Floor Statements

Madam President, I am joined on the floor today by my friend and colleague Senator Graham. We have the honor of coleading the U.S. congressional delegation to the Munich Security Conference, which for a great number of reasons, all well-deserved, is still called CODEL McCain. It is the only codel that is named for a Senator who is no longer with us, and it is out of respect for Senator McCain's long tradition of support for that conference, NATO, and the Atlantic alliance, more generally.

This year, obviously things were very different. The Russians were on the border of Ukraine, and two things came out of this conference that I thought were important. One was an early flicker of hope within the delegation that the Ukrainians might actually pull this off. That was supported by none of our briefings. The entire national security establishment had presumed that it was only a matter of time until Ukraine fell. But Senator Graham and I and others were questioning each other during that trip: Is there really no chance?

And the other thing was going after the kleptocrats and the oligarchs around Putin and making their lives miserable. And there was just a wonderful explosion of bipartisan support for that that has now manifested in funds, in laws, in pending bills, in lots of bipartisanship--and Senator Graham and I are going to have a bit of a colloquy about that with the Chair's permission.

I will say one thing, and then I will hand it over to Senator Graham.

On March 8, I sent out over social media this sentiment:

Keep alive in your heart the possibility that Ukraine could

actually win: columns stalled, defense fierce, casualties

high, morale low, deserters surrendering, food and fuel

snafu, population uncowed.

Since then, we are hearing more and more. I will read four quotes, and the first is from the man we heard from this morning, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who, in his speech to the people of Ukraine on March 14, didn't just talk about peace for Ukraine-- although, he did talk about peace for Ukraine, but he also talked about ``our victory.'' Victory. It is an important word to keep in mind.

He is not alone.

GEN Wesley Clark, also on March 14, said:

The battle for Ukraine is hanging in the balance. . . . If

we can get enough in there, they'll push the Russians out.

Victory.

It would be a tremendous win for the West.

Anne Applebaum knows probably about as much about this area as anyone. She joined us on the Munich security delegation, and she also spoke afterward on the 15th of March about it. She said:

[V]ictory in this conflict--

Victory--

[V]ictory . . . would provide an enormous, transformational

boost in confidence to the entire democratic world.

Michael Kofman, the director of Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analyses has said the same thing: ``Are [the Ukrainians] in a position to win the war? Yes,'' he said.

I will close with Francis Fukuyama. On the 10th of March, the author of ``The Origins of Political Order'' said the following things. I am quoting from a longer piece selectively.

1. Russia is heading for outright defeat in Ukraine.

2. The collapse of their position could be sudden and

catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of

attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it

can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will

vaporize.

5. The Biden administration's decisions not to declare a

no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones;

they've kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is

much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on

their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked

them.

Finally, he said:

A Russian defeat will make possible a ``new birth of

freedom,'' and get us out of our funk about the declining

state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on,

thanks to . . . brave Ukrainians.

We are here together on the floor in bipartisan fashion to urge that in the press coverage and in our national security conversations about this, we keep open in our hearts and in our planning the possibility of victory for Ukraine.

Senator Graham.

Madam President, in conclusion, let me just thank Senator Graham. He has been an extraordinary leader on the Munich Security delegation year after year, and I think he has a ``McCainian'' view of our foreign policy needs.

I would close by saying, if there is a lesson from Ukraine, it is that oligarchs can throw out a dictator if you put pressure on them. So the kleptocracy initiative is important strategically in Ukraine, and it also puts in motion forces that can diminish kleptocracy and corruption around the world in a way that enhances our rule of law and national security.

The press has tended to buy into the narrative of defeat but not entirely.

Sudarsan Raghavan went to the front for the Washington Post, and he reported back this:

To be sure, most military analysts and Western officials

still predict that Russian forces will eventually encircle

Kyiv and push into the capital, possibly aided by airstrikes.

While this could prove true, it's far from clear whether

Russia will prevail.

That leaves open the important planning option of victory for Ukraine.

Then, when bad news comes, sometimes it is just not the whole story. The BBC reported the bad news that Russian forces were already inside the city of Irpin. Well, there is a little bit more to the story than that.

A Ukrainian army officer said that Ukrainian forces were waiting for civilians to evacuate Irpin before ``we start to clear the city of Russians.''

They don't have enough provisions--food, water. They don't

have a lot of gasoline. They will get tired, and then we will

go and drive them out.

Well, it appears that that counteroffensive is underway right now, as we speak.

As I close, I think all of our hearts and prayers go to the Ukrainian troops, who are trying to drive those Russians out of Irpin and out of Ukraine.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture motion on Executive Calendar No. 718 be withdrawn and that following disposition of the Young nomination, the Senate resume legislative session and proceed to the consideration of Calendar No. 305, S.J. Res. 37, with Senator Paul or his designee in control of 30 minutes and the majority leader in control of the remaining time until 5:30 p.m., and that at 5:30 p.m., all remaining time on the joint resolution be yielded back, the joint resolution be read a third time, and the Senate vote on passage of the joint resolution without intervening action or debate.

I yield the floor for a, I hope, happy event to my colleague Senator Rubio.

Madam President, I am happy to bring the voice of the Ocean State to the floor today as an original cosponsor of Senator Rubio's bill to make daylight saving time permanent. I hope very much that we can actually agree to this on the floor today and hope for similar action in the House.

Pretty much everybody in Rhode Island experiences the same thing on that unhappy day in early November. It is usually the 6th or the 7th, when suddenly an hour of your day, an hour of your daylight, disappears and dusk comes an hour earlier.

And it is a sad time. People are unhappy. It does darken our lives in a very literal sense. And by the time you get from November, when we fall back, to the shortest day of the year in December, the 21st, I think it is, we have sunset in Rhode Island at 4:15--4:15. That means everybody is driving home, if they work regular 9-to-5 hours--they are driving home in the pitch dark, and there is no real need for it. So let's make it 5:15 instead.

Now, granted, there are people who are up between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning who will lose their hour of daylight, but there are a lot fewer people up and about between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning than there are between 4:15 and 5:15 in the afternoon.

And particularly in that afternoon hour, that is when kids have come home from school, and you would like to have them run around outside a little bit more. That is when people are doing errands, and it would be nice if there were some daylight for that.

So I am eager to be rid of ``fall back,'' and this would give us a chance for Americans all across the country to be rid of ``fall back'' and make daylight saving time permanent and to add a little sunlight into most people's lives.

With that, I will recognize the distinguished chairman of our Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

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

Let me make it clear to anybody who is watching that they just saw this measure pass. We have just passed the bill to end the return to daylight saving time--to make daylight saving time permanent.

I yield the floor.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate be in a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, and that I be recognized for up to 20 minutes.

Mr. President, I have nine requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I rise again to discuss the scheme that has captured and now controls America's Supreme Court.

If you have been following this series of speeches, you know that we have gone over the Powell memo and the plan it laid out for the corporate rightwing. We have gone over the technique of Agency capture, regulatory capture, that has been applied to the Supreme Court. We have gone over the turnstile, that big anonymous rightwing donor setup within the Federalist Society to approve Republican nominees and the dark money front groups that sped those nominees through Senate confirmation. And we have discussed how the big rightwing donor interests influence Justices while they are on the Bench, through fast lanes for dark money litigation and flotillas--flotillas--of dark money amici curiae, front group amici.

Well, if you set up a machine like that, you will pretty soon see Justices auditioning for the role. To understand the origins of this auditioning, you need to start with a little bit of history.

It is 1990, and President George H. W. Bush needs to fill a vacancy left by the legendary Justice William Brennan. President Bush appoints a recent First Circuit nominee named David Souter, who had spent most of his career in New Hampshire State government.

At the time, Republicans thought Souter's short time on the Federal bench was an asset. Without a long paper trail, there was less chance that Souter's nomination would go down in flames, like Robert Bork's had.

But Souter wasn't the conservative the rightwing hoped for. Indeed, he could be down-right moderate. In their disappointment, they adopted a new mantra: ``No More Souters.''

When rumors got around that George W. Bush might nominate his White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, to the Court, he was not seen as rightwing enough, and the scheme panicked and the mantra became ``Al Gonzales is Spanish for `David Souter.' ''

John Paul Stevens was another rightwing disappointment. So ``No More Souters'' as a mantra was joined by ``No More Stevenses.''

With these disappointments, the rightwing donors and their Federalist Society accolades vowed to better groom and vet future candidates, scouring Republican nominees' records for maximum adherence to scheme orthodoxy.

Well, once that process was up and operating, the response was predictable. Ambitious rightwing lawyers aspiring to the Federal Bench aren't dumb. They will follow the path that guides them to their goal. So the maximum adherence auditioning began. I have described the circuit court judge who observed his colleagues taking cases and issuing rulings that seemed to have the clear intent of sending a signal. They strained to write decisions that were dressed to impress. They were, in his word, ``auditioning''--auditioning for the Federalist Society gatekeepers.

So how exactly does this auditioning work? There is a recipe:

One, you have got to understand what matters to the big donors: guns, unbridled campaign spending, corporate political power, shrinking the so-called administrative state, and rightwing social issues.

Two, fly solo. It can actually help if you go it alone. Write opinions so extreme that they stand out and donors take notice.

And, three, of course, where you can, deliver the goods. If a case allows you to score a win for a big donor interest, take it.

Three Justices who knew this recipe well were the trio nominated by Donald Trump.

As a circuit court judge, Neil Gorsuch became a darling of the rightwing donor elites for his commitment

to dismantling this so-called administrative state. To do that, he deployed radical legal theories cooked up and propagated in the scheme's legal theory hothouse, where they developed schemes, kind of reverse-engineering them to give victories in cases.

In one instance, Gorsuch even wrote two opinions for the same case: one, the majority opinion that his colleagues joined; and the other, an out-there solo opinion displaying his scheme bona fides.

Gorsuch also displayed his fervor for what he called religious freedom, which usually translates to dismantling the separation between church and State, which is another scheme favorite.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett knew how to audition too. In one case, Barrett's Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear a challenge to an Indiana law on women's right to choose. Barrett bucked the majority to stakeout an eyebrow-raising position on the right, joining a dissent aimed directly at Supreme Court abortion precedent.

On guns, Judge Barrett authored an opinion in a Second Amendment case called Kanter v. Barr that would have given a felon back his gun because his felony wasn't violent. Constitutional scholars' jaws hit the floor at that one.

Adam Winkler, a Second Amendment expert at UCLA Law School, told the New Yorker that the opinion was ``Amy Coney Barrett's audition tape for the Supreme Court.'' And it was her audition tape because her ``view of the Second Amendment [was] outside of the mainstream'' and ``would appeal . . . to the Federalist Society.''

Of course, the biggest auditioner of all was Brett Kavanaugh. On the DC Circuit, Kavanaugh did so much auditioning it is hard to know where to begin. He issued opinions on abortion, on guns, on the administrative state, on campaign finance, and more. He was not concerned with building consensus. He wanted to make a point.

Here is Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus in her book on Kavanaugh:

His more liberal appeals court colleagues found him affable

but unyielding. He would engage but rarely, if ever, change

his mind, [and he] displayed a propensity for filing separate

concurrences and dissents, actions that some colleagues took

as judicial grandstanding and, more to the point, an effort

to position himself for a Supreme Court seat.

Auditioning--in fact, Kavanaugh dissented more each year on the bench than any of his DC Circuit colleagues, whether Republican or Democratic appointees.

Kavanaugh made clear that he would be on the team if on the Court. Kavanaugh pumped up the ``major questions'' doctrine--one of the hothouse legal theories pushed by the far right. It says that courts should ignore an Agency's authority to solve a problem if the court thinks the problem is too big. Big regulated companies love having regulatory Agencies hobbled. So this was catnip for scheme donors.

The majority in that case panned Kavanaugh's ``major questions'' idea, which hadn't even been raised by the parties, but Kavanaugh wasn't out to win votes from his colleagues, and he wasn't out to do justice in that case. He was firing an auditioning flare for scheme operatives and donors to see from miles around.

Like Barrett, Kavanaugh did his own publicity. He spoke at 52--count them, 52--Federalist Society events over his career. You almost couldn't keep him out. And he wasn't the only one seeking an audience with the Federalist Society donor elite. After Trump's election, 9 of the 21 people on Trump's short list spoke at a 3-day Federalist Society panel dedicated to remembering Justice Scalia, and almost all the others were hanging out, mingling in the crowd. It was a judicial beauty pageant, with some real beauties.

Kavanaugh had a little problem. He wasn't on Trump's first list of potential Supreme Court picks, and he wasn't on the second list either. But all that eager auditioning got him onto the third list, and the rest is history.

I am not alone in noting all this auditioning. Here is how one writer for Slate paraphrased former U.S. District Judge Nancy Gertner about scheme auditioning:

[C]onservative judges auditioning for SCOTUS--

Supreme Court of the United States--

go all out proving their Federalist Society bona fides:

Gorsuch used his judicial opinions on the appeals court to

advertise himself as an enemy of the administrative state and

a diehard proponent of religious freedom; Kavanaugh flaunted

his support of the unitary executive and hostility to

reproductive rights to earn a spot on President Donald

Trump's short list; Amy Coney Barrett brandished her Second

Amendment maximalism.

As the Slate writers note:

The conservative legal movement rewards this kind of

flagrantly ideological auditioning. Republicans demand

evidence that their justices will aggressively overturn

precedent and laws that conflict with their political goals.

As I said earlier, ``no more Souters,'' ``no more Stevenses.''

That is the auditioning by these sitting Justices.

I will close my remarks with an example of what happens when you haven't auditioned for the scheme.

When Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement, George W. Bush wanted to replace her with his friend and loyal White House Counsel, Harriet Miers. Miers was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative. She had served Bush and his inner circle faithfully. But she wasn't a Federalist Society insider. She didn't have a record of auditioning for the big donors behind the Federalist Society's turnstile. She couldn't soothe those rightwing donors that she was ``no Souter,'' ``no Stevens.'' Her sin wasn't anything in particular; she just wasn't part of the club.

As Supreme Court scholar Amanda Hollis-Brusky put it:

The message Leonard [Leo] and others had sent was: If you

want to rise through the ranks, we need to know you. And

that's what they were all saying about Miers--``We don't know

her. She is not one of us.''

Leonard Leo, by the way, is sort of the spider at the center of the web of donor interests that drive the turnstile at the Federalist Society during Republican Presidencies.

We are now embarking on the confirmation process of someone who has not auditioned to donor elites for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. No dark money machine guided her selection. That is refreshing.

Still, the auditioning continues on the right for the next time a Republican President holds office. Scheme donors expect standout candidates who wear their commitment to their donor welfare on their sleeves. Watch closely for more. To be continued.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, let me thank Senator Thune for his remarks.

I would simply add that I hope we can all keep in our hearts the prospect that the Ukrainians might actually win this thing, given the success they have already seen, as long as they get adequate support from us and the world community.

Mr. President, I am here for a rather different reason. It is to call on this Chamber yet again to wake up to the urgent threat of climate change.

I wish I was done with these ``Time to Wake Up'' speeches. Frankly, I wish I had never had to deliver a single one.

I wish Congress had dealt with this threat--for instance, back when another Senator from Rhode Island, Republican John Chafee, held hearings on the looming challenge of carbon dioxide pollution.

I wish we had dealt with it when the House, under Speaker Pelosi, passed the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, only for Majority Leader Harry Reid and President Barack Obama to kill it in a Democratic Senate with a filibuster-proof majority.

I wish the Citizens United decision hadn't allowed the fossil fuel industry to capture the Republican Party and kill the bipartisanship on climate that existed before that decision in this Chamber.

In my church growing up, there was a prayer about things we have left undone that we ought to have done. In that spirit, here is a graphic on carbon emissions we prepared in conjunction with the Biden White House that charts out where we are on this problem.

Green, this line here, is carbon emissions business as usual if we keep kowtowing to the fossil fuel industry here and don't take serious climate action.

Orange, this line, with quite significant emissions savings, is the Finance Committee's climate tax package. That is the effect just of that climate tax package if it comes into law.

Down here is a clean electricity standard. If you could put into law a national U.S. clean electricity standard, you could reduce emissions to this gray line.

If you were to combine the two, if you were to combine the Finance Committee tax package and the clean electricity standard, you push emissions down to this yellow line.

Look at the blue line. This upper blue line is the carbon savings from a modest price on carbon, one that we have discussed and negotiated with the White House--$15 per ton in 2023, rising to $70 per ton in 2032. Look at how powerful the emissions effect is of that single intervention.

Now, this lowest one that reduces emissions the most, this is the safety pathway. This dark blue emissions line is all of those policies together. That is what they add up to. That is what we could be doing. We could be creating a pathway to safety.

As these emissions results show, a carbon price is the key policy to hit the 50-percent emissions reduction target we have and to get on a pathway to safety. Well, that is not happening right now.

So, while fossil fuel-funded Republicans block legislative action on climate, what could be done through executive action? Regulation. It is not a substitute for ambitious legislation, but it can make a big difference.

The EPA has more or less restored Obama-era fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light trucks. It has a proposal to regulate methane leakage from oil and gas facilities. It restored an Obama-era rule limiting mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal-fired powerplants. That is all good, but it is a return to the pre-Trump polluter status quo, not progress--not new progress.

Here is what EPA could still do:

Start with regulations for big, easily identified sources of greenhouse gases, not just coal-fired powerplants but point sources, including in the industrial sector, which generates more than one-fifth of total greenhouse gas emissions. We need a multipronged regulatory approach targeting all major classes of point sources.

We need stronger rules for mercury, coal ash, soot, and other pollutants. Public health demands this, and it is even more urgent in light of climate change.

EPA can update the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and tighten National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

We need greenhouse gas emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles and for aviation. Focusing just on light-duty vehicles won't cut it.

Over at the Office of Management and Budget, they could finish an updated social cost of carbon and issue guidance requiring its use throughout--throughout--Agency decisionmaking. This is a big one. The social cost of carbon calculates the long-term damage from carbon pollution, and it should figure in permitting, leasing, grant-making, investments, international development assistance, trade agreements, and procurement.

A Trump judge--likely installed on the Federal Bench using fossil fuel dark money--just blocked the Obama-era social cost of carbon. While that is litigated, the administration is correctly pausing leases, permits, and other actions for greenhouse gas emitters.

At the Department of Interior, stop doling out leases to big polluters. The President promised to end new fossil fuel leases on public lands and waters, so pause them while the social cost of carbon is litigated, and review them all to make sure that taxpayers are paid royalties that reflect the actual cost of fossil fuel production and combustion.

At the Department of Energy, update energy efficiency standards for light bulbs, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, and all the electric appliances and products we use every day. There is low-hanging fruit there. I hear many of these rules are nearly ready but are held up in bureaucratic delay.

Get a move on.

The Department of Energy should also, along with the EPA and the Department of Agriculture, update the renewable fuel standards to ensure that renewable fuels actually generate considerable emissions reductions.

Here is another simple one: Federal procurement.

Update Federal acquisition regulations so Agencies price in the cost of emissions when they are buying products. Do that, and maybe we wouldn't wind up purchasing Postal Service delivery trucks with internal combustion engines no more efficient than their decades-old predecessors. Heck, we might even end up with clean, high-performing electric postal trucks. There is more to this regulatory list, but let me leave it there.

With legislation and regulation ought to come litigation. There are States, cities, counties across the country that have filed lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry based on local harm suffered as a result of climate change, and there is precedent for those at the Federal level.

In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against Big Tobacco and its front groups, charging that they ``engaged in and executed--and continue to engage in and execute--a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public.'' That is the language in the Department of Justice's complaint.

Well, it went to trial, and a few years later, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler agreed. She found that the tobacco industry had ``coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of a shared objective--to . . . maximize industry profits by preserving and expanding the market for cigarettes through a scheme to deceive the public.'' That is the language in the decision, ``a scheme to deceive.''

So here is a useful exercise: Pop out the word ``cigarettes'' in that decision, and drop in ``fossil fuel.'' Judge Kessler's finding in the tobacco case describes exactly what the fossil fuel industry has perpetrated: ``coordinated significant aspects of their public relations, scientific, legal, and marketing activity in furtherance of a shared objective--to . . . maximize industry profits by preserving and expanding the market for fossil fuels through a scheme to deceive the public.''

Nothing--nothing--prevents the Department of Justice from at least investigating whether to follow its own

successful blueprint; yet nothing has been done.

Progress will be easier on climate if we take on the fossil fuel- funded front groups that are armed to the teeth with dark money political weaponry. With proper countermeasures like exposure, we can help achieve victory on climate by exposing the rightwing, dark money groups fomenting and funding climate obstruction very likely as part of a scheme to deceive the public.

I will end with an example from a book I read recently about a ship that went down.

In September 1857, the S.S. Central America, which was known as the ``Ship of Gold,'' set sail from California to New York City with nearly 600 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds of gold from the California Gold Rush. A few hundred miles off the Carolina coast, a hurricane hit the S.S. Central America. In the teeth of the gales, the passengers and crew did everything they could. Stewards and waiters and other staff were taken off their regular duties to fight the storm, to fight the flooding. Passengers were put into service to save the stricken ship. Heavy cargo was thrown overboard. In fact, divers are, right now, down, recovering the gold that was thrown overboard to save the ship. The ship itself--its doors and panels--were broken up to help block the sea out or were thrown overboard to lighten the stricken ship. At the end-- at the end--passengers and crew were side by side, deep in the hold, shoulder deep in water, desperately pumping to save the ship.

The lesson here: The passengers and crew did everything they could, but at each step, they started too late. They ultimately took all the necessary measures, but each one--each one--they took too late, and the ship sank.

I fear that that is the analogy for our present predicament. Indolence in the face of known danger is a particularly stupid form of cowardice. It is made worse here by a fossil fuel industry that pays people to block our efforts to save the ship.

For the steamship the S.S. Central America, there was another boat that stood by in the storm to help rescue passengers, and out of the 600 men and women on that ship, a few dozen were saved. Us? We have no other planet standing by. This is our chance for this ship of ours, and it is time to wake up. It is time to take self-rescue seriously by every available means--and fast.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, as I rise today, kleptocracy is on the march in Europe, showing how unchecked corruption leads to evil.

Vladimir Putin's corrupt regime fabricated a pretext to invade and subjugate the sovereign and peaceful nation of Ukraine. Putin's attack helps divert the Russian people from his festering corruption and misrule, as jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny put it.

America and our allies are meting out stiff sanctions; and my colleagues and I here in Congress are working on additional measures to deliver punishing financial blows to Putin and his corrupt oligarchs. But we must consider how we arrived at this moment.

Putin has, for decades, deployed corruption and kleptocracy to strengthen his grip on Russia's government and to project power and influence throughout the region. In the process, he decimated Russia's free press, attacked--physically and economically--all political opposition, and grew his own personal fortune to what is thought to be the largest in the world. I say ``thought to be'' because Putin's wealth is hidden behind shell corporations and nestled in tax havens, far from the view of the people he robs and oppresses. And along the way, he cultivated--through favors, force, or fortunes--a group of oligarchs who serve him.

It is important to understand that Putin isn't special. We have plenty of kleptocrats around the globe. Putin just happens to be in charge of a big and oil-rich country with a military at his command, a gangster with an army running a gas station, as Senator McCain used to say.

America is engaged in a growing clash of civilizations against this brand of corrupt leadership. Democracy and the free market are on one side; kleptocracy and corruption are on the other. And we will prevail in this clash by pursuing one powerful value of rule of law society: transparency.

Kleptocrats and criminals seek the protection of our rule of law and our secure financial system to stow their illicit money, but they need anonymity. They need to hide it. That is why so much anonymously owned luxury real estate sits empty in America, in some places actually driving up local housing costs for normal people. And that is why shell corporations in American States multiply.

The Pandora Papers last year revealed webs of American shell corporations and trusts hiding dirty assets. It revealed professionals--lawyers, accounts, and real estate agents--aiding and abetting the hiding of those dirty assets. Shining the light of transparency on kleptocrats' money is a potent countermeasure to their power.

Late in 2020, Congress passed the most important anti-money laundering

reform law in two decades: the Corporate Transparency Act. It was very bipartisan. Senators Grassley, Graham, Wyden, Rubio, Brown, Crapo, Warner, Cotton, and I all spent years getting that bill done. Our aim was to arm law enforcement with knowledge of the ``beneficial owner''-- the real person--who is behind American shell corporations.

Now, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN, is implementing our beneficial ownership provisions. And the new rule promises to be a strong countermeasure.

It requires anyone who exerts substantial control directly or indirectly over a legal entity to identify themselves as the beneficial owner. That is what we wanted. It is clear enough so that companies know what they have to do, while minimizing the risk that bad actors can evade disclosure.

And its timelines for reporting and updating beneficial ownership information are fair, providing law enforcement and national security officials timely information without imposing unreasonable turnarounds for legitimate companies.

The beneficial ownership rule also avoided a trap. Some had urged FinCEN to add exceptions to the reporting requirements on top of the ones Congress included in the bill. Well, we worked hard to come up with the right list of excepted entities. It is encouraging to see FinCEN stand firm and avoid watering down the rule with new unjustified exceptions.

FinCEN is also working on a review of Bank Secrecy Act regulations with an eye toward a new ``anti-money laundering and counterterror financing'' framework. This review offers a chance to take on some big challenges.

We need to make sure American professionals aren't aiding and abetting kleptocrats. Investing in hedge funds, luxury real estate, high-priced art, expensive cars, mega yachts all requires help from professionals, and those professionals aren't bound to ``anti-money laundering and counterterror financing'' safeguards like our banks are.

Private investment funds are worth about $11 trillion. You can hide a lot of mischief in $11 trillion. An FBI intelligence bulletin leaked in 2020 warned that ``threat actors'' used those funds to launder their money into rule-of-law financial systems. That is a vulnerability we need to close.

This aiding and abetting problem, giving aid and comfort to our enemies, extends to professional services from lawyers, accountants, company and trust formation agents, even PR firms. But on this front, FinCEN's hands are tied. Congress will need to step in to clean that up.

Kleptocrats and criminals constantly change the methods they use to hide their money. Trade-based money laundering, for instance, allows bad actors to trade everything from vegetables to washing machines as a way to move their money around internationally. We need better coordination among key agencies involved in overseeing trade and better information on suspicious financial and trade activity that is shared more efficiently among various Federal authorities.

Real estate is a massive target for money launderers. In August of last year, the watchdog group Global Financial Integrity released a report showing over $2.3 billion laundered through American real estate over the previous half decade. As Global Financial Integrity would tell you, this is just what they could identify. The real number is probably far higher.

The good news there is we have a countermeasure that works well. In 2016, FinCEN started the ``geographic targeting order'' program, which requires title insurers to report to FinCEN beneficial ownership information of shell companies that stash money in high-priced real estate. That program started in New York and Miami, then expanded to a dozen jurisdictions nationwide. The Congressional Research Service has reviewed it and said these targeting orders work.

Now, FinCEN is proposing a rule to make these orders permanent and expand coverage across the United States. It looks like FinCEN will deliver that improvement. And if it does, that is a big win, particularly if that rule lines up with our beneficial ownership rule and if it extends to cover commercial, as well as residential real estate.

In Congress, we should pass legislation to help FinCEN address professional aiders and abettors. There is bipartisan legislation in the House, the ENABLERS Act, which I hope to introduce here in the Senate. I have also introduced bipartisan legislation to make it a crime for foreign officials to demand bribes from Americans. At the moment, it is only a crime to pay bribes. And we should pay close attention to others in the dark economy, like drug traffickers and terrorists.

I am working on legislation to target money laundering related to the illicit narcotics trade. Indeed, we had a hearing on it today.

Finally, we need to work together with the international community. When U.S. defenses are strengthened, kleptocrats will direct their dirty money to some other willing sanctuary. So it matters that the Biden administration has announced a transatlantic, interagency task force to help crack down on ill-gotten assets stowed in the West by Russian oligarchs and their families, their mistresses, their stooges, whomever. This is exactly the right approach. We must work with friends abroad to close off hidey-holes for oligarchs, bolster the rule of law, expand judicial transparency, and increase access to justice in struggling jurisdictions.

I met recently with a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament who said a phrase--that we were talking about actually during the Munich Security Conference codel--which was: It is not enough to freeze the oligarch's assets; we need to seize the oligarch's assets.

We can do so even theatrically, and to take a camera through the preposterous and grotesque wealth and show the people of Russia what was stolen from them would be as significant a public relations victory as when Ukrainians went through their oligarch's mansion and showed everything from gold toilet seats to private petting zoos.

Kleptocrats, like Putin and his oligarchs, can be defeated. A little sunlight will vanquish them. Free societies and the rule of law can win the long battle we face against kleptocracy and corruption.

This is a national security matter, not just a question of doing good. This is a national security matter, and these are the tools--the ones I have described, the tools of transparency--that will secure our victory.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have 7 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that upon disposition of the Bush nomination, the Senate vote on confirmation of the Coffey nomination.

Mr. President, I am here again today to discuss the scheme by big Republican donor interests to capture and control our Supreme Court. Today, I am going to put a little spotlight on ongoing scheme operations.

As we all know, Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this Supreme Court term. As the Biden administration selects a nominee, the scheme is shifting gears to attack her even before she has been named.

A dark money front group called the Judicial Crisis Network has already announced a multimillion-dollar ad blitz against Justice Breyer's unnamed replacement, and its first ad is already up. The ad's premise is that leftwing dark money is poised to capture our Supreme Court. I am not making that up. Think of a squid. When a squid senses danger, it squirts a jet of ink into the water. The squid ink creates confusion and distracts predators, and the squid sneaks off. This new ad from the Judicial Crisis Network is squid ink.

Let's start with just a quick review of the facts. Rightwing donor interests captured our Supreme Court under Donald Trump. They did it with dark money. They used the front group Judicial Crisis Network to launder off identities of big rightwing contributors. The deidentified contributions funded political campaign ads against Merrick Garland and for Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Those are the facts. The road onto the Supreme Court for those three Justices was paved with dark money.

By the way, the checks were big. Four of the checks to Judicial Crisis Network were for $15 million or more. That is a big check. Because we don't know who those donors are or who that donor is--it could all be one donor--we don't know what business they had before the Court or why it was so worth it to them or him to spend $60 million to influence the makeup of the Court.

This new Judicial Crisis Network ad--the squid ink ad--is designed to confuse those rather conspicuous facts. They can hide who funded them, but they can't hide what they did; so, squid ink--distraction, misdirection. Their accusations of dark money corruption are a projection of the very scheme they themselves hatched and executed. As I have discussed previously in these speeches, this is a classic propaganda technique: You accuse your adversary of what you yourself have been doing.

Yes, it is maddening to have a phony front group use dark money to capture and corrupt our Supreme Court and turn it into the Court that dark money built. It is devilish, Vladimir Putin-style propaganda for that phony front group to then accuse others of exactly what it did--a false mirror of its own behavior.

By the way, that Judicial Crisis Network ad accusing a not-yet-chosen Supreme Court nominee of being a dark money stooge? Paid for with dark money. You can't make this stuff up.

Let's look at the Judicial Crisis Network. Start with the fact that ``Judicial Crisis Network'' does not exist. It is, legally speaking, a fiction. Who knew, right--an entity selling fiction that is itself a fiction. ``Judicial Crisis Network'' is actually a ``fictitious name''--that is a term under Virginia incorporation law--a fictitious name, one of several filed by an organization, a completely different organization, called the Concord Fund.

It gets even more tangled, as dark money schemes tend to be--they are a lot like a covert operation--so let's keep digging.

The Judicial Crisis Network actually used to exist. It was once the 501(c)(4) twin of a 501(c)(3) called the Judicial Education Project. That is the state of the art these days for dark money political mischief, a twinned 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4). Tax records list the same address for both entities--conveniently an address which happens to be just right down the hall, on the same floor, in the same building, as the Federalist Society.

This twinned organization trick allows donors to shift money in and out of different shady operations with zero disclosure, and it even gives donors a tax deduction to the 501(c)(3). You could pierce that corporate veil pretty easily.

All this schemery hides the donors behind the operation. It fools members of the press who don't bother to figure it out, and it helps dark money operatives like Leonard Leo, the central organizer of the scheme--the operative for the big dark money donors--to hide their hands and shuffle money secretly around.

Leonard Leo, you will recall, ran the donor turnstile at the Federalist Society that picked Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Then, at the tail end of the Trump administration, with no more Supreme Court appointments likely, Leo scuttled off to a new venture: CRC Advisors.

CRC Advisors was designed, as Axios reported, to ``funnel big money and expertise across the conservative movement.''

As an aside, CRC Advisors has an affiliate called CRC Strategies, which, among other things, brought us the infamous swift boat campaign against John Kerry--classy bunch.

Along with the inception of CRC Advisors, Judicial Crisis Network was quietly renamed the ``Concord Fund,'' and the Judicial Education Project was quietly renamed the ``85 Fund.''

These became twin 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(3) political mischief operations. Concord, as a 501(c)(4), would handle attack ads and PR. The 85 Fund, the 501(c)(3), would help mask Concord's operations and donors and provide tax deductibility.

So that was the original setup, the renaming. Then these newly named groups loaded up with all these fictitious names. They filed under Virginia law for permission to operate under fictitious names, and these are the fictitious names they registered to use.

First, Concord took its old name--its old name--and reregistered it as this new fictitious name. And so did 85 Fund, taking its old name, Judicial Education Project, and registering it as a fictitious name. Go figure why that was necessary.

Then they stood up new voter suppression projects under other fictitious names: Honest Elections Project Action and Honest Elections Project. Those two front groups--fictitious name front groups--are part of the dark money armada, along with Heritage Action and others, through which big rightwing donors orchestrated the anti-voting laws that have spread like a virus through Republican State legislatures. That didn't just happen. That was done. And as a Heritage Action employee admitted in a leaked video, they did it, quietly, through sentinels.

Concord also added another fictitious name, Free to Learn Action, and 85 Fund created the twin Free to Learn. These fronts are presumably to whip up the rightwing about so-called critical race theory when the big donors want.

Gobs of money pours into this propaganda machine. The 85 Fund's last tax filing shows $65 million in revenues, including one $48.5 million donation from a single, anonymous donor. If it is the same single, anonymous donor that contributed the over $15 million contributions to the Judicial Crisis Network before, that would put one donor over $100 million into this Court-capture scheme--and all that money for an organization with only one employee who draws a salary of over $100,000 per year.

So no surprise, then, that the 85 Fund channels lots of money back to the CRC mother ship. Its last tax filing shows over $12 million paid to Leo's CRC Advisors for so-called consulting/advertising services, and it distributed over $34 million to other unnamed groups, presumably in other areas of the scheme, in a big dark money shuffle.

We are still waiting for Concord Fund records for the most recent tax year, but the previous year's filing proves the Axios reporting is spot on. Concord's top independent contractor is CRC Advisors, paid over $4.2 million for consulting services. It is out of this pea-and-shell game switcheroo that the dark money Judicial Crisis Network ad emerges.

I have noticed recently--in fact, as recently as our last Judiciary Committee markup--that Republicans are currently reverting, often, to the same dark money line of attack as the Judicial Crisis Network. As we watch Republican Senators attack Democrat dark money, let's remember a few things. First, Republicans created, protected, and defended--and defend to this day--dark money. Republicans

block our efforts to get rid of dark money.

Republicans came first to the dark money game with billions of dark money dollars. Then, when we began to play by their rules--the rules they made, the rules they defend--they complained. I guess they hope that we will unilaterally disarm so they can pound us with dark money just as they did for years after their Republican Justices in Citizens United let the big money flow.

Well, unilateral disarmament isn't going to happen, but that is not the only reason for the squid ink. The falsehood of this ad serves to damn us all in the eyes of the public. The rightwing scheme reckons that Americans, frustrated and cynical about a slimy, dark money battle purportedly involving both sides, will tune out and turn away from what Justice Sotomayor has called the ``stench'' of partisanship emerging at the Supreme Court.

All this misdirection--squid ink--can then distract from their captured Court's record for the big scheme's donors. The ``Roberts Five'' have a pattern now, a pattern of 80--80--partisan 5-to-4 decisions, all benefiting easily identified Republican donor interests--an 80-to-0 record. It is a heck of a pattern.

And now they have a new rightwing, dark money supermajority to amp it up even further. It is no wonder polling shows that Americans believe the six-Justice Republican majority is motivated mainly by politics and that the Court's approval rating just hit an alltime low.

So a little distraction is in order. Cue the squid ink. Meanwhile, the Senate minority leader is reportedly urging his caucus to keep a low profile on Biden's nominee. I get it. When you have got your burglars inside merrily ransacking a house, the last thing you want is a noisy ruckus out on the front lawn. One liberal Justice exchanged for another isn't worth a fuss when the loot is being shoveled out the window to your gang.

If there was any honest concern about dark money on the Republican side, there is a really, really easy way to show it: support legislation to clean it up; put an end to it.

I have a bill, the DISCLOSE Act. It will end dark money in our politics and in our judiciary. Every single Senate Democrat has voted in favor of this DISCLOSE Act. Even the liberal groups that Judicial Crisis Network complains about are backing that bill.

So, my Republican friends, support it, pass the law, end the slimy, political, dark money era we now live in. They could do that, but I will make you a bet that they won't. Dark money power is too important a weapon for rightwing donors to abandon.

So, instead, Republicans in this Chamber filibuster that legislation--filibuster it--and dark money continues to corrupt our politics.

Brace yourselves, folks. Squid ink will flow in the weeks and months ahead. For the dark money forces squirting out the squid ink, the aim is defense, defense of their mighty prize: the Court that dark money built and that dances to their dark money tune.

To be continued.

I yield the floor.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. President, I have 12 requests for committees to meet during today's session of the Senate. They have the approval of the Majority and Minority Leaders.

Pursuant to Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a), of the Standing Rules of the Senate, the following committees are authorized to meet during today's session of the Senate:

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

That was the question--how soon that might be, given that we have a 2:15 vote coming up.

No. My question was, simply, how long the Senator was going to proceed, given that the schedule for my remarks was at 1:35. So no further questions. I apologize for interrupting. I was just trying to sort out the timing.