Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I am placing a hold on the nomination of Michael Faulkender to be Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, which was reported favorably from the Finance Committee on September 18, 2018. I will maintain that hold until the Treasury Department provides the Senate Finance Committee sufficient information and documents related to Russia and its financial dealings with President Trump and his associates, as well as outside organizations Russia used to help elect him. I originally asked for these documents on May 10, 2017, and, to date, have still not received satisfactory responses to these important matters.

I have stated repeatedly that we must follow the money if we are going to get to the bottom of how Russia has attacked our democracy. That means thoroughly reviewing any information that relates to financial connections between Russia and President Trump and his associates, whether direct or laundered through hidden or illicit transactions.

The Treasury Department for which Mr. Faulkender is nominated to serve is responsible for much of this information. The Treasury Department authorities include intelligence and enforcement functions to combat financial crimes and threats, including money laundering.

For these reasons, I will object to any unanimous consent request concerning the nomination of Mr. Faulkender until these issues are resolved.

Mr. President, the Senate is a bit behind in terms of the schedule. I ask unanimous consent, as the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee--we will be voting on Mr. Rettig here shortly--that I be allowed to speak for up to 15 minutes at the conclusion of my colleague Senator Bennet's remarks.

Mr. President, the Senate is considering tonight the nomination of Charles Rettig to lead the Internal Revenue Service. Let's be clear. This is not a typical IRS Commissioner debate.

Over the last several months, the Trump administration has weaponized the Tax Code to punish its political adversaries and benefit shadowy, far-right groups that seek to buy American elections. Two months ago, just hours after Maria Butina was outed as an alleged Russian spy who sought to influence our elections, the Trump administration announced a new rule, opening the floodgates to more dark money and foreign money in American politics. Dark money groups used to be required to disclose their donors to the IRS. With this new Trump rule, they will not be required to disclose at all.

To my colleagues, here is what this all means. Over the next 2 months, while political ads flood the airwaves, millions of Americans are going to wonder how much of this stuff is paid for by law-breaking foreigners and special interests. Because of the new rule, the Internal Revenue Service and law enforcement are going to be in the dark as well. There are a few reasons this new rule is unjustifiable and undemocratic.

First, it had no debate in the Finance Committee, where we have jurisdiction over the Tax Code. It had no debate on the Senate floor. I do recall my Republican colleagues bemoaning what they considered to be anti-conservative political interference by the Internal Revenue Service even when none was found. Now, with a Republican administration in office, they are changing

the tax rules to allow for more political interference by creative outside groups and foreigners.

Second, the timing of this announcement could not have more clearly underscored the rotten corruption at the heart of this policy. The new dark money rule was announced on a Monday night--the same day it was revealed that Maria Butina had been indicted for using the National Rifle Association as a conduit to influence our democracy with personal and financial ties. Another administration, in seeing that kind of news come down, might have said: Hey, we ought to hold off on making drastic changes. It might have said: Let's put a little more space between the indictment of an alleged Russian spy and the rollout of our dark money rule that would make the spy's job even easier--not this Trump administration. It was undeterred. It, obviously, decided it could not wait to get this new rule on the books to make it easier for foreign actors and special interests to hide in the shadows while their dollars influence our elections.

The tax rules and election laws in America, with respect to who has to disclose political spending, are already badly broken, especially after Citizens United. Now the administration is taking an enormous problem and making it much worse. The Trump dark money rule is only going to mean that individual Americans will have even less faith that they will be in control of our democracy. This takes us even further from the true meaning of one person, one vote. It puts even more power and more influence in the hands of the special interests.

The fact is, the arguments for this change do not add up. I have heard members of the Trump administration say, including the Treasury Secretary, that none of this information was public before, so there is no reason to collect it; that there is just no big deal here.

To my colleagues, the overwhelming majority of Americans want more disclosure, not less. The administration, in effect, admits it was not using the information political donors used to have to turn over. It sounds to me like the Trump argument for this dark money rule goes pretty much like this: We were not going to enforce the campaign spending laws anyway, so we decided not to bother collecting the special interest information at all.

That is going to be cold comfort to the millions of Americans who are going to get clobbered by enormously funded political ads for the next 2 months before our election.

The bottom line is, the Trump dark money rule is anti-law enforcement, anti-democratic, and anti-disclosure. It puts a blindfold on law enforcement at the exact moment Congress ought to be coming up with new approaches to shed more sunlight on political spending and defend American democracy from foreign influence.

The Finance Committee's vote on Mr. Rettig's nomination was, coincidentally, scheduled to take place during the same week the rule came down. Obviously, this issue was a focal point in the discussion. I raised the issue during the markup. Mr. Rettig had an opportunity to tell the committee he would try to fix it. He did not. He wouldn't even acknowledge the serious problem here for the cause of transparency and openness in our government.

In my view, this rule ought to be put up to the same standard of scrutiny the majority has applied to several other rules that were put in place by the previous administration. The Senate ought to use the powers granted to it by the Congressional Review Act, and it ought to vote on whether this rule should stand. Yet now the Trump administration is taking unprecedented steps to hide its dark money policy from that kind of scrutiny. Trump officials are keeping their rule off the official books for as long as they can to prevent the Senate from holding their dark money rule to the same standard that had been applied to the Obama administration.

When it publishes the rule in the Federal Register or it confirms that it will not be published there but will be published elsewhere, the rule becomes eligible for a challenge under the Congressional Review Act. So far, the Trump administration hasn't taken either step, even though I asked for a response 3 weeks ago. As a result, in the Senate, we have been unable to get a straight answer as to when it is coming or whether it plans to publish the congressional review issue at all. It looks to me like the administration has a policy on its hands that it knows is corrupt, that it knows is undemocratic, so it is playing hide the ball. The more the public hears about the dark money rule, the less it likes it, and we are going to keep talking about it.

I close with one last point, in that there is a lot about the Trump tax policy to be concerned about this evening. Senator Menendez talked about how blue States, like Oregon, California, New Jersey, and others, were hit with a gut punch. Capping the State and local tax deductions to target people in those States reveals the rotten core of the Trump tax policy. Tonight, as we consider the Rettig nomination, I don't know of anything more corrupt in front of this body than to make it even harder for the American people to know where dark money--foreign money--is coming from.

For that reason, I urge my colleagues to oppose the Rettig nomination. He was asked to acknowledge that this is a serious problem. He wouldn't go there. He was asked to describe what he would do to correct the problem. He wouldn't go there. This is as corrupt as anything I know of before the U.S. Senate, and I will be working with my colleagues to fix this dark money crisis and undo the damage the Trump tax law has brought on, and I will be opposing the Rettig nomination.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I want to recognize and honor the late Dr. Thomas C. Maness, dean of the College of Forestry at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR, for his outstanding contributions to forest research and his efforts to grow the wood product industry in my State and nationwide.

Dr. Maness served as dean of Oregon State University's College of Forestry from 2012 until his death on July 12. He was a visionary leader in my State and was known around the world for his advocacy of science-based management in the stewardship of our lands and resources. Under his guidance, the College of Forestry earned worldwide recognition for its innovative research and is currently the top-ranked program in the United States and second in the world. Dr. Maness's leadership has improved the health of our lands, people, businesses, and ecosystems by bringing credible, relevant, and timely information and science to our public and private forest land managers.

Prior to arriving at Oregon State University, Dr. Maness worked in both the private and public sectors, logging substantial achievements managing lands in the northwest, honing his scholarship in forest science and engineered timber products in both Europe and Canada, even contributing to the research arm of the U.S. Forest Service here in Washington, DC. He spent a decade in the industry as a research engineer and founded the Canadian National Centre of Excellence in Advancing Wood Processing at the University of British Columbia. Working closely with industry, Dr. Maness advanced research in sawmill optimization and real-time quality control systems and believed deeply that his research efforts should be translated into practical use for professional foresters and manufacturers.

Dr. Maness built his career on collaboration and believed it was key to effective forest management. He worked tirelessly to bridge the urban-rural divide and bring new economic life to our forest-dependent rural communities by starting what is now a nationwide movement to use mass timber building components such as cross-laminated timber in tall buildings. He called it the Forest to Frame movement. Dr. Maness truly represents what I call the Oregon Way: bringing everyone together, using science, collaboration, and cooperation to foster healthy, working landscapes capable of supporting local economies and our strong stewardship values.

Healthy forests, people, businesses, and ecosystems are the heart of the Pacific Northwest, and Oregonians feel a strong connection to these values. Dr. Maness sought balance between these ideals and provided not only Oregonians, but the Nation, with sound guidance on all matters related to one of our greatest natural resources. Dr.

Maness will be remembered for his tremendous contributions to forest management and science.

Mr. President, the Trump administration is engulfed in scandal. The President has been implicated in at least one felony. His former campaign chief, former deputy campaign chief, longtime personal lawyer, and former national security adviser are all confessed or convicted felons. With every passing week comes a shocking new revelation about Russian interference in the 2016 election, another bombshell report detailing their infiltration of conservative circles, or another story about how woefully underprepared the United States is to defend against another attack.

Here in Congress, Republicans have their heads buried in the sand. It sure seems like they are going to keep on pretending it is business as usual.

A year ago, I placed a hold on a Treasury nomination--Isabel Patelunas to be Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis-- because of the Department's refusal to turn over documents related to follow-the-money issues and other key investigative questions. Since then, colleagues, Treasury's stonewalling has not changed. In fact, in light of all that has been revealed in the last year, their stonewalling is even more unpardonable.

The Treasury Department is participating in the coverup of criminal activity. The least the Congress can do--the very least--is hold nominees until the administration changes its behavior. It ought to happen on a bipartisan basis. Republicans ought to stand up with Democrats and say, ``This is dangerous. This is corrosive to our democracy. This is wrong.''

Leader McConnell has gone ahead, filed cloture, and called votes on the Patelunas nomination without doing any of that.

For me, this started a year ago, when I asked the Treasury to provide the Finance Committee with key documents related to follow-the-money and Russia. I am the ranking Democrat on the committee, which has jurisdiction over the Treasury Department. We have a team of skilled investigators who are highly adept at digging into the kinds of questions that had been raised about Russian oligarchs like Alexander Torshin and about shell companies and other forms of money laundering and illicit finance. That is why I requested these documents from the Treasury, but the Treasury essentially blew us off.

Russia's interference in our democracy has been thoroughly covered in news reports, and many of those reports get right to the heart of why I have called for investigators to follow the money. I will quote from an article in Buzzfeed about Alexander Torshin, the accused Russian spy Maria Butina, and her American associate Paul Erickson.

``[Butina's] indictment said that she was communicating with Russian intelligence while here and was `acting at the direction of a high- level official in the Russian government.'

``That person, federal authorities told BuzzFeed News, is Alexander Torshin--Butina's former boss, once a member of Russia's upper house of parliament, and a close confidant of President Vladimir Putin.

``In 2015, Torshin was appointed deputy governor of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation and Butina was hired as his special assistant. Torshin is believed to have close ties to gun rights activists in the US, and McClatchy reported that the FBI is investigating whether Torshin illegally funneled money to the NRA.

``According to her indictment, Butina worked for Torshin until May 2016, and she came to the US on a student visa later that summer. The same month, Spanish authorities reported that Torshin had been laundering money for [a] Moscow-based . . . crime syndicate.

``This year, Torshin was among the Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for playing a key role in `advancing Russia's malign activities.' Law enforcement sources told BuzzFeed News that tens of millions of dollars in his suspicious financial transactions were flagged by Treasury officials working on the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Russian influence.

``These transactions included large, round-number wire transfers--a hallmark of money laundering--from Istanbul and Dubai, the sources said.''

Elsewhere in the report, Buzzfeed outlined how anti-fraud investigators at a major bank flagged transactions by Erickson and Butina as suspicious. Again, I will quote from the article.

``The two also appeared to use a company, Bridges LLC, to conduct suspicious transactions. Bank officials said they couldn't determine the purpose of the company, which was incorporated in South Dakota in February 2016. Butina was listed as the `sole signer' on its checking account, but Erickson wrote and signed checks from it. He told McClatchy that Bridges was formed to help Butina obtain financial assistance for her graduate studies . . .

``About $89,000 passed between Erickson's US accounts and one held by Butina at Russia's Alfa Bank. In 2014, Erickson received $8,000 from Butina's Alfa account. Between June 2016 and March 2017, Erickson sent a dozen wires to her Alfa account totaling $27,000.

About $93,000 was sent or received during a single four-month period--from May to August 2017 . . . Bank officials discovered wires, checks, transfers, and cash deposits totaling that amount, including checks made out to cash, between the duo's accounts last year.

``In June and July 2017, Erickson wired $45,000 to an unidentified law firm in Washington on Butina's behalf. It is not known why Butina retained an attorney at that point, and her current lawyer, Robert Driscoll, told BuzzFeed News that his firm was not the recipient of the money.

``. . . Investigators from Wells Fargo flagged dozens of other suspicious transactions involving Butina and Erickson for FBI agents and the Treasury Department's financial crimes division. Bank investigators told Treasury officials they were suspicious about where the money came from and that they could find no `apparent economic, business, or lawful purpose' for the transactions.''

I am not going to comment on any classified material, and I am not confirming these reports, but these articles are right out in the open. The information reported by Buzzfeed alone ought to have been enough to convince Senators that the administration needs to be forced to comply with oversight requests from the Congress--just that one report--and that is far from the only bombshell that has dropped in the last year since I announced a hold on the Patelunas nomination. Still, Treasury is stonewalling. They are blocking our oversight and our investigations at every turn.

It is an outrage that Senate Republicans are apparently A-OK with this stonewalling.

So colleagues, here is what I want to know: When does it become too much? How many reports detailing election interference does the Senate need to stand up and take action? How many stories about shell companies and shadowy payments from oligarchs need to come out into the open? Maria Butina is sitting in a jail cell in northern Virginia--how many other spies need to be arrested before Senate Republicans stand up to an administration that is hiding the facts?

A year ago, the President's son confirmed meeting with Russians in Trump Tower during the campaign, at least one of them connected to Russian intelligence. Senate Republicans did not try to get answers.

On the morning of Monday, July 16, Maria Butina was charged with being a Russian spy. It was revealed she had infiltrated a ``gun rights organization'' and woven herself into prominent conservative circles to manipulate our politics. That same day, the Trump administration announced a pro-dark money rule that would make it easier to get away with this kind of lawbreaking the next time. Republicans did nothing about it.

Last Tuesday afternoon, Paul Manafort was found guilty on five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account. Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to charges of tax evasion, bank fraud, and two felony campaign finance violations he said he committed at the President's direction.

Again, Donald Trump has been implicated in a felony campaign finance violation. Manafort and Cohen, who are convicted and confessed felons, are both deeply enmeshed in the broader investigation into Russia's interference in our election and potential collusion with the Trump campaign.

The very same day, Senator Warner, as part of his questioning on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, had to repeatedly press Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury Department's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Crimes, during a hearing on the effectiveness of Russian sanctions, to be more responsive to bipartisan requests from the Intelligence Committee. Treasury is 8 months behind in their responses to some requests.

To her credit, Ms. Mandelker said she would respond in a timely manner, though she noted she would have to consult with people back at her office. The problem is that, pretty much every time anyone from this administration has uttered such a promise, it has been broken faster than it takes a wildfire to spread in the arid West.

Regardless of the promises made, the very next day, Leader McConnell went ahead and filed cloture on a nomination I have been holding due to the Treasury's stonewalling over those exact issues.

Colleagues, the President is routinely attacking the rule of law in this country. He is attacking the Justice Department, which is run by people he appointed. He has mused about pardoning people who are unquestionably guilty of committing crimes. He said that perhaps it should be illegal for individuals to cooperate with law enforcement by providing information that can bring criminals and coconspirators to justice.

When is enough enough?

In my view, nobody in this body, in their heart of hearts, could possibly believe that the ties between the President, his associates, the Trump organization, and Russia do not warrant thorough investigation. You could not possibly have kept up with the news over the last 18 months and come to any other conclusion. Everybody can smell the smoke, but you would have to blind yourself not to see the fire.

By stonewalling our investigations, the Treasury is complicit in the coverup. They are hiding the facts from the Congress and the American people. The Senate's powers of oversight and investigation are derived from the Constitution of the United States, and the Trump administration is trampling all over it. Every member of this body, Democrat and Republican, ought to be outraged.

That is why it is wrong to proceed with the Patelunas nomination. I drew the line here, with this nominee, but Leader McConnell filed cloture against my known wishes, scheduling the vote to collide with Members' plans to attend Senator McCain's memorial.

Furthermore, what the Treasury Department is doing to keep this information about follow-the-money hidden in the shadows is wrong. The Senate should not stand for it.

Mr. President, today the Senate confirmed the nomination of Lynn Johnson to lead the Administration for Children and Families. In less chaotic times, she would be running an office that few people outside of Washington would hear much about. In the coming months, however, she will be responsible for undoing a lot of the damage this administration has done with respect to separating immigrant children from their parents.

There are a few key matters I want to discuss today as this debate closes.

As the ranking Democrat on the Finance Committee, I voted against sending Ms. Johnson's nomination to the Senate floor. There were far too many unanswered questions and misleading statements from the administration regarding its family separation policy.

In the last week, I spoke with Ms. Johnson at length about what she needs to accomplish if she is confirmed. She committed to me that she would change how the Administration for Children and Families, and particularly the Office of Refugee Resettlement, handle several key policies. I want to guarantee that those commitments are laid out on the record.

First, Ms. Johnson made several commitments to improve the treatment of the kids in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement or in facilities that receive grants from ORR. Those changes include prohibiting solitary confinement as a punishment or an attempt to change behavior; prohibiting arbitrary restraint policies; prohibiting the distribution of psychotropic medications or sedatives outside of emergency situations; unless the agency or facility has the informed, written consent of a parent or guardian; prohibiting any security measures that are not necessary for children's protection, such as denying children access to drinking water or preventing them from making private phone calls; and guaranteeing the confidentiality of information disclosed by children to therapists and counselors during treatment.

Ms. Johnson also committed to ensuring that separated children can call their parents or legal guardians as frequently as they wish. Calls can be monitored if there are documented safety concerns, but otherwise, ORR and private facilities cannot prevent kids from talking to their parents or guardians. If the parent or guardian is in the custody of Homeland Security, the agencies must establish a way to connect them by phone.

Finally, Ms. Johnson committed to conducting a full review, within 90 days, of the oversight, staffing, training, medication, and licensing policies for ORR-funded facilities. She will issue a report to Congress describing

the oversight of those facilities, as well as the actions the Administration for Children and Families will take to correct any problems.

That review will include a stem-to-stern examination of the policies related to services offered to immigrants after their release. That includes legal services and healthcare, including reproductive healthcare.

If Ms. Johnson's agency cannot complete that review in 90 days, they will provide a summary of their work to date and give the Congress a new timeline and a guarantee of when the process will be finalized.

Let me be very clear: These are not suggestions from me or from the Finance Committee. These are commitments set in stone. The Finance Committee is going to watchdog this every day going forward. We will do everything in our power to hold Ms. Johnson to these commitments.

This administration's continuing mistreatment of migrant children and their parents is cruel and inhuman. Separating kids from their parents has harmful, long-lasting effects to these kids' physical and mental well-being. There is a lot of work left to be done reunifying the families that were broken apart as a result of the administration's ``zero tolerance'' policy. I believe Lynn Johnson will be an improvement. I supported her nomination today, but you can bet my colleagues and I are going to go to every length to hold her to the commitments she has made.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act of 2018 to help Americans who have been driven away from their homes by choking, hazardous wildfire smoke. Western wildfires are getting bigger, hotter, and more difficult to fight and scientists says it's only likely to get worse.

Folks back home in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest already know what I'm talking about because they're on the front lines of these disasters. With dryer summers and lower snow packs, wildfires rage across the West. They're threatening lives, homes, and businesses and generating so much smoke that they're creating what I call clean air refugees.

These are people who can't go outside and, in some cases, who must flee their homes and communities to find pockets of fresh air.

I'm talking about children suffering from asthma and other conditions and seniors who need a respirator to breathe.

In some cases, Oregonians lacking access to safe, clean air are being told to seek shelter in public places like libraries and government buildings.

My legislation would help provide some relief by opening the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Transitional Sheltering Assistance program to people seeking temporary shelter from wildfire smoke.

This program already permits FEMA to pay for temporary lodging for people who can't immediately return home following a disaster.

My bill would permit clean air refugees to apply if they live in an area where the air quality index is determined to be unhealthy for at least three consecutive days as the result of a wildfire declared to be a major disaster by the President or Governor of the affected state.

FEMA-approved applicants would pick from a list of participating hotels and motels and FEMA would pay the lodging costs.

Mr. President, the Federal government needs to step up and be a better partner on these wildfires and it can start by helping Americans who have been driven from their homes find some refuge.

Passing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act would be a breath of fresh air for folks struggling to escape the choking smoke, and I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act of 2018 to help Americans who have been driven away from their homes by choking, hazardous wildfire smoke. Western wildfires are getting bigger, hotter, and more difficult to fight and scientists says it's only likely to get worse.

Folks back home in Oregon and across the Pacific Northwest already know what I'm talking about because they're on the front lines of these disasters. With dryer summers and lower snow packs, wildfires rage across the West. They're threatening lives, homes, and businesses and generating so much smoke that they're creating what I call clean air refugees.

These are people who can't go outside and, in some cases, who must flee their homes and communities to find pockets of fresh air.

I'm talking about children suffering from asthma and other conditions and seniors who need a respirator to breathe.

In some cases, Oregonians lacking access to safe, clean air are being told to seek shelter in public places like libraries and government buildings.

My legislation would help provide some relief by opening the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) Transitional Sheltering Assistance program to people seeking temporary shelter from wildfire smoke.

This program already permits FEMA to pay for temporary lodging for people who can't immediately return home following a disaster.

My bill would permit clean air refugees to apply if they live in an area where the air quality index is determined to be unhealthy for at least three consecutive days as the result of a wildfire declared to be a major disaster by the President or Governor of the affected state.

FEMA-approved applicants would pick from a list of participating hotels and motels and FEMA would pay the lodging costs.

Mr. President, the Federal government needs to step up and be a better partner on these wildfires and it can start by helping Americans who have been driven from their homes find some refuge.

Passing the Clean Air Refugee Assistance Act would be a breath of fresh air for folks struggling to escape the choking smoke, and I urge my colleagues to support this important bill.

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

Mr. President, what the Trump administration is doing to sabotage healthcare in our country is a monumental scandal in slow motion. What the President promised was better care for all Americans at lower cost. What he and his officials have delivered is special deals for special interests and rewards for rip-offs.

It is almost as if you took the clock above the Chamber and turned it back. What Americans want--and I heard it at townhall meetings last weekend at home in Oregon--is to move forward on healthcare. They want, for example, to have strong measures, not empty rhetoric, to hold down the cost of their medicines--lifting the restrictions so that Medicare can bargain and hold down the cost of medicine and use the smart principles of negotiating power that the private sector uses all the time. They want to move forward on healthcare, not backward.

There is no clearer example of the administration's trying to take the country back on healthcare than its efforts to give a green light to junk health insurance. Junk health insurance represents all of the unsavory insurance industry tricks and abuses that the Affordable Care Act sought to eliminate. Junk plans exist, literally and figuratively, so that companies can prey on the vulnerable and the people with preexisting conditions, such as if you have asthma or diabetes, or prey on women, prey on older people, or prey on the less fortunate. They certainly don't exist to cover the healthcare that Americans actually need because that is where they always fall short.

The centerpiece of the Affordable Care Act was an ironclad, loophole- free guarantee that no American would ever face discrimination over a preexisting condition.

I note that my friend, the President of the Senate, has joined the Chamber. He knows this pretty well because he worked with me on our bipartisan effort to ensure that there would be loophole-free, airtight protection for Americans from discrimination against those with a preexisting conditions. For all practical purposes, we got what we worked on in a bipartisan way, when we had eight Democrats and eight Republicans. We got that into the Affordable Care Act. Essentially, now what the Trump administration seeks to do is to undo that guarantee of airtight, loophole-free protection for people who have these preexisting conditions.

I am going to read a question that appears on an application for one of these plans that are being marketed now. Under a bold headline that says ``Important: You must answer the questions below as they apply to You and all other family members applying for coverage,'' the question reads: ``Within the past 5 years, have you or any other person to be insured been aware of, diagnosed, treated by a member of the medical profession or taken [medication] for: cancer or a tumor, stroke, heart disorder, heart attack, coronary bypass or stent, peripheral vascular disease, carotid artery disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or emphysema, kidney disorder or disease, neurological disorder, degenerative disc disease or herniation/bulge, rheumatoid arthritis, degenerative joint disease of the knee or hip, diabetes, Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, any eating disorder [or] alcohol abuse or chemical dependency, or does anyone listed on the application currently weigh over 250 pounds (women) or over 300 pounds (men)?''

Another question on the same application asks, ``Have you or any other person to be insured been hospitalized for a mental health condition in the past 5 years or been treated by a member of the medical profession for a mental health condition in the past 12 months?''

Finally, another question asks, ``Have you or any other person to be insured ever been diagnosed or treated for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), AIDS-related complex, or any other immune system disorder such as HIV?''

I would also note that this part of the application contained a number of typos, a mislabeled number, and a mislabeled word. Apparently, the scam artists are as bad at editing their documents as they are at covering the healthcare people actually need. But setting aside the bad grammar, the questions collectively tick through dozens of health categories that include hundreds of various conditions and illnesses, so we are talking about well more than 100 million Americans who would answer yes to at least one of them.

Americans need to know and they ought to know that the only reason junk insurance companies ask these probing questions about your health background is to use the information against you and keep you from getting meaningful coverage. That forms the basis of the Trump-era discrimination against those with a preexisting condition.

A lot of people have preexisting conditions. What is that? Everybody knows folks in Tennessee or in Oregon who have asthma or diabetes. We are talking about millions of Americans.

When my colleague from Tennessee and I were working together--eight Democrats, eight Republicans--I said: You know, it is really going to be monumental if we get airtight, loophole-free protection for those with pre-existing conditions. The reason I said that is that ever since I was director of the senior citizens at home, the Gray Panthers, it has been clear to me that as long as our country allowed discrimination against those with preexisting conditions, healthcare in America would basically be for the healthy and the wealthy. If you are healthy, no sweat, no preexisting conditions, and if you are wealthy, you have no real problems because you can just write out the checks to pay for your treatment. But now we are talking about going back to those days--not the days when the Senator from Tennessee and I and other Democrats and Republicans got together and did something that really was a monumental step forward, protecting millions of people with preexisting conditions--now we are going backward.

What are those Americans going to hear in their time of need when their cancer comes back or when they face another bout of medical illness? What they are going to hear, with policies like the one I just read from, is the fraudsters who conned them into buying the junk insurance basically saying: You are on your own. And those Americans are going to be buried under mountains of medical debt.

By the way, we are talking about medical debt. I think my friend from Tennessee and I have talked about this over the years. Healthcare is the great equalizer. For example, in a discussion Democrats ran yesterday on healthcare, we had a gentleman who did everything right. He worked hard. He was a professional. He was constantly trying to better himself and contribute--not just supporting his family but the community. He got Parkinson's. All of a sudden, he wasn't able to pay his bills. So healthcare is the great equalizer in America.

When I read about the junk plans, I have to tell you, it takes me back to the old days when these scam artists preyed on the seniors who needed insurance coverage above and beyond what they got from traditional Medicare.

Mr. President and colleagues, this is something that is very personal to me. When I was a young man, I was codirector of the Oregon Gray Panthers. I would go and visit seniors in their homes--very often they would have a small apartment or something--and they would go in the back, and they would pull out a shoebox full of Medigap policies. These were policies that insurance salesmen sold them that the salesmen said would fill in the gaps in Medicare. Frequently, a senior would spend thousands of dollars--this was a number of years ago--on these policies that were worth little more than the paper they were written on. They often contained--we saw this at our legal aid program for seniors--what were called subrogation clauses, which essentially meant that if you had another policy that covered it, the first one didn't have to cover it. The two of them canceled each other out. So vulnerable seniors with serious medical

conditions would get conned into buying these plans that were essentially worthless.

After years of effort--we began in Oregon in the State insurance commission office. I had the honor of getting elected to represent Oregon in the U.S. House of Representatives. We began there and continued it in the Senate. We acted in a bipartisan fashion to eliminate the junk plans. We did that literally decades ago. We drained the swamp, to use the lingo of today. We really drained the swamp as it related to these rip-off Medigap policies. We got it down to a handful.

I would be willing to bet that the Senator from Tennessee, the Senator from Ohio, and my other colleagues on the floor don't have folks at home coming up to them any longer and telling them that they have rip-off Medigap insurance. I haven't had a complaint about that for years and years. Now the Trump administration is trying to bring back junk insurance for an even larger portion of the American people-- more people than just the seniors.

The bad news with these junk policies doesn't begin and end with discrimination and debt. The Trump administration is letting the junk insurance companies steal the money Americans pay in premiums and other expenses.

According to one recent study, half of each premium dollar and sometimes as much as two-thirds gets wasted on overhead, administrative costs, and profits. The Affordable Care Act had a rule that banned that kind of waste. The Trump administration threw it out so that the rip- off artists can once again pocket unsuspecting Americans' premium dollars.

What the Trump administration is doing to undermine healthcare is not only playing out in what is called the individual insurance market; the harmful threat is a threat to the 167 million Americans who get their insurance through their jobs as well.

Worse healthcare at a higher cost--a far cry from what people were promised a few years ago--is clearly a growing problem. Worse healthcare. Higher costs. A forced march back to the days when healthcare in America, as I have said--and it has really been my reference point as much as anything--I said: Let's not turn back the clock to the days when healthcare was for the healthy and wealthy. This junk insurance is unquestionably the kickoff of this administration's formal effort to do just that.

There was an effort in the Affordable Care Act to build a functional market that didn't trample all over typical Americans and their families. The President and his allies in Congress have done everything they can--starting with an Executive order on day one--to empower the scam artists and powerful companies to have the ability to make healthcare worse and rip off our people. That has been the story from day one of this administration. As I said a few minutes ago, it is a monumental scandal in slow motion.

On behalf of those Americans who are hurting, who are not being taken care of, many of us are going to do everything we can to make sure--for those who are getting hurt, who can't afford these kinds of practices, we are going to keep this front and center of the American people until we end this consumer scourge.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, these are incredibly harmful and traumatic times for immigrants and refugees in America. Perhaps there is not greater example of the damaging immigration policies of this administration than the so called zero-tolerance policy that led to the cruel and needless separation of thousands of children from their parents.

Separating a child from his or her parents has lasting, harmful, and traumatizing impacts. These separations have been shown to increase anxiety and depression among children that have already experienced significant trauma in their home countries and along their journey to the United States. Best practices in child welfare promote keeping children and their parents safely together, unless removal is in the child's best interest.

While the Department of Justice ended the family separation policy after an incredible outcry from the public and experts in children's health and well-being, the damage is far from over. The administration is now undergoing a court-supervised process to reunify separated children and families. Significant and self-inflicted obstacles remain in this reunification process, and I and my Senate colleagues will

continue to doggedly press the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services until every child is safely in the custody of a parent, relative, or other guardian and to ensure nothing like this happens again.

Hundreds of children still remain in government custody, scared and unsure if they will ever see their parents again. Children who were separated from their parents or arrive on their own are placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which falls under the Administration for Children and Families, ACF, within the Department of Health and Human Services. The President has nominated Lynn Johnson of Colorado to fill the role of head of ACF. If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Johnson has one of the most important jobs in public service, and that is ensuring the safety and well-being of these vulnerable children and working toward their reunification.

I voted against Ms. Johnson's nomination when it came before the Senate Finance Committee due to the sheer volume of unanswered questions and false or misleading answers from this administration regarding its family separation policies. Tonight, I had the opportunity to discuss my concerns with Ms. Johnson and secure her commitment to changing the way things are done in the Administration for Children and Families.

Ms. Johnson committed to enacting and enforcing policies that prevent Office of Refugee Resettlement grantees and facilities from engaging in activities that are not consistent with best practices for children including prohibiting solitary confinement for punitive purposes or behavioral modification; prohibiting the distribution of psychotropic medications or sedatives absent the informed, written consent of a parent or guardian, except in the case of well-documented emergencies; prohibiting arbitrary restraint policies; prohibiting any security measures that are not necessary for the protection of minors or others, such as denying them access to drinking water or preventing them from making private phone calls; and guaranteeing the maintenance of confidentiality of information disclosed by children to therapists and counselors in the context of a therapeutic/treatment relationship.

In addition, Ms. Johnson committed to ensuring ORR and its supported grantees and facilities allow any separated child to call a parent or legal guardian as frequently as the child wishes--if there are documented safety concerns, calls may be monitored by staff with the child, but otherwise, children must be able to contact a parent or legal guardian as they wish. If the parent/legal guardian is in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, the two agencies must establish a process to accept children's calls and connect them to their parents; and conducting a full review within 90 days of the oversight, staffing, training, medication, and licensing policies for ORR-funded facilities and issue a report to Congress describing the oversight of these facilities and the actions ACF will take to address oversight and program shortcomings. The review must include the extent and adequacy of policies related to post-release services; legal services; and health, including reproductive health, to ensure that they are consistent with constitutional protections. In the event the full review cannot be completed within 90 days, ACF will provide the summary of their work at that point, with a timeline and guarantee that the full report will be soon available.

I am grateful for these commitments and will hold Ms. Johnson to them if she is ultimately confirmed by the full Senate.

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Broadband Internet for Small Ports Act to help small ports access broadband loans and grants, which will increase internet service in rural coastal communities nationwide.

Nearly a third of Americans lack access to high-speed internet, and there is a considerable digital divide between rural and urban America. Rural communities must be brought up to speed so that all Americans can compete online in a global economy.

In rural coastal areas people congregate near inland and small ports, and these harbors act as hubs for commerce and tourism. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports to their rural economies. This bill will help small ports nationwide get Federal loans and grants and improve their broadband coverage, thereby enabling working-waterfronts to order inventory and coordinate deliveries, access real-time weather updates, and grow economically.

Broadband loan and grant applications submitted to the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service are assigned different levels of priority before they are awarded. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports, and elevates the priority of applications seeking to boost internet capacity. This bill states that broadband loan and grant applications from small ports will be considered equal in priority to applications that are developed with the participation of a non-profit or philanthropic organization.

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

Mr. President, today I am introducing the Broadband Internet for Small Ports Act to help small ports access broadband loans and grants, which will increase internet service in rural coastal communities nationwide.

Nearly a third of Americans lack access to high-speed internet, and there is a considerable digital divide between rural and urban America. Rural communities must be brought up to speed so that all Americans can compete online in a global economy.

In rural coastal areas people congregate near inland and small ports, and these harbors act as hubs for commerce and tourism. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports to their rural economies. This bill will help small ports nationwide get Federal loans and grants and improve their broadband coverage, thereby enabling working-waterfronts to order inventory and coordinate deliveries, access real-time weather updates, and grow economically.

Broadband loan and grant applications submitted to the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utility Service are assigned different levels of priority before they are awarded. This bill recognizes the importance of small ports, and elevates the priority of applications seeking to boost internet capacity. This bill states that broadband loan and grant applications from small ports will be considered equal in priority to applications that are developed with the participation of a non-profit or philanthropic organization.

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

Mr. President, I thank Senator Whitehouse not just for today, as we talk about wildfires, but because, year after year, he has been on this floor, prosecuting the consequences--playing out the consequences of the failure of dealing with climate change. Certainly, it is hotter and dryer in the West. What I am going to do is to spend some of this short period we have together in describing these wildfires.

They are not your grandfather's wildfires. They are bigger, they are hotter, and they are more powerful.

In my home State last summer, we saw a fire leap the Columbia River. The Columbia River has always been a break in terms of fire, and the fire just leaped over it. We are seeing that around the country. It is getting worse. The fires are so bad today and the smoke is so thick that people in my home State are fleeing their communities to find pockets of breathable air. In Portland, residents are being warned against spending time outside and are being advised to wear respirators if they must. Those without homes to provide safe air are being told to seek shelter from the smoke in public places, like libraries and government buildings.

So I would say to my friend and to the Presiding Officer, who is also a westerner and a friend, that this is not the stuff of fiction. This is real life--right now--for communities across the West that are just getting clobbered by fire. This is climate change at work.

As Senator Whitehouse and I speak today, there are more than 100 large wildfires that are destroying homes and businesses across Oregon and the West, burning almost 1.8 million acres. Farmers have watched as crops have burned to the ground. Families who are located in evacuation zones have fled their homes. Choking smoke throughout my State has left children and seniors afraid to go outside, and schools have canceled sporting events because of the unhealthy air quality.

I remember when I began in public service that westerners would prepare for individual fire seasons and that some would be a bit worse than others. Yet now we are basically in a situation in which we have infernos raging throughout the year. In California, for example, the Thomas fire set the all-time record--wouldn't want to have it--as the State's largest recorded wildfire in December. It was not exactly a Christmas gift. The record didn't stand long, as my colleague just mentioned last week's fire in Mendocino.

In Oregon, the Taylor Creek fire and the Garner Complex fire led agencies to issue evacuation notices to more than 1,000 people. This is the second year in a row that the air quality in southern Oregon has ranked among the worst in the Nation. When I was driving to southern Oregon recently in order to get a briefing from fire officials, the smoke, in effect, was going north, drifting 100 miles north of Medford. In my hometown of Portland, now--this week--air is at unhealthy levels.

Fires have gotten so big that the plumes of thick, choking smoke have shown up on NASA's satellite images from space. My colleague and I served on the Intelligence Committee together, and I think, increasingly, we are going to see folks at the Forest Service and at weather agencies who will be interested in a lot of those kinds of satellite opportunities in order to get a better handle on the dimensions of the problem. A huge portion of my State is blanketed with smoke, and this is taking place when hikers, fishermen, rafters, and guides, along with countless tourists from around the country, ought to be enjoying the outdoors. Talking about economic consequences, recreation has become a big economic engine in the West.

I am very pleased to have been the sponsor of a bill with Chairman Rob Bishop, who I think would be pleased if I called him one of the most conservative Members of the other body. Our bill is called the RNR bill, Recreation Not Red-Tape. It is just sensible suggestions for putting permitting information online--those sorts of things.

It is pretty hard to recreate in the West, Senator Sullivan, if everything is burning up. It is pretty hard to really cap the potential of this extraordinary new recreation engine, but right now dangerous fires and unhealthy smoke are blocking recreation opportunities for folks in the West to get outside. It is an economic nightmare, in addition to being a danger to life and property.

We don't remember wildfires this catastrophic happening 30 years ago, and people want to know why. My view is it is not a coincidence that the megafires now happen routinely and are getting bigger, and a significant factor in this is climate change.

According to research by Oregon State University, our average temperature has increased by more than 2 degrees over the past century. Last week, the National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for the Willamette Valley, advising that the heat could touch 100 degrees. This is not Death Valley. The Presiding Officer knows our area. We don't get roasted by triple-digit heat--or we didn't used to. But we are today.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that the contiguous United States experienced the warmest July in recorded history. The temperature hikes bake forests and landscapes. They dry out materials, and they are magnets--magnets--for fuel for the infernos. Yet the Trump administration, as Senator Whitehouse has talked about, seems to be working overtime to say that this isn't a problem.

For starters, the President pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, which would make us the only country to reject it. Senator Whitehouse knows more about this than any other Senator. What I was particularly troubled about is that the arguments they made weren't tethered to the facts. They kept saying that there were all kinds of mandates in the agreement. As my colleague knows, there really aren't. It is voluntary. There is a wide berth for countries to pursue strategies that make sense for them.

It is not just pulling out of the international agreement. At the Department of the Interior, Secretary Zinke is doing everything he can to roll back environmental protections.

I say to my colleague: I was one who voted for Secretary Zinke. He said that he was going to be a Roosevelt Republican. The Presiding Officer would be interested in this. He said that nine times in his hearing in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. I thought, he is a Duck; he said he was a football player. I was a basketball player. I would give it a shot. I now consider that one of the worst votes I have cast in my time in public service because he is doing everything he can to roll back environmental protections, giving oil and gas executives free rein to exploit public lands, and he is putting an end to commonsense regulations to curb emissions of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas.

The story doesn't get better at the Energy Department. They are there wrapping themselves into a legal pretzel to figure out how to waste taxpayer money to prop up the coal industry, an energy source whose costs are too great for the market to bear.

Over at the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, they are rolling back fuel standards for cars. That is a double loser. It is bad for the environment and bad for the consumers who are going to have to pony up $1 trillion more at the pump. While the Federal Government is abandoning leadership, they are also browbeating the States to do the same thing.

The Trump administration now threatens California's ability to set its own air quality standards under the Clean Air Act, which affects 12 other States, including Oregon. How many times, colleagues, have we heard Senators come to the floor of the Senate and virtually pound on their chests and say that the States are the laboratories of democracy?

Basically, on climate change, Senator Whitehouse, what the Trump administration is saying is that they are for State's rights if they think the State is right. That is their position on climate change. It is clear that we are not seeing any real movement from the Trump administration.

Two weeks ago, the President tweeted several times that water from Northern California is being diverted to the Pacific Ocean rather than being used for firefighting. State officials and Republicans-- California veteran Republicans--essentially said that this was nonsense. When the President's press office was asked about the tweet, really, they went completely silent.

The megafires are the new normal, so westerners are going to have to embrace new, cooperative, and collaborative ways of dealing with the effects of climate change. Our priority ought to be to work with the States. Government at all levels should continue to develop more efficient, low-carbon energy technologies, renewables, and energy storage. It is a winner all around for Oregon, the West, and our country.

Not only are solar and wind cleaner, they are also cheaper than a number of the plants that burn fossil fuels.

What we said in our tax reform bill is that there are more than 40 separate breaks in energy, many of them just monuments to yesteryear. We proposed throwing them in the trash can. Out they go, $40 billion worth over a few years, substituting the $40 billion for clean energy, clean transportation fuel, and energy efficiency. That is going to be in line with what Senator Whitehouse has said, which is that America can get more green for less green, or fewer taxpayer dollars.

I very much appreciate my colleague coming to the floor today. I want to close with just one point. More than any other factor of my time in public service--I think I have discussed this with both the Presiding Officer and Senator Whitehouse--what I have been interested in finding is what I call principled bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is not about Republicans and Democrats taking each other's dumb ideas. Anybody can do that. Then you can pat yourself on the back and say: Oh, my goodness, we are being bipartisan. What it is all about is finding good ideas.

What Senator Whitehouse has done--and, boy, do the fires in the West right now convey the urgency; in effect, he has tried to take markets, marketplace forces, and fuse them together with the best environmental practices we know of. Both sides ought to find that pretty attractive. Conservatives can say: Senator Whitehouse is talking about using marketplace forces--and he has attracted some pretty prominent Republicans to his ideas, as well--and Democrats can say: We are not going to dawdle in terms of trying to improve the environment, and we are not going to turn back the clock on environmental practices.

I very much appreciate Senator Whitehouse's leadership. I am going to have to run off to another meeting. I will just say that I appreciate his including me.

I say to my colleagues: It might not be that wildfires are happening in your State this morning, but climate change affects every single American in one way or another, and we have to find a way to create a bipartisan path to address this growing harm.

With thanks to Senator Whitehouse, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, today I lend my support to the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act to ensure the equality of opportunity for all.

Throughout our history, America has been committed to opening its doors to those who wished to build a new life here; yet, despite being ``the land of opportunity,'' the laws that we have had in place have left many families seeking a better life in limbo. Over the last 2 years, the crisis has reached new levels of inhumanity as this administration irresponsibly ended the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DACA, program and ripped families apart at our borders.

This legislation should be considered in the context of a more comprehensive bill which would also address the pressing issues of DACA and family separation. It will be an important piece of the puzzle that will hopefully put us on a path to changing the unfair laws that are currently in place and once again makeAmerica a place of possibility for all. The Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act makes important and long overdue changes that will create a more equitable employment- based immigration system. This system will distribute green cards based not on the applicant's country of birth, but on his or her skills. It will slowly get rid of the employment-based country caps and instead create an evenhanded ``first come, first serve'' system for equally qualified, highly skilled immigrants.

This legislation is an important step towards more comprehensive immigration reform. The system as it is now is rigged and unfair. I hope that we can begin to move towards a more comprehensive bill and a brighter future where America is once again, without a doubt, the land of opportunity.

Mr. President, a short while ago the Senate passed the final version of the National Defense Authorization Act. Here is why I opposed that legislation: It is a national security bill that weakens our national security. This afternoon I want to discuss why.

The Chinese tech company ZTE was revealed not long ago to be a serial sanctions violator. They violated U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea, knowingly selling American technology to those countries. For their violations, the Commerce Department dropped the hammer and hit them with crippling penalties, including a fine of $1.2 billion.

That is until Donald Trump stepped in to save ZTE.

With a speed and a focus this administration seems incapable of bringing to any other issue, the President ordered his team to spring into action to rescue ZTE. He fired off tweets. He made the eyebrow- raising comment that it was a problem that U.S. sanctions were hurting jobs in China. His Treasury Secretary virtually apologized for the U.S. having taken action against a serial sanctions violator. This all comes from an administration putting on a show--constantly tough talking--and from a President pretending that he puts America first. He sure didn't in this case.

Now there are a few sides of this issue for everybody at home to remember--the national security aspect, as well as the trade and economic aspect.

First, I sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and a few months ago, the committee held an open hearing with Bill Evanina, the Director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. He is the point-man for the Trump administration when it comes to questions of counterespionage and counterterror. In response to my question, he told me that ZTE poses a national security risk to the United States.

That was not some outside individual providing testimony. He is not a hearing witness chosen by Democrats. Again, that is the person who has led the National Counterintelligence and Security Center since 2014. He says ZTE poses a threat to America, but his boss, the President of the United States, let ZTE off the hook.

Here is the second issue: the Trump administration loves to tout what it calls new trade deals, but as far as I can tell, just about the only deal they have cooked up with any teeth, the only one that is actually finished, is this ZTE deal that saved jobs--in China.

Colleagues, the President and I don't agree on much, but one of his favorite talking points that I do agree with is that our country has to do a lot more to stop China from stealing our technology and our jobs, but when you look at this ZTE case, he seems to be giving away our jobs and our security.

It is an absolute head-scratcher to me and to a whole lot of other people including Senators on both sides of the aisle. It raised the question are the President's decisions being guided by something else, something other than American interests? That is because the ZTE deal came right after the Trump family secured valuable trademarks in China and a Trump project in

Indonesia got a $500 million loan from a Chinese state-owned company.

So a bipartisan group of Senators, myself included, said let's figure out a way to reinstate the penalties against ZTE as a part of the annual defense authorization bill, but when it came time to hammer out the differences between the Senate's bill and the House's bill, Republicans watered down the ZTE penalties. Republicans in both Chambers caved to the White House and handed a big gift to China at the expense of American jobs and national security.

In my view, it is inexcusable that the plan put together by Senators on both sides--a plan that would have protected our security and punished a serial violator of U.S. sanctions--was stripped out of this bill. The weaker House proposal that took its place doesn't go nearly far enough to fight the espionage threat that the Trump administration's own counterintelligence nominee testified to.

Bottom line, Trump's ZTE deal is bad for American security and American jobs. The House got it wrong with their weaker legislation. The Senate was under no obligation to accept their watered-down bill. That is why I voted no, and that is why members who voted for this proposal cannot claim innocence when it comes to letting ZTE off the hook for its violations of our sanctions.

Mr. President, today I am placing a hold on the nomination of Justin Muzinich to be Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. I will maintain that hold until the Treasury Department provides the Senate Finance Committee information and documents related to Russia and its financial dealings with President Trump and his associates, as well as outside organizations Russia used to help elect him. I originally asked for these documents on May 10, 2017, and have yet to receive an answer of any kind.

I have stated repeatedly that we must follow the money if we are going to get to the bottom of how Russia has attacked our democracy. That means thoroughly reviewing any information that relates to financial connections between Russia and President Trump and his associates, whether direct or laundered through hidden or illicit transactions.

The Treasury Department for which Mr. Muzinich is nominated to serve as the No. 2 official is responsible for much of this information. The Treasury Department authorities include intelligence and enforcement functions to combat financial crimes and threats, including money laundering.

For these reasons, I will object to any unanimous consent request concerning the nomination of Mr. Muzinich.