periodic review, the United Nations Committee Against Torture stated it remained concerned about consistent reports indicating people in detention are subject to torture and ill treatment. The Government of Bahrain continues to block internationally recognized human rights organizations from visiting the country, leading to a lack of oversight that enables abuses to be carried out with impunity.

The Bahraini Government has had 15 years to enact real change to ensure the fundamental rights guaranteed by its constitution and international agreements are upheld. Still, after all these years, the Government of Bahrain has yet to fulfill its promises of reform.

The United States must hold Bahrain accountable and to a high standard of human rights and rule of the law, as we should do with all of our allies. Security cooperation must go hand-in-hand with respect for human rights and democratic reform. The United States-Bahrain relationship is strongest when we champion shared values of good governance and fundamental rights.

I renew my call for the Government of Bahrain to end its efforts to silence peaceful opposition, to stop its persecution of citizens, and to release all political prisoners who are serving unjust sentences for their defense of human rights.

And I call on the Trump administration and, in particular, Secretary Rubio to take these human rights concerns seriously and demand substantive reform and greater accountability from Bahrain.

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

Mr. President, in a little bit, the Senate is going to decide whether or not to interfere with the tax policy decisions made by the elected representatives of the 700,000 people who live in the Nation's Capital. My view is, leave DC alone.

There are a lot of very good reasons to oppose this resolution. For one, anybody who listens to debates here in the Congress hears an awful lot of talk from the other side about States' rights--the importance of making policy decisions at the State and local level. This resolution is just another example of my Republican colleagues totally junking that proposition altogether to trample on the rights and priorities of people they don't even represent.

Second, if the Senate passes this resolution, it is going to mess up the tax filing season for thousands and thousands of residents of the city. The DC government is going to have to spend millions fixing that mess over the course of several months. So you can forget about all the speeches about good government and fiscal discipline when it comes to this resolution. It is undemocratic and wasteful.

And third--and here is the stunner--if the Senate passes this resolution, it would throw out two big anti-poverty programs that the DC area is implementing: a brand new child tax credit and a big expansion of DC's earned income tax credit. So the end effect here is thousands more kids living in poverty and higher rates of poverty overall in the Nation's Capital.

The elected representatives in DC looked at the city's big economic challenges--challenges made much worse by the Trump administration--and then they decided to shore up the city's fiscal health and bring down poverty at the same time.

I ask my colleagues on the other side: Who are you to overrule them?

Let's remember, if Congress sits back and leaves the District of Columbia alone, absolutely nothing changes for us, and absolutely nothing changes for the people we represent at home.

When it comes to making life better for our constituents, this is literally a waste of time. All this resolution does is stick it to a bunch of kids and families living in poverty, meddle with democracy in a city of 700,000 people, and waste millions of dollars by creating bureaucratic headaches out of thin air.

I urge my colleagues strongly to oppose this resolution.

I yield the floor.