John Cornyn

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 10:30 a.m., in the President's Room of the Capitol.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Threats to the Homeland.''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Securing a Prosperous and Democratic Future for Ukraine.''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 9:45 a.m.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SR- 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a Subcommittee hearing entitled ``Consumer Product Safety and the Recall Process.''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 8, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding the provisions of rule XXII, following the cloture vote on the motion to proceed to H.R. 2028 on Thursday, October 8, the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the following nominations en bloc: Calendar Nos. 123, 266, 267, 300, 325 through 328, 330, 331, and 335; that the Senate vote on the nominations en bloc without intervening action or debate; that following disposition of the nominations, the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate; that no further motions be in order to the nominations; that any statements related to the nominations be printed in the Record; that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I know the President is traveling to Oregon tomorrow. There is a lot of focus, and appropriately so, on the tragedy that occurred last Thursday afternoon in Oregon. I want to start out my remarks this morning by offering, again, our deepest condolences and heartfelt prayers to the families and friends who suffered so much in what seems like a senseless act of violence. Perhaps stating the obvious, that it is terrible for our Nation to experience yet another tragedy like this, what I hope is that we don't become numb to hearing these reports so we end up being frozen into inaction or dysfunction but that we actually look for ways to try to work together to try to make some progress to deal with the root causes of incidents like this. For the family and friends of those who lost loved ones last week-- like so many others who have lost children, their friends, and siblings in one of these shootings--we know the emotions are still raw and real. So it is with great deference to those who have suffered this loss that I wish to discuss what I believe to be one of the major contributing factors to these seemingly senseless acts of violence that have occurred across the country, and I will talk a little bit about some legislation which I have introduced which I think will actually help us address one of those root causes. The legislation I have introduced is called the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act. I believe it would bring real change to our Nation and provide help to those struggling with mental illness. This bill would empower families with more options for their loved ones. I think about the mother of Adam Lanza, the shooter at Sandy Hook, and how she knew her son was suffering from mental illness, but basically she didn't have any options other than to let him continue to descend and become sicker and sicker or to go to court and seek an involuntary commitment for a temporary period of time. So to make sure that families like Adam Lanza's and like the mother of the Oregon shooter--she said her son seemed to be doing fine as long as he took his medication, but when he quit taking his medication, he would become a real problem because he would get sicker and act out. The legislation I have introduced attempts to strengthen the safety of our communities by providing families with more options when it comes to treating people with mental illness and treating them different from common criminals. We know the majority of inmates at our jails in America are people with mental illness. They may have committed some petty crime because of their mental illness, and frequently, because of their attempts to self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, they get in trouble with the law. But rather than just lock them up, wouldn't it be so much better if we could get at the root causes of their mental illness and the reason they show up there in the first place? That is actually the goal of some very innovative programs I will mention in just a moment, but the goal of my bill that I introduced in August is to support families before it is too late and to provide a path to recovery and healing for the mentally ill. Proactively treating those with mental problems is a vital component to reducing the risk of violence in towns and cities across the country. This bill would help the whole community, including families, as I mentioned, and schools. Certainly teachers and administrators at schools are privy to information and know things or suspect things that could be very helpful in providing assistance to families and those suffering from mental illness. It would also help law enforcement, providing them the training to spot the warning signs of individuals who could become a danger to themselves and others. Many of the provisions of this legislation are based on policies that have been proven effective in State and local jurisdictions around the country. Recently, I was in San Antonio--my hometown and where I served as a district judge. In August I had an opportunity to visit with those in the San Antonio area who have taken a leading role in coming up with new and innovative ways to approach this issue, including one of the leaders of that effort, Sheriff Susan Pamerleau. She championed those reforms, made our community safer, and provided families with alternatives to an endless cycle of incarceration for people with mental illness who don't actually get their symptoms and the cause of their problems treated. The mental health program in Bexar County, which is the county where San Antonio is located, is now touted as the national standard for how to think strategically about those suffering from mental illness in our criminal justice system. The legislation I have introduced will help institute some of these best practices at the national level. This legislation would empower families who struggle to find help for their mentally ill loved ones and encourage the development of mental health awareness programs in schools to help educators identify students with mental illness and provide them with the resources and treatment they need. It also includes specialized training for those on the frontlines, such as law enforcement. I heard in San Antonio recently that because of the training law enforcement receives, they have been able to reduce, if not almost completely eliminate, the violence that occurs when a police officer arrives at a call and encounters someone who is mentally ill. By providing the specialized training, you can deescalate the violence and allow the officer to direct the person to a place where they can actually get some help. This legislation would also encourage State and local governments to create pretrial screening and assessment programs to identify mentally ill offenders, provide need-based treatment, and develop post-release supervision plans so they don't become a danger to themselves and others. This bill also strengthens the current background check system by incentivizing information sharing among the States so that law enforcement has appropriate information regarding individuals with adjudicated mental illness in the criminal justice system. One example that is pretty close to Washington, DC, is the Virginia Tech shooter, who actually had been adjudicated mentally ill, but the State of Virginia had not uploaded that information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System maintained by the FBI. So when he purchased a firearm, it did not show that he was disqualified, as he would have been if that information had been uploaded to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Trying to make it easier for the States to put information into the system is one of the goals of this legislation. I hope my colleagues will view this as a commonsense attempt to try to make a significant step forward that will help not only those with mental illness get the help they need but also equip our Nation's law enforcement officers to perform their jobs. Last week, more than 20 mental health organizations sent a letter to Members of the House advocating for mental health reform, calling the need ``urgent'' to ``improve the lives of tens of millions of Americans, their families, and our communities.'' We need to listen to them, and we need to act. I know from reports that some of our Democratic colleagues have said they are going to introduce some gun control legislation that we all know has been tried before and cannot pass this Chamber. What we need instead is a broad consensus to try to get something done that can bring people together, and I believe my legislation can do that by addressing the root cause of some of these horrific events--again, mental illness. So instead of calling each other names, as the minority leader did on the floor last week, I would invite our colleagues across the aisle to do something constructive and to work together on this legislation. The Mental Health and Safe Communities Act is a serious proposal and will take important steps toward preventing additional tragedies across the country. I think many of us understand that mental health reform, generally speaking, is long overdue, and this is an issue many groups in the mental health community support. I should point out that there are many other organizations that support this legislation as well. Just to make my point about this being consensus legislation, I will mention some of the organizations that are supporting the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act: the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Association of Police Organizations, the American Correctional Association, the American Jail Association, the Council of State Governments, the Treatment Advocacy Center, the National Association of Social Workers, and the National Rifle Association. Madam President, I daresay that you won't find a group like that coming together on many issues, but on this legislation, on which we worked very closely with them, they have actually been able to settle some of their differences and meet each other on common ground in a way that I think gives us hope that we can actually get some legislation passed and send it to the President. That will actually provide help to people like Adam Lanza's mother or the mother of the shooter in Oregon, who had nowhere else to turn, under the current state of the law, in order to get her son to comply with his doctor's orders to take his medication. Thanks to the miracle of modern medical science, there are miraculous medications that can help people suffering from mental illness lead productive and relatively normal lives. I encourage my colleagues to consider how we can move this conversation forward in a way that results in real, positive change for our country--above the polarizing rhetoric and political gamesmanship that tends to characterize too much of what we do here in Washington and certainly on this topic. Last week President Obama addressed the Nation after this horrific incident in Oregon. I believe his emotions were real, but unfortunately he didn't offer any concrete solutions to the problem. He said, among other things, that making our communities safer will require changing our laws. He went on to say that Congress needs to put forward such legislation, and that what is I have tried to do. I am pleased that the President indicated his interest and concerns, but the real question is, Will the President work with us on legislation that actually offers solutions or will it just be a matter of grandstanding? Will our Senate colleagues offer legislation that previously has shown it cannot move in the Senate and render us dysfunctional or will they work together in a bipartisan way to try to find common ground and real solutions? I think that is the question. I would ask our colleagues who are offering legislation--sort of relitigating some of these issues on which we haven't been able to find consensus--which of these proposals would have actually gone on to address the root causes of some of these incidents in the past? I think that is a very important question because if you are interested in demagoguing an issue, you can talk about that and offer purported solutions which can't pass and which actually would not have changed the outcome. What I have tried to do is figure a way that--OK, given our differences on this issue, how can we find that common ground and offer solutions? Through this legislation, we would give families a way to help their mentally ill family members. We would help schools appropriately identify and respond to someone with mental illness. We would improve the response of law enforcement and the criminal justice system to make sure that mentally ill individuals do not become dangerous to themselves and others. We would work to help the States fix the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. We would reduce the stigma associated with mental illness by protecting due process rights of the mentally ill. I was somewhat taken aback and disturbed when I saw a story this morning in Politico: ``Dems ready sweeping new guns bill.'' One of the statements in the article jumped out at me. It says: ``Democratic leaders are wary that their rank and file could defect and begin supporting the Cornyn bill.'' So actually, according to this article, what is occurring is, rather than looking to find consensus or to join together to support legislation that might actually help solve the problem, some in the Democratic leadership are actively lobbying their own Members not to get on legislation or support legislation that might actually pass and might actually work. That strikes me as incredibly cynical and doesn't demonstrate an interest in actually solving the problem but, rather, political grandstanding. I would encourage all of our colleagues, regardless of where you stand on this issue, let's try to figure out a way to move forward. We have a real opportunity to address the common element found in most of these mass shootings, and we don't have any time to waste. We can do better for the American people and get the Mental Health and Safe Communities Act done. Unanimous Consent Agreement--Executive Calendar

Mr. CORNYN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 2:30 p.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Assessing the North Korea Threat and U.S. Policy: Strategic Patience or Effective Deterrence?''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on October 7, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``S. 2102, The `Standard Merger and Acquisition Reviews Through Equal Rules Act of 2015'.''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Special Committee on Aging be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 2 p.m., in room SD-562 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled ``Protecting Seniors from Identity Theft: Is the Federal Government Doing Enough?''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 11 a.m., in room SR-428A of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Indian Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, in room SD-628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 10 a.m.

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 9:30 a.m., in room SD-406 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.''

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 10 a.m., in room SR- 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building to conduct a hearing entitled, ``Removing Barriers to Wireless Broadband Deployment.'' The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. committee on environment and public works

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Armed Services be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 7, 2015, at 9:30 a.m.

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, while he is still on the floor, I want to thank the Senator from New Jersey for his remarks. He is clearly one of the institution's experts on Cuba and the Castro regime, and I think we need to pay attention to what he is saying. Unfortunately, we seem to be dealing with other countries and other regimes as we hope they will be, not as they are in reality. That was an important set of remarks, so I thank the Senator. Mr. President, yesterday the United States Senate voted to advance the National Defense Authorization Act--what we call the NDAA. I worry sometimes we talk in Senate-speak, and we don't actually communicate what legislation is, so I want to talk a little about what this defense--or national security--legislation is and why it is so important that it passes. After passing both the House and the Senate earlier this summer, colleagues worked in a conference committee led by Mac Thornberry from Texas, chairman of the House Committee on Armed Services, and Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. I know they had a tough job in reconciling those two different versions of the legislation, but now they have come forward with strong bipartisan legislation that supports our military and our families. My dad served for 31 years in the United States Air Force. He flew B- 17s in World War II in the Army Air Corps. I proudly grew up as an Air Force brat, so this is personal to me, as I know it is to the Presiding Officer, who has served in the Marine Corps for a long time and for whom this is a very personal issue as well. In my State of Texas we are very proud of our connection with the military. We claim--I am not sure it is exactly true but we make this claim--that one out of every ten persons in uniform calls Texas home. I think that is probably roughly correct, but we want to make sure that through this legislation we do our job to make sure our military gets the equipment and the training they need in order to perform the dangerous missions we ask them to perform here in the United States and around the world. That is what this legislation does. For example, the bill authorizes funding for the Corpus Christi Army Depot. This installation is a true national treasure because what it does is to refurbish the rotary-wing aircraft that come from overseas. After they are battered and beaten up, they come back and make them like new. So when these army helicopters serve overseas, they come back for a pit stop in Corpus Christi at the depot, and they make sure they are ready for the next challenge our military faces. This legislation we will be voting on at 2 p.m. this afternoon authorizes funding for the construction of a new facility at the depot where helicopter engines and transmissions can continue to be repaired, and we can continue to equip, as we should, our military. This Defense authorization bill also authorizes critical military construction, such as the barracks at the Air Force basic training program at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where thousands of airmen start their service to this Nation every year. That was the first assignment for my dad, at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX, when I was a freshman in high school. I have had the privilege of attending some of the graduation ceremonies there, and they are really an inspiration. You see this whole football field full of trainees learning, through their basic training, how to become airmen and to serve our country in the U.S. Air Force. The real people and real installations are dependent upon this authorization bill becoming law. This defense legislation is integral to ensuring our military is well resourced, well trained, and ready for action when called upon. Importantly, this legislation also helps clarify the United States' long-term defense priorities and authorizes funds to equip our military to handle the multiple evolving conflicts around the world. I am reminded that in August I visited the Pacific Command with some of our colleagues here in the Senate, where we asked Admiral Harris, the four-star commander of the Pacific Command, what keeps him up at night. What are you most concerned about? At the top of his list was North Korea, governed by a volatile dictator with nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. I know General Dunford, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the former Commandant of the Marine Corps, had a little different ordering. He put Russia at the top, I think, then China, North Korea, and then ISIL, if I am not mistaken. But regardless of the exact order, we know there are numerous threats to world peace and regional security. We learned the lesson on 9/11 that what happens overseas doesn't stay overseas. It directly affects our security right here at home too. That is why this legislation is so critical. This Defense authorization bill also includes provisions that fund efforts to counter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, where Vladimir Putin is trying to intimidate and coerce countries that are part of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and threatening them with the kind of aggression we have seen in Crimea and Ukraine. This bill helps counter that aggression. It also provides resources to help train and assist our partner nations in the Asia-Pacific, it provides help for Israeli missile defense and anti-tunneling defense, and it supports our partners in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East to combat rampant terrorist activity. So what we do here in the Senate and in this Congress and here in Washington, DC, is important to our national security and the safety of our Nation. That is why for over 50 years Congress has made passing the Defense authorization bill--what we sometimes refer to as the NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act--that is why we have always made that a priority. All of us, regardless of political affiliation or ideology, believe it is fundamentally important to make sure our men and women in uniform, who are fighting on our behalf or standing ready to fight when called upon, faced with unprecedented threats around the world--we need to make sure, as a moral obligation, that they have what they need and that they know we are solidly behind them. That is what signal this legislation sends. Now we have a chance to send this to the President--after we vote on this legislation--send it to him for his signature. But here is where I am troubled. President Obama has indicated he may well veto this legislation. And what, we might ask, would be his reason? Is there some provision of the legislation that he finds so repugnant or difficult that he wants to veto the legislation? Frankly, what the President and the White House have said is--they claim the funding levels outlined in the Defense authorization bill are ``irresponsible.'' But get this: These same funding levels are reflected in the President's own budget request. So we gave the President what he asked for, and he calls them ``irresponsible.'' What kind of hypocrisy is that? I hope the President and his counselors at the White House will reconsider playing fast and loose with support for our troops and this important piece of legislation. This bill is bipartisan. We can have our fights over all sorts of things--and Heaven knows we will--in this polarized political environment, but if there is one thing on which we all ought to agree on a bipartisan basis, it is that this legislation needs to pass. This support for our troops in an ever-dangerous world should be a priority. Fortunately, many of our Democratic friends understand this, and they have worked with us, and that is the way it should be. So I hope they aren't tempted to block this legislation in order to give cover to the President and to prevent him from being held accountable for his own decisions. This is not a time to play games, particularly with our national security and our men and women in uniform at stake. Today our Armed Forces face a world with growing challenges in almost every corner of the world. As a matter of fact, I think the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said he doesn't remember a time in his long career in the Air Force and now in the intelligence community where the world has faced more diverse threats and challenges. And, like it or not, the United States is the point of the spear in addressing those challenges. If the United States doesn't step up and lead, there is a vacuum created which does nothing but encourage these tyrants, these thugs, the dictators and other people who will take advantage of that void. We can't tie our own hands behind our backs while asking our troops to fly into harm's way to support efforts against ISIS and Syria and Iraq or sail to the edges of the Pacific to keep Chinese ambitions in check or to accompany Afghan soldiers in deadly firefights against a resurgent Taliban. Right now, as I stand in this Chamber, we have Americans--soldiers, sailors, and marines--who are putting their lives at risk to defend this Nation. By definition, when they are deployed overseas, they are far away from home, separated from their loved ones and their families. We ought to always remember that for every man or woman who wears the uniform, there is a family back home who is serving our Nation as well who deserves our gratitude and our support. The last thing our military needs is a reason to question the strength of our convictions, and they need Congress to support them. Our adversaries watch this sort of thing, too, because what they read into political dysfunction--particularly when it comes to something as important as our national security--is they see encouraging signs that maybe they can push the envelope a little further. Maybe they can challenge the United States and our allies a little more. Maybe they can grab a little more property, real estate. Maybe they can plant a flag someplace they otherwise would not because they see in our actions--particularly on something as important as this--a certain reticence, perhaps not a willingness to lead but, rather, an America retreating from our international responsibilities, and that is dangerous. That is dangerous. I encourage all of our colleagues to simply vote once more in support of this legislation so we can send it to the President's desk. What he does is his responsibility. This legislation passed last June with more than 70 votes. If we can send this bill to the President with that same sort of overwhelming bipartisan support, the President won't be able to veto this legislation because he knows his veto can be overridden by a two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate. So let's do our part together to show our men and women in uniform that our support for them will never ever waiver. Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. CORNYN. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham), the Senator from Kansas (Mr. Roberts), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights, and Federal Courts, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on October 6, 2015, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Opportunity Denied: How Overregulation Harms Minorities.''

Mr. CORNYN

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

Mr. CORNYN

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to spend a few minutes speaking about a topic we should all be able to agree on, even in this polarized environment in which we live and work, and that is the idea that transparency and accountability are key to good governance. Transparency and accountability are key to good governance. Open government is a prerequisite for a free society, one in which the legitimacy of government itself depends upon consent of the governed. In fact, we can't consent on something we don't know anything about. My colleagues get my point. As our Founding Fathers recognized, a truly democratic system depends on an informed citizenry so they can hold their leaders accountable at elections and between elections. But the American people cannot do that without transparency. Justice Brandeis famously said that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and he is right. That is why Congress has enacted numerous pieces of legislation that have promoted accountability and transparency in government so that good governance can hopefully flourish. This is a bipartisan issue. When I came to the Senate, I found a willing partner in Senator Patrick Leahy from Vermont. Senator Leahy and I are polar opposites when it comes to our politics, but on matters of open government and freedom of information, we have worked closely together on a number of pieces of legislation. As we both have said, when a Democratic President is in charge or a Republican President is in charge, the first instinct is to try to hide or minimize bad news and to maximize the good news. That is human nature. We all get that. But the American people are entitled to know what their government is doing on their behalf, whether it is good, bad, or ugly. So I have made transparency a priority of mine, and I have pressed for more openness in the Federal Government through commonsense legislation. One of those bills was the Freedom of Information Improvement Act, which would strengthen existing measures found in the Freedom of Information Act that was first signed by a Texas President, Lyndon Baines Johnson. The Judiciary Committee passed that bill in February by a voice vote, and I look forward to it passing in the Senate soon. But even the very best laws with the very best intentions can be undermined by those who are willing to ignore or even abuse them. More than 6 years ago, President Obama promised the American people that transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstone of this Presidency. He said, ``Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.'' Needless to say, his record has been a disappointment because it certainly doesn't meet the description of transparency and adherence to and fidelity to the rule of law. For example, when an estimated 1,400 weapons were somehow lost by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in Mexico, with one of them-- actually two of them--eventually linked to the murder of a U.S. Border Patrol agent, the Obama administration stonewalled congressional investigations. This was the Fast and Furious debacle. As a matter of fact, the Attorney General--then Eric Holder--refused to comply with a valid subpoena issued by Congress so we could find out about it, so we could figure out where things went wrong and how we could fix them so they didn't happen again. Former Attorney General Eric Holder, rather than comply with Congress's legitimate oversight request, refused and was thus the first Attorney General, to my knowledge, to be held in contempt of Congress--in contempt of Congress. Then, of course, there are the IRS and ObamaCare--instances in which this administration has either refused to testify to Congress or failed to answer our most basic questions. This administration has been equally dismissive of the press, who are also protected--freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution--leading dozens of journalists to send a letter to the President asking him to end this administration's ``politically driven suppression of news and information about Federal agencies.'' That is really remarkable. So we can see the American people have been stiff-armed by this administration, and they have become increasingly distrustful of their own government. That is because secrecy provides an environment in which corruption can and does fester. In fact, according to a recent poll, 75 percent of Americans who responded believe there is widespread corruption in the U.S. Government. Seventy-five percent believe that. That is a shocking statistic and one that ought to shock us back to reality to try to understand what their concerns are and what we can do to address them because that is simply inconsistent with this idea of self-government, where 75 percent of the respondents to a poll think the fix is in, and the government is neither accountable nor adhering to the rule of law. It was back in March that the public first learned that a former member of this administration, Secretary Clinton, used a private, unsecured server during her tenure as Secretary of State. It was just last Wednesday that the State Department announced the release of even more documents from Secretary Clinton's private email server. This ongoing scandal has been but the latest example of this administration's pattern of avoiding accountability and skirting the law. I will explain in just a few minutes why this is so significant and why this isn't something that ought to be just brushed under the rug and ignored. Secretary Clinton's unprecedented scheme was intentional. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't negligence. She did it on purpose. It was by design. Her design was to shield her official communications-- communications that under Federal law belong to the government and to the people, not her. I can't see any other way to explain it. It was deliberate. It was intentional. It was designed to avoid the kind of accountability I have been talking about today. There is just no other way to look at it. Because her emails were held on this private server, the State Department was in violation of the legal mandates of the Freedom of Information Act for 6 years, and it is only now, through Freedom of Information Act litigation and more than 30 different lawsuits, that the public is finally learning what it was always entitled to know, or at least part of it. By the way, that is the power of the Freedom of Information Act and why it is so important. You can go to court and seek a court order to force people to do what they should have done in the first instance so the public can be informed about what their government is doing. Secretary Clinton's use of a private, unsecured server as a member of the Obama Cabinet is also a major national security concern. We have learned that classified information was kept on and transmitted through this server. According to the latest reports, the newest batch of documents released just last week have doubled the amount of emails that contain classified information. News outlets are reporting that there are more than 400 classified emails on the server, and that is just the report so far. It is no coincidence that along with this news, the media has also reported that Russian-linked hackers attempted at least five times to break into Secretary Clinton's email account. That should make obvious to her and to everyone else the vulnerabilities that exist for a private, unsecured email server, one used by a Cabinet member in communicating with other high-level government officials, including people in the intelligence community. This is absolutely reckless. This Chamber is aware--we are painfully aware from the news--that cyber threats are all too prevalent today. It seems every week we read a new story about different cyber attacks, cyber theft, cyber espionage against our own country. This last summer we discussed at length the data breaches that occurred at the Office of Personnel Management. People who had actually sought and obtained security clearances so they could handle and learn classified material--that information was hacked and made available to some of our adversaries. Then, of course, there is the information we all learned about the IRS being hacked as well. The personal information contained in those two hacks alone covered millions of Americans. At a time when our adversaries are trying to steal sensitive national security information, especially classified information, I find it incredibly irresponsible for Secretary Clinton or anyone else to invite this kind of risk and to conduct routine, daily business on behalf of our Nation over a private, unsecured email server. I find it even more egregious that she or her senior aides would send classified information over this same server. I am not the only one who believes Secretary Clinton compromised our national security by doing this. Just last month, before the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, the current Director of the National Security Agency, ADM Mike Rogers, who also serves as commander of U.S. Cyber Command, said conducting official business on a private server would ``represent an opportunity'' for foreign intelligence operatives. In other words, foreign intelligence services would relish the opportunity to penetrate the private server of a high-profile leader such as Secretary Clinton or any other Secretary of State who, once again, is a member of the President's Cabinet, his closest advisers. Some hackers clearly noticed this opportunity and tried to take advantage of it, and we don't know--perhaps we never will know--the extent to which that national security information, that classified information was compromised. We need to come to terms with the fact that due to Secretary Clinton's bad judgment, it is probable that every email she sent or received while Secretary of State, including highly classified information, has been read by intelligence agents of nations such as China and Russia who we know are regularly trying to hack into our secure data and to learn our secrets or to steal our designs and to replicate those by violating our commercial laws. So this email scandal is more than just bad judgment; it represents a real danger to our Nation. I am sorry to say, but it is true, that Secretary Clinton's actions may well have violated a number of criminal laws. Under the circumstances, the appointment of a special counsel by the Justice Department is necessary to supervise the investigation and ensure the American people that investigation gets down to the bottom line and we follow the facts wherever they may lead. As I made clear in a recent letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, the Department of Justice regulations themselves provide for the appointment of a special counsel if there is potential for criminal wrongdoing and if there is a conflict of interest at the Department of Justice or if extraordinary circumstances warrant the appointment. Let me start by explaining which criminal statutes Secretary Clinton may have violated. Federal law makes it a crime to retain classified information without authorization. Whoever, being an officer . . . of the United States . . . knowingly removes [classified] documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both. That is 18 USC, section 1924. We know from media reports that Secretary Clinton retained classified documents on her server. According to those reports, more than 5 percent of the latest emails released by the State Department contained classified information. So we need a thorough, unbiased, impartial investigation to determine how those documents made it to Secretary Clinton's unsecured server and whether she knew that was happening. A special counsel would be the best person and in the best position to do just that. While Secretary Clinton may argue--which I heard her argue on news reports--that none of this information was marked ``classified'' when it was emailed to her, under the Espionage Act, that is irrelevant even if true, and I certainly doubt that is the case. According to the act, it is a crime to deliver national defense information to unauthorized individuals. At 18 USC, subsection 793(d), it states that ``whoever, lawfully having possession of . . . any document . . . or note relating to the national defense . . . willfully communicates, delivers, transmits . . . the same to any person not entitled to receive it . . . [s]hall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.'' So you can see this is serious. This is serious stuff and deserves to be treated with that same requisite seriousness, and that is again why it is so important to have an impartial investigation. We know, for example, that information on North Korea's nuclear program was in Secretary Clinton's emails. I was recently with some of my colleagues at Pacific Command, and Admiral Harris, a four-star admiral, the head of Pacific Command, said that on his list of security threats confronting his region of the world, North Korea is at the top. It has nuclear weapons, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it has a leader who is capable of doing just about anything he could imagine. It is a very dangerous situation and a very serious national security issue. Yet Secretary Clinton was communicating information or had communicated to her on her private email server information about North Korea's threat. We don't know whether that information was among the 200 classified emails released by the State Department last week. We know her lawyers and perhaps others reviewed every email on her server before turning them over to the State Department. We don't know who reviewed them, whether they had a proper clearance, whether they were actually entitled to see classified information, and that is why a special counsel would be important to answer that question too. Under the Espionage Act, we see that it is a crime to remove national defense documents or permit them to be stolen. Here is a summary of the statute: ``Whoever, being entrusted with . . . any document . . . relating to the national defense . . . through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody . . . or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.'' Now we know that the server was not held in a proper place of custody, and we know from the testimony of experts in the intelligence community that the likelihood that something was removed from Secretary Clinton's server by foreign hackers is high. Last week, as I said moments ago, news outlets reported that they were certainly trying. So a special counsel could answer this question and determine whether this statute was violated and how it should be enforced if it was violated. What greater example of gross negligence is there than for a high government official, such as the Secretary of State of the United States of America, a member of the President's Cabinet, to communicate all business on a private, unsecured server when it is likely--and maybe more than just likely--it is almost certain that sensitive national defense information would pass through it? We simply don't know what other laws may have been broken or whether there are other explanations that Secretary Clinton might have that might shed some light on this. But this is certainly why a special counsel should be appointed. And I would say that if Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration are confident that no laws have been broken, then why wouldn't they embrace the appointment of a special counsel? I would point out that in another case, the President's own Department of Justice has aggressively pursued the mishandling of classified information in the past. So my simple request in calling for a special counsel is that the same rules apply to Secretary Clinton. The Department's clear conflicts of interest in this case and the extraordinary circumstances surrounding it could not be more obvious. As a high-level official in the administration for 4 years, Secretary Clinton is clearly allied with the administration. As a former First Lady and a U.S. Senator, Secretary Clinton has a deep professional and personal relationship with the administration, including the President's choice for Attorney General, Loretta Lynch. I would think Ms. Lynch, the Attorney General, would want the sort of integrity and proper appearance that would occur by appointment of special counsel rather than have it look as if she has simply sat on this information and not conducted a thorough investigation herself. I am simply calling for that kind of investigation. As somebody who spent 17 years of my life as a State court judge and attorney general, I believe that sort of investigation is entirely warranted. Of course, some of my Democratic colleagues--including the Senators from Vermont and California--have already claimed that this call for a special counsel is some sort of political stunt. The senior Senator from California was quick to say that calls for a special counsel are purely political and completely unnecessary and would amount to wasting taxpayer dollars. Well, I would like to point out to both Senators from Vermont and California that each of them on more than one occasion has called for a special counsel in the past. Surely I don't think they would characterize their own call for a special counsel in the same terms that the current call for a special counsel is described. While serving as Senators, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, and former Secretary Hillary Clinton, while both of them were Senators, called for the appointment of a special counsel. All of that is to say that requesting an appointment of a special counsel is not uncommon, and it is clearly warranted in this case. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the response from the Justice Department to my letter requesting a special counsel be printed in the Record.