Ted Cruz

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the ongoing crisis in Venezuela. With so many crises happening around the globe these days, political turmoil in Venezuela has slipped from the headlines and sometimes seems easy to forget. The situation commands our attention. In Venezuela the protests against oppression go on, with 6,369 recorded rallies this year, the most in over a decade. When Hugo Chavez's death was confirmed 15 months ago, there were hopes that his hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro would prove more moderate and friendly to the United States. These hopes quickly proved groundless, as Maduro doubled down on his predecessor's disastrous socialist economic policies and his close partnership with Castro's Cuba, not to mention Khamenei's Iran. Earlier this year, as Venezuela endured shortages of basic goods from baby formula to caskets, from beginning of life to end and everything in between, while an increasingly authoritarian regime trampled their constitutional rights, the people finally took to the streets to protest Maduro's corrupt and unjust rule. Demanding freedom, they marched peaceably while Maduro's Cuban-trained militia tried to incite violence. Following the wide-ranging protests of February 12, 2014, Maduro's regime claimed that opposition leaders were personally responsible for the violence that Maduro's regime had deliberately provoked. Six days later, the leader of the Voluntad Popular Party Leopoldo Lopez demonstrated his respect for rule of law when he voluntarily surrendered to the authorities. He could have stayed in hiding, he could have gone into exile, but he believes it is only through taking action that change can come to Venezuela. Here is Mr. Lopez. As he surrendered to the authorities to be thrown in prison, hundreds of thousands of supporters accompanied him to the police van. Mr. Lopez has been held in the Ramo Verde military prison ever since. In early June a judge ordered him held for trial, which will begin this week. His wife Lilian Tintori is in Washington today to draw attention to his case. She spoke powerfully at the National Press Club about how she and her children have missed their dad, have missed Leopoldo while he has been in prison, but they know their daddy is doing what he must to fight for the men and women of Venezuela. Maduro's so-called evidence against Mr. Lopez includes the claim that he was somehow sending secret subliminal messages inciting violence, when he in fact explicitly called on his followers to protest peacefully. Let me repeat that. Mr. Lopez explicitly asked his followers to protest peacefully against the oppressive regime of Maduro. What does Maduro say? That apparently Leopoldo has the power to subliminally suggest violence when his words say, ``Don't engage in violence.'' This would be comical and absurd were it not the basis for an indictment that Maduro is seeking to lock Leopoldo up for 10 years in prison for daring to speak out against oppression. It is important to understand the trial scheduled this week is no trial in the ordinary term. There will be no jury. There will be no evidence for the defense--not for lack of trying. Mr. Lopez is denied any opportunity to refute these bogus charges about his supposed subliminal powers because Mr. Lopez's defense team asked to submit the testimony of 60 witnesses. The trial court denied all 60, said no witnesses will be allowed for the defense. Mr. Lopez's team asked to submit 13 videos. The trial court denied all 13. Mr. Lopez's defense team asked to submit the testimony of 12 experts. The trial court denied all 12. So in this so- called trial, which is nothing but a sham, the defense will have no evidence because the trial court has already decided they will allow no evidence in support of someone speaking for freedom, someone speaking for the people. The evidence will be kept out of this show trial. That is not an unusual path. Dictators, totalitarian regimes from Stalin to Castro throughout the ages have engaged in the same show trials that they use to brutally silence any who would dare to speak out against them. The undeniable fact is that Nicolas Maduro has no interest in justice in this case or in the nation of Venezuela. The official charges are public incitement, property damage, and criminal conspiracy, but Mr. Lopez's real crime is quite simply the exercise of his rights provided by article 57 of the Constitution of Venezuela, which states: Everyone has the right to express freely his or her thoughts, ideas or opinions orally, in writing or by any other form of expression, and to use for such purpose any means of communication and diffusion, and no censorship shall be established. That is what the Constitution of Venezuela says, but Nicolas Maduro says Leopoldo Lopez goes to prison and wants him to stay there for 10 years because he spoke out and spoke the truth. Mr. Lopez freely expressed his criticism of Maduro's failed leadership, and for that he has been unceremoniously thrown in jail and faces a sham trial that could rob his 4-year-old daughter and his 1-year-old son of having a daddy for the next 10 years. As his wife Lilian wrote today in the Washington Post: No one should doubt why Leopoldo is in prison: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is afraid of him, and he has great reason to be. Chavez did not deliver and Maduro has not delivered on their promises, and they have systematically dismantled our fundamental freedoms--free speech, freedom of association, freedom of the press and freedom to vote for candidates of our choosing. The most basic foundational human rights, and for advocating for those Leopoldo Lopez is in prison. Every American should take an interest in Mr. Lopez's fate. Not only is he a good friend to our country, having attended both Kenyon College and Harvard, he also advocates the sort of political and economic reforms that would return Venezuela to its historic place as a close partner to the United States, a development that would be of great advantage in our hemisphere. Mr. Lopez's case also reminds us of the precious freedoms we enjoy in the United States that can all too quickly be taken away. Article 57 should have particular resonance for us as our right to free speech is enshrined in the First Amendment of our Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. There is a reason the Framers chose this subject for the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, because upon these rights all of our liberties are built. No freedom is more vital to true democracy than the freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience and the freedom to speak as we choose without government censors, for when these freedoms are restricted citizens lose their ability to express their opposition to the government. As Venezuela shows us, this process can take place slowly, over time, but the eventual result is that a citizen who speaks out is silenced and punished. I have to say Leopoldo Lopez's situation is one that has resonance in my family. Fifty-seven years ago my father was in a prison in another Latin American country, the country of Cuba. My dad was 17 when he was imprisoned and tortured in a Cuban jail. Leopoldo is 43, the very same age I am today. Leopoldo Lopez's case is, unfortunately, not an isolated case in Maduro's Venezuela. Forty-six people have been killed, thousands have been detained, and more than 100 are still in prison. His fellow opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, recently discovered that she too had been charged last month with incitement to violence related to the February protests. She had never been informed there was a criminal case against her and now she faces potentially 6 years in prison as well. Maduro's actions are those of a dictator who knows he is deeply unpopular, that his policies are a dismal failure, and that to survive he has to silence the voices of those who oppose him and offer a viable alternative, who oppose him and offer freedom. The people of Venezuela showed in February that they are ready for a change from the long slog into totalitarian socialism that was begun by Chavez and is being continued by Maduro. Now Maduro is trying to use a cloud of censorship to isolate Venezuelans from each other and from the rest of the world. We should not look the other way. Again, from Lillian's Washington Post op-ed today: We need to send a message to the government that it cannot trample on the rights of its people with impunity. Accordingly, I call on President Maduro to release my husband and the more than 100 political prisoners being held in Venezuela. But my actions alone are not enough. My husband needs the support of all countries that stand for freedom. In this, the United States should lead the way. America should speak with a clarion voice: Free Leopoldo Lopez. As the hashtag #SOSVenezuela has rocketed around the globe, it shows the power of speaking the truth: Free Leopoldo Lopez. The United States should do everything it can to shine the bright light of truth and freedom on this repression by highlighting Leopoldo Lopez's case. President Obama should stand and lead, demanding the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez. Secretary Kerry should stand and lead, demanding the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez. Every Member of this body should join in bipartisan unison demanding the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez. We should not and cannot let this unjust persecution pass unnoticed but, rather, we should help the people of Venezuela choose a different path, a path of freedom, a path of prosperity, and a path of friendship that will return this one-time enemy, the nation of Venezuela, to its traditional role of America's partner and friend. All of us should join in demanding and working for the freedom of Leopoldo Lopez. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about one of the saddest developments in the Senate--namely, the all-out assault on the First Amendment being led by Senate Democrats. It is important to clarify what the issue before this body is not about. The issue before this body is not about access to contraceptives, despite a whole lot of politicking by Senate Democrats who suggest to the contrary. In this body the number of people who would do anything to restrict access to contraceptives to anybody is zero. Let me repeat that. There is no one in this body, there is no one I am aware of across the country who is advocating restricting anyone's access to contraceptives. My wife and I are blessed with two little girls. I am very glad we don't have 17. Nobody, nobody, nobody is talking about restricting access to contraceptives. What are we talking about? What we are talking about is the Federal Government using brute force to force people to pay for the abortion- inducing drugs of others against their religious faith. That is extraordinary. It is remarkable and it is dismaying. I am sorry to show what the current First Amendment looks like in the wake of the Democrats' assault on the First Amendment. In the Senate Judiciary Committee we have been debating on amendments some 47 Democrats have supported that would repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment. Sadly, every Senate Democrat in the Judiciary Committee supported it. Today, this body is considering another provision that would effectively cross out the free exercise rights. Where have we entered when the Bill of Rights has become a partisan matter? What kind of world is it? It used to be the case that we would find bipartisan agreement that the First Amendment is part of our civil compact--that we will stand together with one voice in support of the free speech rights of individual citizens, in support of the religious liberty rights of individual citizens. The proposal we are going to vote on in just a few minutes would go directly after the religious liberty rights of Americans. Let me talk a little bit about one group of people who will be affected by this bill if this bill were to pass. Let me talk about the Little Sisters of the Poor, a group of Catholic nuns. The Little Sisters of the Poor are an international congregation of Roman Catholic women founded in 1839 by St. Jeanne Jugan. Their mission is to: . . . offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they will be welcomed as Christ, cared for as family and accompanied with dignity until God calls them to himself. The bill that is being voted on on this floor would shut these nuns down. The bill that is being voted on on this floor, if it were adopted, would fine the Little Sisters of the Poor millions of dollars, unless these Catholic nuns are willing to pay for abortion-producing drugs for others. When did the Democratic Party declare war on the Catholic Church? And let me note, this is not hypothetical. I am not suggesting in theory this might be applied to the Little Sisters of the Poor. Right now-- today--the Obama administration is litigating against the Little Sisters of the Poor, trying to force them to pay for abortion-producing drugs and threatening to shut the Little Sisters of the Poor down. How far have we come from the basic bipartisan agreement in favor of religious liberty? Faith fines should have no place in American society. The Little Sisters of Denver, which provides approximately 67 full- time jobs, has said it will incur penalties of roughly $6,700 per day-- nearly $2.5 million per year--if it chooses to stay true to its religious beliefs; that is, $2.5 million a year in faith fines--fines to Catholic nuns who are devoting their time to caring and providing health care for the elderly. That is more than one-third of their $6 million budget each year. What has become of the Democratic Party? When did they become so extreme that they would actually propose fining nuns millions of dollars if they are unwilling to pay for the abortion-producing drugs of others? That is not a mainstream position. That is a radical, extreme position. I would encourage every one of my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle to ask themselves: How are they going to answer their constituents when they say: Senator, why did you vote in favor of a law that would fine Catholic nuns millions of dollars if they refuse to pay for the abortion-producing drugs of others? Let me make a basic suggestion. If you are litigating against nuns, you have probably done something wrong. And the Obama administration is doing so right now. Mr. President, drop your faith fines. Mr. Majority Leader, drop your faith fines. To all of my Democratic colleagues, drop your faith fines. Get back to the shared values that stitch all of us together as Americans. I call upon my Democratic colleagues to stop playing election-year politics. I recognize scaring women by suggesting someone is coming at their birth control may be good politics. It is false. Even the Washington Post has said it is false and a lie. But election-year politics should not trump religious liberty. Senate Democrats should not wage war on the Catholic Church. It is not just the nuns who are dismayed. The Catholic bishops have said the proposed bill ``does not befit a nation committed to religious liberty'' and would allow the government to ``override religious freedom rights of Americans regarding health coverage.'' So it is not just the nuns. It is to the Catholic bishops that the Democratic party has said: Your free exercise of religious rights has no place in a Democratic Senate. The Catholic bishops went on to say: If, in the future, the executive branch chose to add the abortion pill RU486, or even elective surgical abortion, including late-term abortion, to the list of ``preventative services,'' those who object to providing or purchasing such coverage would appear to have no recourse. Think about that for a second. The Catholic bishops just said the bill this body is getting ready to vote on, if passed, would enable the Federal Government to try to force Catholic nuns to pay for and carry out partial-birth abortion. That is staggering. If we want to talk about mainstream positions, there are mainstream positions, there are far-left positions, and then there is extreme radical fringe, which is the Federal Government forcing Catholic nuns to pay for partial-birth abortions. And that is where virtually every Senate Democrat is today. Under the legislation before this body, the Catholic University Ave Maria would be forced to make the same choice: Authorize abortion- inducing drugs right now or pay millions of dollars in fines to the U.S. Government. As Ave Maria President Jim Towey has said: Ave Maria University pays 95 percent of the cost of the health plan we offer our employees. Under the federal mandate Ave Maria University would be paying for these drugs if we complied with the law. So we will not. Every Senate Democrat who votes yes in a few minutes will be voting to fine Ave Maria Catholic University millions of dollars simply for standing true to their faith. That is a vote that should embarrass any Member of this body. Mr. Towey went on to say: We are prepared to discontinue our health plan and pay the $2,000 per employee, per year fine rather than comply with an unjust, immoral mandate in violation of our rights of conscience. Belmont Abbey College is another proud religious school--founded by Benedictine monks--that the Democrats have put in the same predicament. The Democrats' legislation would force Belmont Abbey College to pay $20,000 a day in faith fines. Faith fines have no place in our democracy. Let me ask again: Why are Democrats so hostile to the Catholic Church? Why are Democrats trying to use the Federal Government to fine Catholic institutions for holding true to their religious beliefs? It all comes down to a hard-line, extreme, out-of-touch position on abortion. Just yesterday we had a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee about legislation so broad that it would set aside State laws providing parental notification for abortion, prohibiting late-term abortions, mandating taxpayer-funded abortions. These are extreme radical views held by a tiny percentage of the American people but yet held by a large percentage of Democratic activists. This position would also rip apart the bipartisan legislation that President Clinton signed into law in 1993. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed the Senate 97 to 3. When President Clinton signed that Act, he said: What [RFRA] basically says is that the Government should be held to a very high level of proof before it interferes with someone's free exercise of religion. This judgment is shared by the people of the United States as well as by the Congress. We believe strongly that we can never, we can never be too vigilant in this work. We should listen to the words of Bill Clinton in 1993, and the Senate should back away from this assault on religious liberty. I will finally note two simple things. In 1997, when the Senate considered another assault on the free speech protections of the First Amendment, then-Senator Ted Kennedy, liberal lion of the Senate, stood and said: We haven't changed the Bill of Rights in over 200 years and now is no time to start. Senator Ted Kennedy was right in 1997. Likewise, President John F. Kennedy, in a historic speech to the Nation, said: I would not look with favor upon a president working to subvert the First Amendment's guarantees of religious liberty. Where are the Kennedys today? Does any Democrat have the courage to stand and speak for the First Amendment today? Does any Democrat have the courage to stand and speak for the constitutional rights of practicing Catholics? Does any Democrat have the courage to stand and speak for the Little Sisters of the Poor? Does any Democrat have the courage to listen to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and speak for religious liberty? It saddens me that there are not 100 Senators here unified, regardless of our faith, standing together, protecting the religious liberty rights of everyone. Faith fines have no business in our democracy. I urge every Member of this body to vote no on this assault on basic religious liberty of every American.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I wish to commend the senior Senator from New Jersey for the powerful remarks he has just given about the threat posed both to the United States and to the world of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities. I wish to commend the Senator from New Jersey for his leadership, along with Senator Mark Kirk, on Iran sanctions legislation--legislation that enjoys wide bipartisan support--and indeed that would have passed into law months ago were it not for the majority leader of this Chamber refusing to allow a vote on it. Even to this day, we should vote on Kirk-Menendez, because a substantial majority of Members of this body and of the House of Representatives would pass this legislation to make clear what the senior Senator from New Jersey just made clear: that no deal is not nearly as bad as a bad deal, which all of us fear we are on the verge of entering into in Vienna. Israeli-Palestinian Conflict I rise today to address the misguided foreign policy of the Obama administration, which is wreaking catastrophic consequences across the globe. The Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy has profoundly undermined our national security, along with that of our friend and ally, the Nation of Israel. Just last week the White House coordinator for the Middle East, Phillip Gordon, gave an astonishing speech at an international conference from Tel Aviv to try yet again to revive the Israeli- Palestinian peace process. In his remarks, Mr. Gordon criticized Israel for the failure of the most recent round of attacks, urging yet further concessions to the Palestinians. He asserted that the United States, as Israel's ``greatest defender and closest friend,'' had the obligation to ask ``fundamental questions'' about Israel's very viability as a democratic Jewish State after the breakdown of negotiations. I am not sure about the role Mr. Gordon suggests friends should play, but undermining our allies is not one of them. Mr. Gordon threatened that America would not be able to prevent the international isolation of Israel--what Secretary of State John Kerry shockingly recently referred to as Israel becoming an ``apartheid'' state--if Israel did not return to the table on terms he found acceptable. Mr. Gordon warned that the clock is ticking and that Israel should not take for granted the Palestinian Authority's willingness to negotiate. He claimed that the administration's negotiations with Iran had halted that country's nuclear program and made Israel safer. Mr. Gordon's comments are belied by the facts given that, No. 1, this conference took place under the direct threat of rocket attack from the Palestinian-sanctioned terrorist group Hamas--indeed, delegates literally had to, at one point, scatter for shelter--given that, No. 2, these rockets were fired by the very same terrorist actors who abducted and then brutally murdered three Jewish boys 3 weeks ago near Hebron, and given that, No. 3, Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan announced just days later that it was working closely with Iran in its attacks on Israel, declaring Hamas's ``connection with Hezbollah and Iran is much stronger today than what people tend to think.'' Given these facts, Mr. Gordon's remarks seem utterly detached from reality. Even more disturbing, the speech did not take place in a vacuum but, rather, was part of a coordinated messaging effort. It was accompanied by an op-ed by President Obama in Ha'aretz, which sponsored the conference, repeating Mr. Gordon's main themes. Taken as a whole, these statements demonstrate that the administration's longstanding policy of pressuring Israel into a peace deal with the Palestinians remains unchanged by the harsh reality in which Israel finds herself. In the hopes of demonstrating that there are some in the U.S. Government who do not share this policy, I would like to offer an alternative approach. As Israel's greatest partner and ally, the United States has weathered with Israel relentless attacks from terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, belligerents from rogue nations like Iran, and unremitting hostility from international organizations like the United Nations. As such, we are veritable brothers in arms--and who better than a brother to tell the truth about you? The truth is that Israel is the one country in the Middle East that fully shares America's fundamental values and interests. The truth is that Israel is a vibrant, inclusive democracy that respects the rights of its citizens--Jewish and Arab alike. The truth is that Israel has for more than six decades wanted nothing more than peace and has repeatedly made significant concessions to achieve it. The truth is that Israel can never be isolated on the international stage because the United States, with or without the President, will continue to stand with Israel. And the truth is that for the United States to abandon Israel would be to abandon the very moral principles that have made our Nation exceptional. These basic truths should inform any discussion of the current conflict taking place between Israel and the Palestinians. We also need to recognize that the circumstances leading to the 2012 cease-fire between Hamas and Israel are not the circumstances in which we find ourselves today, and that the terms of that agreement have proven inadequate to the current reality. Both Israel and the United States had hoped that the relative calm following the 2012 cease-fire would lead to peace and that the increasing prosperity of the West Bank would lead the Palestinians to renounce war. Sadly, those hopes proved illusory. That cease-fire did not change the fact that the Palestinians have remained implacably hostile and, indeed, their government is actively indoctrinating yet another generation in vicious genocidal hatred toward Israel and the West. That simmering hatred burst into flame last month when three innocent teenagers--Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar, and Eyal Yifrah--were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas agents. In a stark reminder of how intertwined our nations are, Naftali was a duel Israel-American citizen. This was a vicious attack against innocent Jews, regardless of their nationality, and Americans as well as Israelis were considered legitimate targets. There is a temptation to refer to the murder of three teenagers as a senseless tragedy that should be handled by law enforcement. But this attack was nothing of the sort. It was a terrorist atrocity coldly plotted and executed by vicious killers whose only motivation was to murder teenage Jews regardless of their citizenship, and whose larger mission is the annihilation first of Israel and then of the United States. It was therefore my privilege last week to file S. 2577, a bill that would direct the Secretary of State to offer a reward of up to $5 million for the capture or killing of Naftali's killers--and by extension those of Gilad and Eyal as well. No one doubts Israel's ability to handle this matter on her own, but the Hamas terrorists need to be perfectly clear that the United States understands that kidnapping and murdering a U.S. citizen is an attack on us as well and we will actively support Israel's response to this atrocity. I am gratified by the support this bill has gotten in the Senate from both sides of the aisle and, in particular, I am gratified that this bill is cosponsored by the senior Senator from New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and I look forward to that committee's markup of the bill this week and then, hopefully, to its passage through both Houses of Congress. There is also a bipartisan version of this bill in the House of Representatives led by Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Representative Brad Sherman of California. Following the discovery of the murdered teens, the Israeli Government has moved decisively against Hamas in a just and appropriate action to both bring the terrorists responsible to justice and to degrade Hamas's capability to launch further attacks. Now is not the moment to suggest that Israel open itself to further terrorist attack by, for example, withdrawing from the West Bank. Now is not the moment to urge restraint or to try to broker yet another temporary cease-fire that does not stop the threat of Hamas murdering innocent civilians. Now is the moment to support Israel in the effort to eliminate the intolerable threat of Hamas, and given Hamas's commitment to terrorist violence, the Israeli response is by necessity military and it must be decisive. This conflict is not of Israel's choice; it is Hamas's choice, and to argue that there is some sort of viable diplomatic alternative, as Mr. Gordon and President Obama did last week, is denying the truth. In addition to the current military offensive, there are a number of important long-term steps that the Government of Israel has taken to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks and so to secure the civilian population. One is the security barrier in the West Bank initiated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during the second intifada. Necessitated by waves of Palestinian suicide bombers targeting Israel, this fence was immediately decried as an abuse of the Palestinian people and, indeed, declared illegal by the International Court of Justice. But since the fencing began, attacks have declined by 90 percent--90 percent. No apology should be required for securing a nation's border and for saving innocent civilian lives. The Israeli missile defense system that protects against short-range rockets coming out of Gaza is an equally remarkable success story. In partnership with the United States, Israel has conceived, designed, and implemented Iron Dome, which enjoyed a remarkable 87 percent success rate during the 2012 operation Pillar of Defense and to all appearances is exceeding that performance in this most recent action. Iron Dome has dramatically changed Israel's ability to determine the future on its own terms, not because the Palestinians have in any way modified their eagerness to fire rockets at their neighbors in an attempt to murder innocent civilians but, rather, because the Israelis now have a system capable of neutralizing the vast majority of those rockets and protecting the hospitals and schools and homes that the Palestinians seek to destroy. President Obama wrote in his Ha'aretz op-ed that ``[w]hile walls and missile defense systems can help protect against some threats, true safety will only come with a comprehensive negotiated settlement.'' But that can only be true when both sides genuinely seek peaceful coexistence, which at this time, sadly, the Palestinians do not. Projects like the security barrier and Iron Dome may well be, both practically and philosophically, Israel's only real option. That the Israel response to hostility out of the territories has been primarily defensive is an important illustration of their preferred approach to this problem, which is not to attack or destroy but, rather, to protect and defend. This posture illustrates the fundamental difference between the Israelis, who have pledged they will stop fighting when the Palestinians stop fighting, and the Palestinians who swear they will stop fighting only when Israel ceases to exist. As Prime Minister Netanyahu recently said: Israel uses missiles to protect its citizens; whereas Hamas uses its citizens to protect its missiles. We must reject any assertion of moral equivalence between the Palestinians who seek to attack Israel and the Israelis who are trying to defend themselves from terrorist attack. Nowhere was the contrast between these two sides more clear than in the two investigations that are taking place into the murders that occurred in Israel in recent weeks. After the bodies of Naftali, Gilad, and Eyal were discovered, an Arab teen, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, was tragically, savagely murdered by Jewish extremists in a perverted attempt at retribution. Prime Minister Netanyahu rightly, quickly, and emphatically condemned this act and he called the victim's father personally to offer condolences. Naftali's mother Rachael stated her sympathy publicly saying: No mother or father [should] go through what we are going through now. We share the pain of the parents of Muhammad Abu Khdeir. . . . Even in the depth of the mourning over our son, it is hard for me to describe how distressed we were over the outrage that happened in Jerusalem--the shedding of innocent blood is against morality, it is against the Torah and Judaism, it is against the basis of our life in this country. The murderers of our children, who ever sent them, who ever helped them and who ever incited toward that murder--will all be brought to justice, but it will be them, and no innocent people, it will be done [by] the government, the police, the justice department and not by vigilantes. Contrast Racheal Fraenkel's powerful statement with that of the mother of one of the Hamas suspects in Naftali's abduction and murder, who while the boys were still missing and before their executed bodies had been discovered, publicly announced: ``They're throwing the guilt on him by accusing him of kidnapping. If he truly did it--I'll be proud of him until my final day . . . If he did the kidnapping, I'll be proud of him. I raised my children on the knees of the religion, they are religious guys, honest and clean-handed, and their goal is to bring the victory of Islam.'' Contrast those two statements. One is serious law enforcement responding to the wrongful murder of a teenager. The other is a society that celebrates, that glorifies, that lionizes vicious criminals who kidnap and murder innocent teenagers. Further highlighting the contrast is the fact that the murderers of Mohammed Abu Khdeir were apprehended in less than a week. The Israeli police moved and moved expeditiously. Almost a month after the abduction of Naftali, Gilad and Eyal, their Hamas murderers are still at large because they are being protected by those who consider them heroes rather than terrorists. When Mr. Gordon asserted in his speech that Israel's ``military control of another people,'' for ``recurring instability,'' and for ``embolden[ing] extremists'' were to blame for the regions problems, he ignored the facts that the Palestinian Authority bears the real responsibility for the crisis by including Hamas in their so-called ``unity government,'' and then urging the international community to officially sanction this deal with the devil. This should not be surprising as the PA is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, a Holocaust denier who was Yasser Arafat's right-hand man for 3 decades. Ever since Arafat and Abbas were given autonomy to run the Palestinian territories 20 years ago through the Oslo Accords, they have used that power to radicalize their population and to harden opposition to the very idea of peaceful existence with the Jewish State of Israel. Palestinian children are bombarded with heavy-handed propaganda praising the virtues of suicide bombers and other mass murderers. Sesame Street-style puppets and cartoon characters are horrifically used to encourage children to grow up to become terrorists. Yet President Obama hails President Abbas as a man who can help broker a peace deal. Phillip Gordon called him in his speech last week a ``reliable partner'' for peace. Holocaust deniers are not reliable partners. Leaders who incite hatred and bigotry and the murder of innocent children are not reliable partners. Just 2 months ago I was back in the nation of Israel. I traveled to the north of Israel, to the Ziv hospital, a hospital in the north of Israel that has treated over 1,000 Syrians wounded in the horrific civil war waging in that country. I met with those Israeli physicians and nurses as they described how they have given over $8 million in free medical care, uncompensated. One person in particular I spoke with there was a social worker who described the shock and trauma of young children. Imagine, you are a little boy, you are a little girl in Syria. You go to bed in your bedroom. A bomb, a missile, a mortar comes through the ceiling and explodes. When you awake, you have been horrifically wounded. You find yourself in the nation of Israel in a hospital surrounded by Israeli doctors and nurses. What this social worker told us was that as horrifying as being the victim of terrorism, as horrifying as some of these little boys or girls discovering limbs of their body had been blown off, that consistently the greatest terror of these children was finding themselves in Israel because their entire time they had been told that Israel was the devil. This social worker who is fluent in Arabic would spend time talking and reassuring these children and comforting them, because they were sure horrible things would happen to them. Why were they sure of this? Because they had been taught those lies from the moment they could learn. One Israeli physician described to me a comment that a Syrian woman made to her. She said: My entire life the Army that I had been told was there to protect me--now they are trying to kill me. My entire life the Army I had been told wanted to kill me-- now they are the only people protecting me and my family. We will not see peace between Israel and the Palestinians until the Palestinian Government stops incitement, stops systematically training its children to hate and to kill. Neither Hamas nor its partner, the Palestinian Authority, has displayed any interest in peace. The so- called Hamas-affiliated technocrats that Abbas has embraced have done nothing to curb Hamas's violence, as missiles continue to rain down on innocent civilians in Israel or even to express sympathy for the murdered Jewish teenagers. Even that is a bridge too far given the hatred that the Palestinian Government promotes. The incessant campaign of incitement carried but out by the PA lays bear the myth that Abbas is in any way a moderate or possesses any real desire for peace with the Jewish state. In his speech, Mr. Gordon asserted that ``Israel should not take for granted the opportunity to negotiate peace with President Abbas, who has shown time and again that he is committed to nonviolence and coexistence with Israel.'' How can any rational sentient person utter that sentence--that Mr. Abbas has shown time and again that he is committed to nonviolence and coexistence with Israel, while he partners with Hamas, a terrorist organization that is raining rockets on Israel as we speak, when he is directly responsible for a pattern of incitement that is training young Palestinians in vicious, racial bigotry and hatred, that is celebrating murderers and kidnappers as heroes and martyrs? Anyone who utters a statement like Mr. Gordon uttered is being willfully blind to the facts on the ground. Given that it was Mr. Abbas, not Israel, who accepted Hamas into the PA's Government, the burden should be on the PA, not Israel, to unequivocally condemn not only Hamas but also their fellow terrorist groups, the Islamic Jihad and Abbas' own Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. The PA should not take for granted the limitless patience, not only of Israel but also the United States, and, indeed, any responsible members of the civilized world for the legitimization of these terrorist groups. While the PA harbors Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or any other terrorist group and supports their vicious activity, it should forfeit its position as a legitimate negotiating partner with Israel. It is the height of delusion to suggest that Israel should accommodate the Palestinian Authority with any further security concessions until this activity stops. While the PA harbors Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or any other terrorist groups, and supports their vicious activity, it should forfeit any and all material support from the taxpayers of the United States--not one penny. Only when the PA takes significant and affirmative steps to stop the incitement, eradicate terrorism, and demonstrate its leadership ability to honor their pledged commitments in the past, including the Oslo Accords, and affirms Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state should this aid be reconsidered. It must also be recognized that Hamas is not acting alone in the current crisis. In an alarming escalation of the rocket attacks out of Gaza, Hamas militants recently fired an M-302 type rocket an unprecedented 70 miles north, some 30 miles north of Tel Aviv, meaning that now 6 million Israelis are vulnerable to the rocket attacks. Israel has intercepted a shipment of these weapons bound for Gaza from Iran earlier this year. It now appears that some of them have gotten through by other means. As Osama Hamdan's celebrating their close collaboration demonstrates, neither Hamas nor Iran is even trying to hide the connection. In the face of this blatant hostility from the Islamic Republic of Iran, it seems the height of foolishness for the United States to be participating in nuclear negotiations with Tehran at this time. Iran's leaders are actively engaged in inciting and supplying violent terrorists. Indeed, Iran is the chief state sponsor of terrorism on the globe today. Our focus should be on thwarting Iran's behavior in Gaza and across the world, not in engaging in diplomatic niceties over Chardonnay in Vienna. Given Iran's ongoing pattern of arming Hamas with increasingly sophisticated weapons, it is simply unacceptable to risk their achieving nuclear capability by exploiting the eagerness--the utterly unexplainable eagerness--of the Obama administration to get a deal-- any deal--any deal at all it seems--by the July 20, 2014, deadline. We need to recognize that the arbitrary decision to relax sanctions and to engage in 6 months of negotiations under the joint plan of action last year was a historic mistake. We need to dramatically reverse course, and we should immediately reimpose sanctions until Iran makes fundamental concessions by ceasing all uranium enrichment, handing over its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and destroying its 19,000 centrifuges. The Obama, Clinton, Kerry foreign policy is setting the stage for Iran to acquire nuclear weapon capability. If Iran acquires that capability, it will pose a grave if not mortal threat to the nation of Israel and to the United States. The strategy of the Obama administration--relaxing sanctions first and then hoping to get some concessions later--is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. You do not negotiate with bullies and tyrants by conceding everything at the outset and then hoping for good faith. Instead, we should reimpose those sanctions and additionally, as a further condition, we should demand that Iran stop its state sponsorship of terrorist attacks against our allies. Only then should Iran see a relaxation of sanctions. In the coming days, I will be filing legislation which will do exactly that: reimpose strong sanctions on Iran immediately, strengthen those sanctions, include an enforcement mechanism to ensure that these measures are implemented, and call for the dismantling of Iran's nuclear program, which should be the only path to relaxing sanctions in the future. This legislation will lay out a clear path that Iran can follow to evade the sanctions: Simply behave in good faith and stop its relentless march towards acquiring nuclear weapons capability. The connection between Hamas and Iran is a sobering reminder of a larger context in which the events of the past month have taken place. They are not an isolated local issue that could be managed if only Israel would act with restraint. Both the United States and Israel want the Palestinian people to have a secure and prosperous future free from the corrosive hatred that has so far prevented them from thriving. But as has been demonstrated time and time again, the simple truth is that concessions from Israel are not going to alleviate that hatred. The truth is that aid from the United States is not going to alleviate that hatred. The truth is that even the establishment of a Palestinian State would not alleviate that hatred while the avowed policy of the Palestinian Government is the destruction of Israel. Only when the Palestinians take it upon themselves to embrace their neighbors and to eradicate terrorist violence from their society can a real and just peace be possible. Until then, there should be no question of the firm solidarity of the United States with Israel in the mutual defense of our fundamental values and interests. This is nothing less than the defense of our very exceptionalism as a nation--that same exceptionalism fueled by those God-given rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to which Israel aspires. Writing in the New York Times last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that it is ``extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional.'' In a very odd echo of President Putin's sentiment, Secretary Kerry said just today, in Vienna, that hearing politicians talk about American exceptionalism makes him quite uptight because it is ``in- your-face'' and so might offend other nations. Secretary Kerry should know, as President Putin clearly fears, it is indeed discomforting for bullies and tyrants such as Hamas and their Iranian sponsors to see free people boldly assert their exceptionalism. Indeed, in modern history it has been dangerous for totalitarian despots when the American people rise and defend our exceptionalism. I would encourage Secretary Kerry to unambiguously explain American exceptionalism to his colleagues across the negotiating table. They might benefit from hearing that one of the most exceptional things about America is that we will robustly support our allies when they are engaged with the radical terrorist enemy that targets us both. It is not enough, as Mr. Gordon seems to think sufficient, to ``fight for it [Israel] every day in the United Nations.'' We shouldn't just ``have Israel's back.'' We should be proud to stand beside Israel, to make sure that both Hamas and Iran know that the United States is ready to provide whatever moral support or military resupply Israel might need. It is true we might risk a little of the criticism from the international community that seems to be of such concern to Mr. Gordon and to President Obama, but the United Nations should be the least of our worries at this point. In any event, threats of Israel finding herself isolated--threats sadly emanating, in part, from the administration of this government-- appear empty, as many of our closest friends, including Canada, Great Britain, France, and Germany, have spoken out in the strongest of terms supporting Israel's right to self-defense. I add my voice to theirs and urge President Obama to reconsider the counterproductive policies laid out by Mr. Gordon last week. The White House should explicitly disavow Mr. Gordon's misguided speech, haranguing, and attacking our friend and ally in the nation of Israel. A negotiated settlement is not an absolute prerequisite to Israel's security, as the administration has claimed but, rather, establishing Israel's security may be the only way to eventually reach any such settlement. Israel's fight against radical Islamic terrorism and by extension the radical Iranian regime that supports it is our fight as well. There is a reason they call Israel the little Satan and America the great Satan. This menace does not discriminate between Israelis and Americans, and it cannot be placated or appeased even by the deftist diplomacy. It must be diligently defended against and at times, when necessary, it must be directly confronted. This is difficult, dangerous work that Israel's Government and the brave men and women who serve in its Armed Forces are doing right now for the sake of both nations. I hope and I pray for their continuing success as America stands, unashamedly, alongside the nation of Israel. Thank you.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. The senior Senator from Texas is exactly right that the President has effectively admitted he has no intention of stopping this problem. The supplemental request he has submitted, $3.7 billion, the majority of that goes to HHS's social services, providing care to these kids, rather than stopping and solving the problem. The Senator and I have both spent a lot of time down on the border of Texas and all four of us have spent time down on the border of Texas or Arizona. The consistent answer from local leaders, from local law enforcement, from local elected officials about what is effective securing the border--the most consistent answer is boots on the ground; that if you want to effectively secure the border--boots on the ground, particularly combined with technology. It is striking, out of $3.7 billion, a tiny percentage of that is directed toward boots on the ground. This is an HHS social services bill, and it is unfortunately a pattern we have seen with the Obama administration of bait-and-switch. They are calling this a border security bill. It is reminiscent of the 2009 stimulus, which we will all recall was sold to the American people. The 2009 stimulus was about building roads, infrastructure, and shovel-ready projects, all of which are good ideas. Then when over $800 billion was spent by the Obama administration, very little of it actually went to roads, infrastructure, or shovel-ready projects. Instead, it paid off liberal interest groups such as, in this case, the administration calls the $3.7 billion border security and yet almost none of the money goes to border security. Indeed, I would note for all of the Democrats who are seeing this humanitarian crisis unfold, who are discovering suddenly the need for border security--and I would note my friend the senior Senator from New York stood on this floor as we were debating immigration last year and said: The border is secure today. President Obama stood in El Paso in 2010 and said: The border is secure today. I would note, for everyone who says now they are focused on border security that when the Senate Judiciary Committee was considering immigration reform, I introduced an amendment--the senior Senator from Texas supported it--that would have tripled our Border Patrol, that would have increased fourfold the fixed-wing assets, the technology that would have provided the tools to finally solve this problem, and every single Senate Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted against it. So we shouldn't be surprised the President's proposal that is labeled border security doesn't actually secure the border, doesn't do anything about the lawlessness or the amnesty, which means the Obama administration is effectively admitting they expect these children to continue coming--hundreds of thousands of them in years to come, hundreds of thousands of little boys and little girls being subjected to horrific physical abuse, sexual abuse, and they intend to do nothing to fix the problem, to stop it, to secure the borders, to uphold the law. That is heartbreaking, and that is not the responsibility of a Commander in Chief.

Mr. CRUZ. I would note that the confirmation and message of amnesty received by the parents entrusting their children to these drug dealers is the Border Patrol report, which said that 95 percent of those coming believe they would get a permiso. They believe they would be allowed to go scot-free. That is the message being heard. It is why these children are being subjected to violence. A Lackland Air Force Base senior official described a young Hispanic child who is a quadriplegic, who is paralyzed from the neck down, and the drug cartels abandoned him on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. They found him lying by the river, on the other side of the river. That is the sort of care and consideration they are providing for these children. What is happening to these children is horrific. We are a compassionate nation. We have always been a compassionate nation. But any policy that continues children being abused by violent drug cartels is the opposite of compassion. So I ask two questions to my friend the senior Senator from Arizona. This afternoon I had lunch with the attorney general of Texas, Greg Abbott, who described that the attorney general of Texas and the U.S. Attorney's Office have recently arrested an alleged terrorist in Texas with ties to ISIS--with ties to the radical Islamic terrorists who are right now wreaking havoc across Iraq and Syria. The first question I would ask the senior Senator from Arizona is, how significant does he see the threat of terrorists crossing our porous border and targeting the homeland? Then, of the $3.7 billion President Obama has requested in the supplemental bill, just $160 million is directed to Border Patrol agents and immigration judges--both. So less than 5 percent of the total actually goes to boots on the ground. The second question I would ask of the senior Senator from Arizona is, in his judgment, is devoting less than 5 percent of the resources from this bill to boots on the ground a serious effort at securing the border and solving the problem?

Mr. CRUZ. I thank my friend the senior Senator from Texas. I am honored to stand here with the senior Senator from Texas and the Senators from Arizona as we speak out together against the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding on our border. President Obama today is down in the State of Texas. But, sadly, he is not visiting the border. He is not visiting the children who are suffering as a result of the failures of the Obama policies. Instead, he is doing fundraisers. He is visiting Democratic fat cats to collect checks. Apparently, there is no time to look at the disaster, at the devastation that is being caused by his policies. Just a couple of weeks ago, as the Senator from Texas observed, I was down at Lackland Air Force Base where there are roughly 1,200 children being housed. There is one thing President Obama had said about what is happening that is absolutely correct. This is a humanitarian disaster. But it is a disaster of the President's own making. It is a disaster that is a direct consequence of President Obama's lawlessness. A quick review of the facts makes that abundantly apparent. In 2011, just 3 years ago, there were roughly 6,000 unaccompanied children apprehended trying to cross illegally into this country. Then in 2012, in the summer of 2012, right before the election, President Obama illegally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people who were here illegally who had entered the country as children. The direct, predictable, foreseeable consequence of granting that amnesty is the number of children--unaccompanied children--immediately began to skyrocket. This year, the estimates are that 90,000 unaccompanied children will enter this country illegally. That is up from 6,000 just 3 years ago--6,000 to 90,000. Next year the estimate is 145,000. This explosion is the direct consequence of the President's lawlessness. It is worth underscoring. The people who are being hurt the most are these kids. The coyotes who are bringing them in are not well-meaning social workers trying to help out some kids. These are violent, hardened transnational criminal cartels. These mothers and fathers, sadly, are handing over their children to violent criminals who are physically abusing and who are sexually abusing small children. When I was down at Lackland Air Force Base, a senior official there described to me how those cartels--with some of these children after they have taken them and after they have begun coming to this country to take them here illegally--would hold these children captive, hold them hostage to extract additional money from the families. If the families did not send them additional money, as horrifying as it is, these drug cartels would begin severing body parts of these children. I listened to the senior official at Lackland describe how the cartels would put a gun to the back of the head of a little boy or little girl and force that child to cut off the fingers or the ears of another little boy or little girl. If they do not do so, they will shoot them and move to the next one. So on our end, we are having children come to this country whom we are having to deal with who are maimed. They have been maimed by the brutality of these criminal cartels. Others of them have deep, deep psychological trauma from a child forced to do something so horrific. This is a tragedy that is playing out. It is happening in real time. Now, the administration has suggested the cause of this is violence in Central America. I would suggest to my friends, the senior Senator from Texas and the Senators from Arizona, that argument is a complete red herring. With violence in one country, you would expect to see the number of immigrants from that country to go up. But there is no reason unaccompanied children would go up. That is something unique and distinct. There have always been countries across the world, sadly, that have been plagued by violence. When that happens, we have always seen an influx in immigrants, both legal and illegal, from those countries. What we are seeing here is particular, though. It is particularized towards children. The reason it is particularized towards children is because the President granted amnesty in a way that was particularized towards children. If you want to understand just how false the administration's talking point is for the cause of what is happening, you need to look no further than a report which was prepared by our border security that Senator Cornyn and Senator Flake and I all saw in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A couple of weeks ago we had a hearing on this humanitarian crisis, and a whistleblower at the Border Patrol handed over this confidential document to a number of Senators on the Judiciary Committee. It described how the Border Patrol interviewed over 200 people who have come here illegally--adults and children--and asked them a simple question: Why did you come? Ninety five percent said: We came because we believe if we get here we will get amnesty. We believe we will get a permiso is what they said; that once they get here, once a child gets here, that little boy, that little girl is scot-free. I would suggest to my friend, this is what amnesty looks like. I would suggest to my friends this is what amnesty looks like. Amnesty looks like dangerous drug cartels entering this country wantonly. Amnesty looks like thousands of young children being housed in military bases. Amnesty looks like hundreds of immigrants who came here illegally being transported to cities and towns amid opposition from the citizens who lived there. Amnesty looks like a complete and utter disregard of our rule of law. Amnesty is unfolding before our very eyes. I would suggest that the only response that will stop this humanitarian disaster is for President Obama to start enforcing the law, to stop promising amnesty, to stop refusing to enforce Federal immigration law, and, finally, to secure the borders. Indeed, I would call upon our colleagues in this body in both parties to come together and secure the border once and for all and to stop holding border security hostage for amnesty.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the facts regarding the ongoing IRS scandal that the Obama administration refuses to investigate, refuses to prosecute, refuses to address with honesty and integrity. I want to talk about the facts we know and the facts we don't know, and how we as the Senate can demonstrate fidelity to law and the integrity of the U.S. Government. Let's talk about what we know. We know that more than 1 year ago on May 14, 2013, the inspector general of the Treasury Department said that beginning in 2010 the IRS had improperly targeted conservative citizen groups, tea party groups, pro-Israel groups, and pro-life groups. The day the inspector general's report was made public, President Obama had described what occurred as ``intolerable and inexcusable.'' As President Obama put it: ``Americans have a right to be angry about it, and I am angry about it.'' Well, if President Obama was speaking the truth when he said over a year ago that Americans have a right to be angry about this, then today after over a year of obstruction of justice, of refusing to investigate or prosecute what happened under President Obama's own standard, the Americans have a right to be far more than angry about it. Likewise, the very same day the inspector general report came out, Attorney General Eric Holder said the IRS targeting the conservative groups was ``outrageous and unacceptable.'' That was more than a year ago. What has happened in the year and 2 months that have passed since then? Although both the President and the Attorney General profess outrage and anger, not a single person has been indicted--not a single person. Although both the President and the Attorney General said they would investigate this matter, it has been publicly reported that no indictments are planned. In fact, President Obama went on national television during the Super Bowl and categorically stated, ``There was not even a smidgeon of corruption to be found at the IRS.'' How far we had come from the day the scandal broke when he said he was angry and the American people had a right to be angry. Fast forward a few months later and he goes on television and says there is not a smidgeon of corruption. That is a remarkable statement for the President to have made, because Attorney General Eric Holder 4 days earlier had told the Senate Judiciary Committee that there was an ongoing investigation being conducted at the IRS. President Obama's comments and Eric Holder's comments are facially inconsistent. Either Eric Holder was telling the truth, that there is, in fact, a meaningful ongoing investigation, or President Obama was telling the truth when he said conclusively there is not a smidgeon of corruption. One or the other was not telling the truth or perhaps President Obama was simply prejudging the investigation. Perhaps President Obama was simply attempting to influence its outcome, making clear that the outcome desired from the White House is that there is not a smidgeon of corruption. What happened to the American people having a right to be angry? Now the President is instead telling investigators the conclusion they should reach. Regardless, it is beyond dispute that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, has not held anyone accountable for this gross abuse of power. In a hearing in January of this year, Attorney General Eric Holder refused to answer whether even a single victim of the wrongful targeting has been interviewed. Let me repeat that. The victims who were targeted wrongly by the IRS--the citizens--for exercising their political free speech rights, the Attorney General refused to answer if they had even bothered to interview any of those citizens. We also note some of the emails that have been made public give the appearance that the Department of Justice may have been directly involved in the illegal targeting of citizen groups based on their political views. Most stunningly, we know that the lead attorney investigating this matter is a major Democratic donor and a major donor to President Obama. Indeed, she has given over $6,000 to President Obama and Democrats in recent years. No reasonable person would trust John Mitchell to investigate Richard Nixon. Yet the Obama administration is telling the American people the investigation into the wrongful targeting of conservatives will be led by a major Obama Democratic donor. That is contemptuous. It is contemptuous of the law; it is contemptuous of the American people. One would think that if you appoint a major Obama donor to lead the investigation, it is likely that the victims would not be interviewed, that no one would be indicted. And, wonder of wonders, what has happened? The victims have not been interviewed and no one has been indicted. But that is not all. We have seen Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS office that illegally targeted conservative citizens, go before Congress and repeatedly plead the Fifth. When a senior government official takes the Fifth, that is an action that should be taken very seriously. Yet it seems in this town partisan politics trumps fidelity to law. What Lois Lerner said in the House of Representatives by pleading the Fifth is effectively standing there saying, ``If I answer your question, I may well implicate myself in criminal conduct.'' That is chilling. Let me note with sadness that the Democratic Members of this Chamber seem to have no concern about a senior IRS official pleading the Fifth repeatedly because truthfully answering the questions could implicate her in criminal conduct. Throughout it all Americans have been told that the Obama administration would find out what happened and would take the necessary actions. Indeed, the new head of the IRS, Commissioner John Koskinen, promised as much. Now we find out that this new Commissioner is also a major donor to President Obama and Democratic causes. This new Commissioner of the IRS has given nearly $100,000 to the Democratic Party, including $7,300 to President Obama. What fairminded person would entrust not one but two major Obama donors to investigate how the IRS used political power to go after the enemies of President Obama? Not one but two--the lead lawyers in the Department of Justice heading up the noninvestigation that is not interviewing the victims, that is not indicting anyone, and the head of the IRS giving nearly $100,000 to Democratic causes. We received even more striking news, that Commissioner Koskinen tells us the IRS lost Lois Lerner's emails. Oops, sorry. The dog ate my homework. Madam President, if you or I tried that in our IRS returns, they wouldn't accept that excuse from a citizen. We are told the hard drive crashed and the documents are irretrievable under any circumstances. We also know the IRS didn't follow the law when it failed to report the hard drive crash that we are told occurred. But make no mistake, these emails haven't just been lost. These emails have been deleted, taped over, and the hard drive physically destroyed ccording to public news reports. This is Rosemary Woods, when you have Federal Government officials destroying evidence. In the ordinary parlance that is called obstruction of justice. The hard drive magically collapses, magically crashes, and is physically destroyed right after the investigation begins and, I would remind you, the investigation that has resulted in Lois Lerner pleading the Fifth twice. We are supposed to believe that the emails from the IRS officials in charge of the division that illegally targeted political organizations and has repeatedly pleaded the Fifth to avoid incriminating herself, that her emails have simply vanished innocuously. It happens. It happens to people in the middle of illegal acts. Their records magically disappear right when the investigators are seeking to discover them. This is an outrage. This is a scandal. This is an insult to anyone concerned about the rule of law, and no one in the Senate, regardless of political party, should stand by and accept this. But it doesn't end there. On Wednesday it was reported that Lois Lerner flagged a speaking invitation for Republican Senator Charles Grassley for examination. Senator Grassley is the highest ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee who has been a strong and powerful voice for accountability at the Department of Justice. It is curious that she would be so eager to subject Senator Grassley for extra scrutiny based on a speaking invitation. Right now, today, the White House is in control of Democrats. There will come a time when Democrats no longer control the White House and the administration. I would ask every Democratic Member of this body, how comfortable are you with the precedent that the IRS can single out Democratic Senators who might disagree with the President's political position? The targeting of Chuck Grassley, the singling out of Chuck Grassley, ought to trouble every single Member of this body. On Tuesday it was reported that the IRS agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage because the IRS admittedly unlawfully released confidential information of members of that group to its political opposition. Let me repeat that. IRS officials have publicly admitted--this is not inference, this is not suggestion, this is what they have admitted-- that they leaked personal tax information for the purpose of intimidating a conservative group to the political opposition of that group. That is textbook abuse of power. And I would note the $50,000 fine--which, by the way, has been paid by U.S. taxpayers--the $50,000 fine does nothing to address the partisan political corruption at the IRS, the abuse of power, or the coverup. A fine does not signal the problem has been fixed. I would note, by the way, where are the Democratic Members of this body standing and saying it is wrong for the IRS to illegally hand over personal information from individual taxpayers for partisan purposes to their political opponents? I want to underscore that the IRS has admitted they did this and paid a $50,000 fine and the Democratic Members of this body are apparently not troubled at all. If they are troubled, they keep their troubles very quiet and to themselves. Americans need a guarantee that the IRS will never be used again to target an administration's political enemy. When a Republican President, Richard Nixon, attempted to use the IRS to target his political enemies, it was wrong. It was an abuse of power, and he was rightfully condemned on both sides of the aisle. Both Democrats and Republicans stood up to President Nixon when he attempted to use the IRS to target his political enemies and said: This is wrong. The Obama administration didn't just attempt to do so, it succeeded. It carried out a concerted effort and targeted those who were perceived to be political enemies of the President and targeted those individual citizens. The administration then put two major Democratic donors in charge of the investigation and covered up the truth, including conveniently losing emails from the central player in this figure who has twice pleaded the Fifth. It was wrong when Richard Nixon tried to use the IRS to target his political enemies, and it was wrong when the Obama administration tried and succeeded to do the same. The difference is when Richard Nixon did so, Republicans had the courage to stand up to Members of their own party. It saddens me that there is not a single Democratic Member of this body who has had the courage to stand up to their own party and say: This abuse of power--using the IRS to target citizens for political beliefs--is wrong. We need a special prosecutor with meaningful independence to make sure justice is served and that our constitutional rights to free speech, to assembly, and to privacy are protected. It saddens me to say that the U.S. Department of Justice, under Attorney General Eric Holder, has become the most partisan Department of Justice in the history of our country. I say this as a former associate deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice. I can tell you there are Democratic alumni across this country who are saddened and heartbroken to see the Department of Justice becoming effectively an arm of the Democratic National Committee. IRS officials have stonewalled at every turn, and we should not wait a single minute to put an end to the intimidation and bullying of the American people. These are not the actions of a government that respects its citizens. We need to restore that respect, that government officials work for the people and not the other way around. The Department of Justice has a storied history. There is a history of attorneys general standing up to political pressure, even against the Presidents who have appointed them. Listen, political pressure in this town is nothing new and attorneys general throughout history have had a special mettle of being willing to look into the eyes of the President who appointed them and willing to say: I care more about the rule of law than any partisan allegiance I might have. When President Richard Nixon faced charges of abusing government power for partisan ends, his attorney general Elliot Richardson, a Republican, appointed Archibald Cox as special prosecutor. Likewise, when President Bill Clinton faced charges of ethical impropriety, his attorney general Janet Reno, a Democrat, appointed Robert Fiske as independent counsel. Sadly, the current attorney general has refused to live up to that bipartisan tradition of independence, of integrity, and of fidelity to law. I have repeatedly called on Attorney General Eric Holder to remove the investigation from the hands of a major Obama donor and put it instead in the hands of a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who, at a minimum, is not a major Democratic donor. Even the very slightest respect for the rule of law would suggest that the attorney general should not be part and parcel of the political and partisan coverup. Therefore, in a few moments I intend to ask for unanimous consent to call up a Senate resolution expressing the opinion of the Senate that the Attorney General should appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute--if the facts support--the IRS targeting of Americans and its potential coverup of those actions. When I asked the Attorney General whether the Department of Justice investigated the direct involvement of political appointees at the White House--up to and including the President--Attorney General Holder refused to answer that question. That is always the hardest thing for an attorney general to do: Ask the question that raises partisan peril. That is why attorneys general are supposed to be nonpartisan and owe their fidelity to the Constitution and the laws of this United States and to the American people. The House of Representatives has passed a similar resolution to the one I am submitting. It was sponsored by Congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio on May 7, 2014. The resolution passed in the House 250 to 168. Twenty- six Democrats voted in favor of the resolution. Why is it that Democrats in the House of Representatives can muster up the courage to stand up to the partisan pressure from the White House. Yet in the Senate we hear crickets chirping. This used to be the body praised for its independence and for its ability to stand up to abuse of power. Just today the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Obama administration for the 12th time in the last 2 years in its assertion of overbroad executive authority. This time it asserted that the President unconstitutionally attempted to circumvent the checks and balances of the Constitution by unilaterally appointing recess appointments while the Senate was not in recess. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously, by a vote of 9 to 0, said the President's actions were unconstitutional in that case, and once again, as with the IRS, my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle were silent. How is it there is no longer a Robert Byrd, that there is no longer a Ted Kennedy, that there are no longer any Democrats who will defend the institutional integrity of the Senate? How is it when the Supreme Court concludes unanimously that the President's intrusion on the Senate's constitutional authority is unconstitutional not a single Senate Democrat has the courage to stand up to this President? How is it in the face of a senior IRS official repeatedly pleading the Fifth, how is it in the face of the IRS admitting it wrongfully handed over private personal IRS tax data to the political opponents of a citizens group and paid a $50,000 fine for it, how is it that not a single Democratic Senator does not have the courage to speak up? At what point does it become too much? At what point does it become embarrassing? Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, whom I might note is a liberal and voted for President Obama in 2008, said that President Obama has become the embodiment of the imperial President. He described how Barack Obama has become the President Richard Nixon always wished he could be. I am sorry to say that he has done so with the active aiding and abetting of 55 Democratic Members of this Senate because when Democratic Members of this Senate or any Member of this Senate stands by and allows the President to trample on the rule of law, then any one of us who remains silent is explicit in undermining the Constitution. This resolution should be unanimous. If the tables were turned and this were a Republican President and a Republican Attorney General had appointed a major Republican donor to lead the investigation into the wrongful targeting of Democrats and destroyed emails and hard drives and publicly admitted to leaking private citizen information to the political opponents of Democrats, the Democratic side of this Chamber would rightly be lighting their hair on fire. If this were a Republican administration, every media outlet would have banner headlines every single day. I can assure you that at least some Republican Senators would be standing up and saying this abuse of power is wrong. This resolution should be unanimous because everyone should agree that an investigation should be beyond reproach and should not be handed over to major Democratic donors. If the allegation--which the report of the inspector general of Treasury has already confirmed in significant respect--is of abuse of government power of the IRS to target citizens for their political beliefs, then you cannot entrust the investigation to someone who is partisan and has a political interest in protecting the party in power. If Attorney General Eric Holder continues to refuse to appoint a special prosecutor, he should be impeached. When an attorney general refuses to enforce the rule of law, mocks the rule of law, and corrupts the Department of Justice by conducting a nakedly partisan investigation to cover up political wrongdoing, that conduct, by any reasonable measure, constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors. Attorney General Eric Holder has the opportunity to do the right thing. He can appoint a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who is not a major Obama donor. Yet every time the Attorney General has been called on to do this, he has defiantly said no. In fact, he said in writing in his discretion, no. If Attorney General Eric Holder continues to refuse to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the abuse of power by the IRS against the American people, he should be impeached. I agree with President Obama when he said on the day this scandal broke, the American people have a right to be angry. If the American people had a right to be angry over a year ago when the scandal broke, the fact that it has now been covered up and the fact that a partisan investigation has refused to begin to scratch the surface of what happened should make the American people more than angry. It should move them to action. It should move them to accountability. It should move them to hold the officials of our government responsible. Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 487. I further ask consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I thank my friend from Oregon for his impassioned comments. I would note for the Record a few things he did not say. My friend from Oregon chose not to say a word about the fact that Lois Lerner, a senior IRS official, has twice pleaded the Fifth in front of the House of Representatives. To that he had not a single response. My friend from Oregon chose to say not a word to the fact that the IRS singled out Senator Chuck Grassley for special scrutiny. To that, he said not a word. My friend from Oregon chose to say not a word to the fact that the IRS has now admitted to illegally handing over private personal information from a citizen group to its political opponents for partisan political purposes, and has paid a $50,000 fine. That is not an allegation. That is not a theory. That is what the IRS has admitted to and paid a $50,000 fine for with taxpayer funds. Yet I am sorry to say my friend from Oregon had not a word to say about that abuse of power. I mentioned before that from the Democratic Members of this Chamber, when it comes to the abuse of power by the Obama administration, there are crickets chirping. Now, I am pleased that my friend from Oregon and the Finance Committee has engaged in an investigation of what occurred. We don't know what that investigation will conclude. But I find it interesting that he said it is premature for a special prosecutor. Fourteen months ago was when President Obama said: I am angry and the American people have a right to be angry--14 months ago. Fourteen months and not a single person has been indicted. Fourteen months and most of the victims haven't been interviewed. Fourteen months they have publicly announced they don't intend to indict anyone. Yet, it is premature. If the American people had a right to be angry 14 months ago, which is what President Obama told us, what should we feel 14 months later after partisan stonewalling and obstruction of justice? The American people had a right to be angry. I would note a Senate committee is conducting an investigation and will issue a report, but the Senate committee can't indict anyone. The Senate committee can't prosecute anyone. My friend from Oregon says it is premature to have a special prosecutor because, apparently, holding people who break the laws, who commit criminal conduct to abuse IRS power to target individual citizens based on their political views-- apparently, holding them accountable--is not a priority for a single Democratic member of this Chamber. That saddens me. It saddens me that we don't have 100 Senators in this room saying, regardless of what party we are in, it is an embarrassment to have this ``investigation''--and I put that word in quotes, because a real investigation involves interviewing the victims; a real investigation involves following the evidence where it leads. I would note my friend from Oregon, in describing the Senate committee's investigation, mentioned that they interviewed some IRS employees, but notably absent from whom he said they interviewed was anyone at the White House, anyone political. Apparently, they were not interviewed. We don't know. But he didn't mention them if they were. It is an embarrassment that this so-called investigation is led by a partisan Democratic donor who has given over $6,000 to President Obama and Democrats. It is an embarrassment that the IRS obstruction of justice is led by a major Democratic donor who has given nearly $100,000. Every one of us takes an oath to the Constitution. Every one of us owes fidelity to rule of law. When we have the Department of Justice behaving like an arm of the DNC, protecting the political interests of the White House instead of upholding the law, it undermines the liberty of every American. I am saddened that Democratic Members of this Chamber will not stand up and say: I have a higher obligation to the Constitution and the rule of law and the American people than I have to my Democratic Party. That is a sad state of affairs, but it is also a state of affairs that is outraging the American people, that is waking up the American people. President Obama had it right when he said 14 months ago the American people are right to be angry about this. He was correct. And when elected officials, when appointed officials of the Obama administration mock the rule of law, demonstrate contempt for Congress, and abuse their power against the individual citizenry, against we the people, the people have a natural and immediate remedy that is available in November every 2 years. This November, I am confident the American people will follow the President's advice and demonstrate that they are angry about the abuse of power and even angrier about the partisan coverup in which all 55 Democratic Senators have actively aided and abetted. If Attorney General Eric Holder is unwilling to appoint a special prosecutor, if he insists on keeping this prosecution in the control of a major Obama donor, then Attorney General Eric Holder should be impeached, because the rule of law matters more than any partisan political problem. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to talk about three young boys--three young boys who are now in the hands of terrorists. This should be on the front page of every paper in the United States because this is an issue that is as vital to us as it is to the nation of Israel. On Thursday night, June 12, three Jewish teenagers--Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrah--were kidnapped. You can see all three of these boys in the photos beside me. Today, Thursday June 26, marks the 14th day of their abduction. Just imagine if these were your children or any child you know. Just imagine if it were your child who was kidnapped for 14 days and you don't know where they are or even whether they are still alive. These boys--all smart, hard-working, diligent students--were taken on their way home from school. They were waiting at the bus stop. They were only 5 minutes away from their school--one of the finest yeshivas in Israel. These boys weren't doing anything wrong. They are innocent schoolchildren. Yet today it has been reported that Israel's Shin Bet identified two key suspects in the abduction. These two individuals are members of Hamas--a vicious terrorist organization that seeks Israel's destruction and has launched thousands of rockets into Israel, killing innocent civilians. These rockets have also killed dozens of Americans in Israel. Now they have kidnapped three school boys. Sadly, this is business as usual for Hamas. This is the same terrorist organization with which the Palestinian Authority recently joined in a so-called ``unity'' government. Israel has been tirelessly looking for these two men since the kidnapping. They come from families who have broader ties to Hamas. In a telling statement to the Times of Israel, the mother of one of the two alleged terrorists claims she did not know of her son's actions, but she said she would be ``proud of him and hoped he would continue to evade capture.'' A mother, proud of her son for kidnapping three school boys. Hamas leader Khaled Mashal spoke about the kidnappings on Monday, saying, ``I bless those who did it because it is a moral obligation to free prisoners from Israeli jails.'' This is a leader of Hamas now parked effectively in the unity government of the Palestinian Authority blessing those who have kidnapped three school boys because this is the kind of activity that Hamas terrorists support, the kidnapping of innocent schoolchildren. Since the kidnapping, there have been no pictures or videos made available of the kidnapped boys. Their families are in the dark without any knowledge of where their boys are or what conditions they are being held in. Rachel Fraenkel, the mother of Naftali Fraenkel, spoke before the United Nations Human Rights Council on June 24. Rachel said: My son texted me--said he's on his way home--and then he's gone. Every mother's nightmare is waiting and waiting endlessly for her child to come home. She then pleaded for more action to be taken to find the boys, concluding: We just want them back in our homes, in their beds. We just want to hug them . . . All of us should stand with Rachel as she stands with her son who has been kidnapped. I also want to tell the world about these three boys. Rachel's son Naftali is 16 years old. His grandparents have lived in Brooklyn, and Brooklyn has been a second home to him. He is the oldest of seven children. He likes playing the guitar, basketball, and Ping- Pong. Indeed, there is even a video of him on YouTube playing Ping- Pong. I have to say he is pretty good. He is a talented and gifted student who is on track to take the biology matriculation exams. His teachers say Naftali is brilliant, one of the best they have ever had, and his mother said his personality is a delightful combination of both serious and fun. Gilad Shaar, who was with Naftali that day--also coming home from school--was likewise abducted. Like Naftali, Gilad is 16 years old. ``Gil'' means happiness and ``ad'' means forever. His name literally means ``happiness forever,'' and he is a source of joy to those who meet him. His aunt Leehy Shaar, whom I had the privilege of meeting and visiting earlier this week, said, ``He has a smile that brings light to the world''--quite fitting for a boy named ``happiness forever.'' She said, ``We want him home where he belongs, with his family, who so dearly loves him.'' Gilad has five sisters, and he is described by them as a caring and loving brother. He is the family's only son, and he has family in Los Angeles and in New York. Gilad is witty. He loves to read, watch movies, and recently he finished a scuba diving course, but he is also a talented cook. He enjoys baking his sisters cakes and pastries. We don't know where Gilad is right now. Then there is Eyal Yifrah, the third boy kidnapped that day. He is 19 years old and is the oldest of six children. He is a role model for their family, and he is loved by friends who say they would like to have him as a brother. He loves sports. He should be cheering the World Cup games today--like so many other teenagers--with his friends. A gregarious fellow, he likes to cook, travel, play guitar, and sing. Indeed, you can find videos of him on YouTube singing a song that he himself wrote. Eyal should be home singing again. There can be no more illusions that Hamas has any role in any future government formed by the Palestinian Authority. They must not receive any further recognition or legitimization. Hamas is a violent terrorist organization ready and eager to brutalize the most innocent. Hamas is a terrorist organization that kidnapped three innocent school boys. Hamas, give those boys back. Hamas, give those boys back now. The full weight of the world should bear down on Hamas to give them back safely and immediately. If they do not, we should use all available means to stand unequivocally with Israel for however long it takes to find these boys and to bring them home. These are teenagers who were targeted for who they are, who have done no wrong, who have done nothing that comes near to deserving what happened to them that day while waiting at the bus stop to go home from school. It is easy for us to become desensitized to violence, desensitized to terrorism. It is easy for us to forget that these are three teenage boys whose families desperately want their boys back. I ask that all of us lift them up in prayer. I pray for their safe return. I pray they will soon be home with the families who so dearly love them and miss them, and I pray that God will cover them with a shield of heavenly protection. I pray that America will stand strong, will shine a light and do everything possible to apprehend the terrorists and bring these boys home. Thank you, and God bless you.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak for 7 minutes.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to discuss a heartbreaking tragedy that has focused the attention of people across America and people across the world. I rise today to discuss the plight of Meriam Ibrahim. Meriam is a young wife and a young mother. Meriam has two children. She has a son Martin, who is 20 months old, and she has a newborn baby girl Maya, who was just recently born. Now, the birth of a little girl should be a cause for celebration. But I am sorry to tell you, Madam President, that Meriam gave birth to Maya while in leg irons in a prison in Sudan. Meriam is married to a U.S. citizen, Daniel. Her two children are American citizens. Why was Meriam in leg irons in a prison cell in Sudan? She was there because the Government of Sudan had sentenced her to receive 100 lashes and to hang by the neck until dead for the crime of being a Christian. That is Meriam's only crime in Sudan, and for that crime she was sentenced to be tortured and executed. Meriam was told by the Government of Sudan that if she would merely renounce Jesus Christ, she would be spared that horrible sentence. But Meriam told her captors that she would not and could not renounce Christ. All of us value the religious liberty that is protected here in America that is precious to each and every one of us, and yet I would venture, very few, if any of us, have been tested in our faith the way Meriam has. Now, 2 days ago, we had cause for celebration. Two days ago, the Government of Sudan--responding to the international outcry that this young wife and mother would be tortured and murdered for being a Christian--released Meriam. There were many prayers of thanksgiving 2 days ago. Yet, Madam President, I am very sorry to tell you that yesterday, while Meriam was at the airport preparing to leave and come to America with her husband and her two little babies, armed thugs came to the airport and seized Meriam. She is back in a prison in Sudan. This is wrong. This is an outrage. This calls for prayers across this country. And this calls for U.S. leadership. I would humbly call upon President Obama to speak out for Meriam. There is no one who has a bully pulpit like the President of the United States. This is a case that cries for Presidential leadership. Her husband is an American from New Hampshire. Her babies are Americans. And this is a grotesque example of religious persecution. I would note that this should not be a cause for partisan division. Indeed, in this Chamber, I am pleased to have joined with Senator Shaheen, a Democrat from New Hampshire, and Senator Ayotte, a Republican from New Hampshire, in legislation that would provide immediate relief for Meriam to allow her to come to America. It is my hope this body can operate quickly in a bipartisan, in a unanimous manner, to act on that legislation so we can stand together. I am encouraged that so many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle have stood and fought for Meriam. We need to speak with one uniform voice. I hope, in particular--I would urge, in particular--President Obama to stand and add his clear voice, to say to the Government of Sudan: Free Meriam Ibrahim. I would ask everyone watching this to lift her up in your prayers and to speak out. Sudan, 2 days ago, responded to the international pressure and released her. Now that they have apparently had a change of heart and forcibly captured her, we need to speak even louder. We need to speak for Meriam Ibrahim because it is wrong for anyone--especially this young wife and mother--to be subject to torture and murder for being a Christian. That is unequivocally wrong, and we need to speak in one voice. Thank you, Madam President.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise today to discuss the deteriorating situation in Iraq. There has been considerable debate in recent days about what we want to achieve in that country and the importance of achieving so-called political reconciliation in Baghdad. I wish to propose three simple principles that should guide any action we take in Iraq. No. 1, we should do everything possible to secure our people. No. 2, we should defend our national security interests. No. 3, we should not partner with the Islamic Republic of Iran. First and foremost, we need to be certain we are doing everything humanly possible to secure the Americans who are still in Iraq. The instability of the situation in the north of that country could quickly devolve into nationwide chaos, and it requires our immediate attention. We need to be developing and implementing an immediate plan to get out all nonessential American personnel, to get them to safety now. I am deeply concerned, as all of us should be, that our people on the ground will become pawns in a sectarian conflict we cannot control. I am concerned the up to 275 marines who may be deployed to assist in embassy security, along with the 300 additional military advisers that President Obama announced today, will also become targets, isolated in Baghdad. It is not at all reassuring to have the security in Baghdad provided by either Shia militias, loosely controlled by the al-Maliki government, or by the Iranian Quds forces themselves or their agents. If we have to rely on either to keep our people safe, we should not be there. Let me repeat that. If we have to rely on either to keep our people safe, we should not be there. Second, we need to define and then to defend the national security interests of the United States in Iraq. There has been extensive discussion of ``political reconciliation'' in Iraq and of making any American military action contingent on achieving that ephemeral objective. This makes no sense. Although a political solution to Iraq's troubles may have been an appropriate goal in 2005 or 2011, it simply may not be feasible in 2014. The time for this sort of argument would have been 3 years ago when America was the most influential voice in Baghdad and we were completing our largest embassy on the planet on the banks of the Tigris River. But we chose to relinquish that influence when we did not successfully negotiate a status-of-forces agreement with the Iraqis. Much of the blame for that diplomatic impasse lies with the al-Maliki government, but the Obama administration bears considerable responsibility as well. The President campaigned on ``ending the war in Iraq'' which he defined by removing all of our forces, not winning. So immediate troop withdrawal, not negotiating a proper status-of-forces agreement, was the priority. In the words of Secretary Clinton on CNN on Tuesday, ``We did not get it done.'' The result is that today we have little or no influence in Baghdad. It is not my purpose today to relitigate the history of U.S. involvement in Iraq but, rather, to propose what we can do with the circumstances in which we find ourselves right now. Given our current circumstances, any attempt to reconcile a Sunni-Shiite religious conflict that has waged for more than 1,500 years seems either the height of hubris or naivete or both. Rather than prioritizing an unachievable political solution we have no power to effect, it seems much more practical to focus on what is in the actual national security interests of the United States of America. The most acute security threat to the United States in Iraq is the aggressive movement of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS, forces out of Syria and into Iraq over the last 6 months. These vicious Sunni fanatics may be relatively small in number, but they make up for it in shear brutality. Although President Obama dismissed their aggression into Fallujah in January of this year as the terrorist equivalent of the ``junior varsity,'' recent events suggest they are of a much higher capability. Indeed, an obvious question the administration should answer is, has the Obama administration ever armed ISIS? Has the administration given lethal weapons to ISIS? We are doing so to rebels who are fighting alongside ISIS in Syria. It is an obvious question to ask, whether we have, in fact, armed these radical Islamic terrorists as well. ISIS is much more than a local or even regional threat. They are among the worst of the radical jihadists who attacked us on September 1, 2001, and again on September 11, 2012. They are so bad, in fact, that the ``core Al Qaeda,'' as President Obama likes to call the terrorist cells in Pakistan and Afghanistan, have renounced them. Their goal is to establish a new Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and northern Africa, from Syria to Iraq. They have publicly announced that when they achieve their ambition in Syria and Iraq, their goal is to move on to Jordan, to Israel, and to the United States of America. Because of their actions and their stated intent, it would seem a targeted mission to seriously degrade the lethality of ISIS could well be in the national security interests of the United States. Such an action would not require the commitment of American combat forces, but it would require a commitment from the Commander in Chief that this action would not be merely a symbolic message or an effort simply to perpetuate the al-Maliki government in Baghdad. Instead, it would need to be an expeditious and emphatic demonstration of America's ability to strike at the terrorists at the time and means of our choosing. If the President needs to respond to an imminent threat to the national security interests of the United States, or to act to an imminent threat to the lives of Americans in Iraq, he has the constitutional authority to do so. However, Congress has the constitutional authority to declare war. So if the President is planning on launching a concerted offensive attack that is not constrained by the exigency of the circumstances, he should come to Congress to seek and to receive authorization for the use of military force. A precondition for any such mission in Iraq should be the utter rejection of any partnership with the Islamic Republic of Iran on which the al-Maliki government is increasingly dependent. Iran has been the implacable enemy of the United States since 1979, when revolutionaries took 54 American citizens hostage for 444 days, some of the darkest days of our history. Earlier this year, Iran demonstrated that this rapid anti-American hostility is alive and well by trying to get a U.S. visa for one of those hostage takers to serve as their Ambassador to the United Nations, to live in Manhattan with diplomatic immunity. It was one of my proudest days in the Senate to introduce the legislation countering this action that passed unanimously through both Houses of Congress, and that was signed into law by President Obama, stopping known terrorists from entering the United States. When push comes to shove, the American people understand that Iran is our enemy. We need to bring that same clarity, that same bipartisan unity to current circumstances in Iraq. Just because Iran fears ISIS jihadists, it does not follow that we should partner with them in this fight. The enemy of our enemy, in this instance, is not our friend. If we cannot secure our people absent Iranian involvement, we need to get them out. If we cannot strike ISIS in Iraq without Iranian involvement, then we need to look for another means of doing so. ISIS consists of radical Islamist terrorists who seek to murder Americans. Yet the Iranian regime has over and over demonstrated the same hostile intent. Indeed, it is the leading sponsor of terrorism across the world. It is deeply concerning that not only Secretary of State John Kerry but also former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel have all signaled in recent days they are actively interested in exploring a partnership with Iran to deal with Iraq. Indeed, today President Obama publicly suggested: ``Iran can play a constructive role.'' This is the height of foolishness. It is deeply disturbing that so many current and former senior Obama administration officials would share this same misguided and naive view. There could be no more ill-advised or counter-productive policy for the United States at this moment than to partner with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Rather than partnering with Iran, we should be all the more mindful of the dangers of taking our eye off the ball of Iran's nuclear program, as no doubt Tehran hopes we will in this most recent crisis. As grim as the threat of ISIS is, it pales in comparison to the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, given their long and well-documented history of state-sponsored terrorism. Indeed, Iran is working now and has been working for years now to develop nuclear ICBMs for one reason and one reason only, and that is to strike at America and potentially murder millions of Americans. It would be the height of folly to take any action in Iraq that would further embolden Iran, which is already moving to make Iraq a client state in its pursuit of regional hegemony. We already know how that script plays out. We have seen it in our ally Ukraine, where former President Viktor Yanukovych acted as Vladimir Putin's stooge and planted pro-Russian agents throughout the Ukrainian government and armed forces. But the Ukrainian people refused to accept Russia's attempt to reintegrate them into a 21st century reincarnation of the Soviet Union. They stood in the Maidan Square, a place I visited just a few weeks ago, and they braved the freezing cold. They braved the murderous army snipers who shot the protesters down in that square, and they stood and demanded freedom. They demanded to stand with America, with Europe, and the West. Iran, in its attempt to create a modern version, a new version of the Persian Empire, has attempted a similar play on behalf of so-called Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei through the means of the Iraqi regime of Nouri al-Maliki. Sadly, Iranian forces today permeate both the Government of Iraq and the Iraqi security forces. America has demonstrated, beyond any shadow of doubt, our offer of liberty to the people of Iraq. Indeed, thousands of our sons and daughters have given their lives in pursuit of freedom in Iraq. But if the Iraqi Government is more interested in forging a relationship with Iran than with the United States, we should not and we cannot attempt to force them to adhere to our political goals for them. Absent active partners in Iraq who want a closer alliance with America and with our allies, our key objective should be, quite simply, to secure our people, to counteract terrorist threats to our national security, and to make sure that we do not further embolden the Islamic Republic of Iran. These objectives--not the fantasy of resolving the Sunni-Shiite conflict that has been raging since the death of Muhammad in 632 A.D. or the illusion that we can magically find productive common ground with Iran--should define our policy toward Iraq. I would like to make one final note. It is my hope that my colleagues will think more broadly about what is happening in the world in Iraq, in Iran, in Russia, and in Libya. We are being faced with options of options of options that have been created by the bad choices our leaders make. Those guiding our foreign policy at the White House, the State Department, and even, unfortunately, in the Senate have refused to address true dangers posed to Americans at home and abroad. Bad choices inevitably leave us with bad options. Refusing to recognize the radical religious extremism of individuals who are committed to jihad and have pledged to murder Americans is a bad choice. Refusing to utter the words ``radical Islamic terrorists'' is a bad choice. Negotiating with terrorists to release terrorist leaders is a bad choice, and considering any kind of deal with Iran is a very bad choice. In the last 5 years America has receded from leadership in the world. Into that vacuum have stepped nations such as Iran, such as Russia, such as China. As we have abandoned our allies, the consequences have been to make the world a much more dangerous place. America's leadership has never been more critical than it is today. Until the leaders of our government stop making these bad choices, we will continue to be left with bad options. I thank the Chair.

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

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, I rise today to raise an issue that has been of growing concern to the American people: the exchange of the so- called Taliban five--five terrorist detainees from Guantanamo--in exchange for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. Let me say from the outset, this is not about Sergeant Bergdahl. The circumstances under which he became a prisoner of the Taliban is an issue for the Army. There was an investigation into this matter in 2010, and hopefully the Army will be able to bring clarity to that situation soon. What I wish to speak about today is keeping the American people safe from the terrorists who attacked us on September 11, 2001, resulting in the deaths of 2,977 innocent people. The Taliban five are among the worst of the worst. They were all high-level officials in the Taliban regime who gave aid and support to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the period leading up to the 9/11 attacks. These five were designated ``high'' risk by the Guantanamo Review Task Force convened in 2009 on the orders of President Obama, whose report was published on January 22, 2010. Two of the five are wanted by the United Nations for war crimes against Afghan civilians. Khairullah Khairkhwa, for example, was described in his GTMO case file as ``a hard-liner in Taliban philosophy'' with ``close ties to Osama bin Laden.'' Mohammad Fazl was second in command of the Taliban army in 2001. These were not junior-level players. Capturing these five men was a priority when our troops participated in the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban in 2001, where our sons and daughters bled and died to free Afghanistan and to exact punishment on those who carried out a horrific terrorist attack on the United States of America. We cannot know for sure how many American soldiers paid the ultimate price to capture these five senior terrorists. Even as many other detainees at GTMO have been released, up until now, these five have been considered too dangerous to let go. Given the level of threat they represent, any proposal to release them should be of the utmost seriousness. Unfortunately, by all indications the administration's release treated their threat as anything but serious. Americans need to know how the Obama administration thinks it has made our Nation safer by negotiating with terrorists to release these five dangerous terrorist leaders. Until President Obama can make his case and convince the American public that this swap was in our national interests, prudence dictates that all further transfers and releases from Guantanamo Bay should be off the table. Unfortunately, there have been no answers from this administration on how this deal furthers the national security interests of the American people or why the deal was so urgent that the administration refused to comply with its legal obligation to inform Congress 30 days before the transfer. Instead, the administration has vilified those who would raise questions about it as somehow not being concerned about securing the return of our troops. That attack--that slur--shouldn't even be dignified by a response, particularly given what has been publicly admitted. President Obama has publicly admitted that there is ``absolutely'' a chance of the Taliban five returning to the battlefield and attacking Americans. Indeed, the current Taliban leadership has announced that from their perspective this deal is so good for them that they should now prioritize kidnapping other Americans. For example, last Thursday one top Taliban commander told Time magazine--and this is a quote--``It's better to kidnap one person like Bergdahl than kidnapping hundreds of useless people. It has encouraged our people. Now everybody will work hard to capture such an important bird.'' This deal puts every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine--every man and woman standing up to defend this Nation--in jeopardy. The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has publicly said that she has seen ``no evidence'' that Sergeant Bergdahl was under urgent threat in recent weeks or months. All of these admissions together raise serious and legitimate concerns about the circumstances of the release of the Taliban Five, and they also make clear that the administration should stop vilifying any who raise these national concerns. Instead, the President should stand up and honor his commitment to the American people, defend this decision in terms of the national security interests of the United States--what should be the highest priority for the Commander in Chief. Instead, we have recently learned from news reports that there are at least four other Gitmo detainees who are being considered for release. So not only has there not been accountability as to why this happened, but it appears the administration wants to go down the same road and I can only assume is willing again to violate the law and not notify Congress the next time, just the way it violated the law by not notifying Congress this time. Before any further such action is considered, we need to take a pause and assess what happened with the Taliban five. We need to answer: Who did the vetting that resulted in the assessment that the Taliban five no longer posed a high level of threat to the United States? Who participated in the decision to release them? Was this the same deal the administration says they offered to brief Congress on previously or is it something different? Was the President fully briefed on the background of the Taliban Five and the likelihood of recidivism? How did the administration reach its apparently high level of confidence that the Taliban five will be secure in Qatar? How did they arrive upon the notion that that security should last only 1 year, after which the American people will be safe if these terrorists are released altogether? On what basis did the administration judge that only 1 year was sufficient? How was the decision made to ignore the law and bypass Congress, including bypassing the chairs of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Foreign Relations Committees, and Armed Services Committees? In what circumstances does the administration intend once again to openly defy the law and refuse to provide notification to Congress? These are questions, I might note, that should be bipartisan concerns. This should not be a partisan affair--asking questions that affect the national security of every single American citizen and every single man and woman serving in the military. In order to give the Obama administration the opportunity to satisfy the many outstanding questions the American people have about their safety--and I would note, having just returned from Texas, I found over and over again Texans, men and women, asking these very questions--I will propose this week that before we consider any additional releases from Guantanamo, we answer these questions first. The legislation I will be filing, No. 1, will immediately call for a 6-month freeze on any Federal Government funding to transfer detainees from Guantanamo. No. 2, to enforce this requirement, the legislation will provide that, should the President choose to disregard this law-- as, sadly, has been his pattern so many other times--all funds expended in the transfer would be deducted directly from the budget of the Executive Office of the President. No. 3, because we understand that conditions might possibly arise that would necessitate the release of an individual prisoner and out of respect for the President's special role in international matters, this legislation explicitly provides a means for the President to ask Congress for a waiver of the 6-month bar in an individual case. But, finally, because we believe the release of detainees from Guantanamo--which holds some of the most dangerous people on the planet--is a matter of the gravest import, this legislation would require that for every order for release of a Guantanamo detainee, it must be personally approved by the President. This would ensure that the fullest consideration and deliberation goes into the process. This latest deal--which was announced to the American people as a fait accompli, with no opportunity for Congress to scrutinize it, no opportunity for the American people to assess it--this latest deal constituted negotiating with terrorists to release five senior terrorist leaders, and it raises obvious questions. First of all, how many Americans did these five terrorist leaders directly or indirectly murder? How many lives--American lives--are they responsible for taking? Second, how many American soldiers gave their lives to capture these five senior terrorist leaders? How many graves do we have of sons and daughters of Americans because they were sent in to capture these five who have just been released? Third, given their release--and the President's admission that there is ``absolutely'' a chance that they will return to actively waging war against the United States--how many Americans are at risk of being killed directly or indirectly by these terrorist leaders we have just let go? Finally, if the Taliban five do return to actively trying to kill Americans, how many American soldiers will once again have to risk their lives or, indeed, will give their lives trying to kill or capture these terrorists once again? These are questions of the utmost seriousness, and to date the administration has not even attempted to answer them. Instead, it has suggested that anyone raising these questions is simply failing to stand by the men and women of our military. I can tell you, the men and women of our military understand the value of protecting the national security of the United States of America, and the men and women of our military are not comforted by negotiations with terrorists to release senior terrorist leaders who can once again begin actively waging war on the United States. Every American is naturally eager to end the long war in Afghanistan, but that does not mean we disregard the threat that violent terrorist groups such as the Taliban pose to our Nation. We know from the hard experience of the last decade that at least one in three Guantanamo detainees has returned to the battlefield. That has been what history has taught us. Until we have full confidence that this threat to American lives is being fully and properly assessed, that we are taking steps to protect the lives of American civilians and American soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines, it is only prudent to take the steps in the legislation I am introducing this week, and I hope the Senate will do so. With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, I rise to discuss the nomination of David Barron to be a Federal court of appeals judge. I commend my friend Senator Rand Paul for his excellent remarks earlier today and his leadership against Mr. Barron's nomination. I have known Mr. Barron for a long time. He and I were classmates in law school. He is a smart man. He is a talented man. He is a professor at Harvard Law School and he is a well-respected professor. However, Mr. Barron is an unabashed judicial activist. He is an unapologetic and vocal advocate for judges applying liberal policy from the bench and disregarding the terms of the Constitution and the laws of the land. If the Members of this body vote to confirm him, we will bear responsibility for undermining liberty and undermining the rule of law in this country. It is well known that Mr. Barron, as a senior official in the Obama Justice Department, authored memos allowing the U.S. Government to use drones to kill American citizens abroad who were known and suspected to be terrorists, without any trial, without any due process. To date, we still don't have the details of all of those memos. A number of us, including myself, have called for releasing the memos that would allow the U.S. Government to use lethal force against U.S. citizens. I am pleased to say the administration has, in part, complied, but we don't have all of those memos. Yet this body is being asked to proceed with giving Mr. Barron a lifetime appointment without knowing the full context of the advice he gave. I would note that Mr. Barron previously, in 2006, joined a group of legal scholars calling for more transparency in the OLC opinions that he subsequently wrote and that the administration is now keeping secret. But beyond that, beyond Mr. Barron providing the legal basis for the targeted killings of American citizens abroad without judicial process, Mr. Barron, both in law school and in his writings as a law professor, has been an enthusiastic advocate of judicial activism. It has become de rigueur for judicial nominees to forswear activism, to say--even if their record is to the contrary--no, no, no, Senator, I will comply with the law. To Mr. Barron's credit, his writings have a degree of candor that are unusual. So, for example, he has argued that courts should override elected State legislatures and enforce leftwing policies. Mr. Barron, in one particular law review, wrote: State supreme Courts, not state legislatures, have also led the revolution in school financing equality, though judicial actions have catalyzed political responses. He went on to say that liberals should not object to conservative court decisions because ``progressive constitutionalists enamored of the Anti-Court rhetoric rarely take account of its potential downstream effects on state-court interpretation and legitimacy.'' In other words, he is worried that people on the left might be arguing that courts should follow the law because that would constrain the ability of courts to instead impose a far-left political policy agenda. Likewise, in a different article, he argues: It is precisely because the Anti-Court strain singles out conservative judicial activism as the problem that it threatens to work progressive constitutional theory into a corner: it needlessly rejects the progressive potential of a significant wielder of power--the courts. . . . Let me underscore that. Every Member of this body who votes to confirm Mr. Barron is voting for a candidate who has stated he intends to use the courts as a ``significant wielder of power.'' Indeed, what is the agenda that he would embrace? He has elsewhere written: We contend that the constitutional argument favoring preclusive executive power necessarily rests on a strong form of living constitutionalism. There are Members of this body--Democratic Members of this body--who are campaigning right now in their home State saying they do not support judicial activism, they do not support a so-called living constitution, judges imposing far-left policies and disregarding the law. Well, let me say, any Democratic Member of this body who votes for Mr. Barron is on record in support of judicial activism and living constitutionalism. Beyond that, Mr. Barron has explicitly written his opposition to federalism. Indeed, he says, ``There is precious little in the Constitution's text or the history of its adoption that compels the particular conservative allocation of national local powers favored by the Rehnquist Court.'' He has made clear his agenda to overturn or ignore Supreme Court precedents. When he says there is ``little in the . . . text or the history,'' it seems somehow that he has not read or focused on the Tenth Amendment or the Federalist Papers or the debates on ratification. Beyond that, he is an emphatic advocate of the takings clause, of government power taking private property, such as the Kelo decision-- big money interests going to government and using government power to condemn your private land. He is an emphatic advocate of that and of courts facilitating and expanding that. He has written that the executive branch should be able to waive laws with which it disagrees--a lawlessness that, sadly, has run rampant in this administration. Anyone who cares about property rights should be dismayed by this nomination and should vote against it if you do not want to see overly aggressive takings jurisprudence that allows the government to take your private property. Anyone concerned about free speech should be concerned about this nomination if you do not want to see expansive government power taking away the rights of citizenry to free speech. Anyone who cares about local control and federalism and the ability of local school boards and legislatures to make policy decisions should be concerned. Anyone concerned about our right to life should be concerned about drones having the power to take our life without judicial process. Anyone concerned about liberty and the rule of law should be deeply concerned about a judicial nominee who embraces courts as a tool of power and the President disregarding the law. I urge my colleagues to oppose this nomination. I yield the floor.

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. The question I would ask my colleague from New Jersey is, If I were to consent to the unanimous consent that the Senator has proffered, and if this side of the aisle would request, would he likewise consent to the unanimous consent request that I put forward for a joint select committee composed of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to get to the bottom of what happened in Benghazi?

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, 8 months ago yesterday I requested unanimous consent for S. Res. 225 calling for a joint select committee of Congress to investigate the terrorist attack on our facilities in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11, 2012, which resulted in the murder of four brave Americans: Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and Ambassador Christopher Stevens, who was our first Ambassador murdered while serving since Adolph Dubs in 1979. At the time my colleague, the junior the Senator from California, objected on the grounds that the administration was trying ``to address Benghazi,'' and that President Obama would ``not rest until the perpetrators were caught.'' Here we are, 8 months later, and the perpetrators still have not been caught, and the confusion about what occurred on September 11, 2012, in Benghazi has only gotten worse. In recent weeks, what happened on that terrible night has gotten more and more obscure. On April 2 of this year, Mike Morell, the Deputy Director of the CIA during the Benghazi attacks, testified regarding the CIA talking points that he ``took out the word `Islamic' in front of `extremists' '' because he thought there were other kinds of extremists in Libya and that he did not use the word ``terrorist'' because ``we see extremists and terrorists as the same thing.'' On April 29 of this year, in response to a FOIA request by Judicial Watch, the White House released emails related to Benghazi, including a September 14, 2012, email from Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes that had as its stated goal ``to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video and not in a broader failure of policy.'' I would note that is a stated political goal from the White House, in writing, days after the attack--not to get to the truth but to further that political goal. Then, on May 1, 2014, Gen. Robert Lovell, Deputy Director of Intelligence of U.S. AFRICOM during the Benghazi attacks, became the first former military officer to question the administration's insistence that a rescue attempt was not possible, arguing ``the discussion is not in the `could or could not' in relation to time, space, and capability, the point is we should have tried.'' It is hard to disagree with the good general that we should have tried to save those four Americans who were murdered that tragic night. We are left once again with persistent questions on Benghazi to which we still don't know the answers. Here are 10: No. 1. Why was the State Department unwilling to provide the requested level of security to Benghazi in the summer of 2012? No. 2. Do President Obama's daily intelligence briefings in the runup to September 11, 2012, support the assertion that there was no credible threat of a coordinated terrorist attack on Benghazi during the time, and do the daily intelligence briefings following that date support the claim the administration made that the cause was an Internet video? Why hasn't the White House declassified and released those briefings, as President George W. Bush did with his pre-September 11, 2001, briefings? No. 3. Why did we not anticipate the need to have military assets at the ready in the region on the anniversary of September 11--of all dates? No. 4. Did President Obama sleep the night of September 11, 2012? Did Secretary Clinton? Neither has answered that very simple question: Were they awake or asleep while Americans were under fire? When was President Obama told about the murder of our Ambassador? No. 5. If the Secretary of Defense thought there was ``no question that this was a coordinated terrorist attack,'' why did Ambassador Susan Rice, Secretary Clinton, and President Obama all tell the American people that the cause was a spontaneous demonstration about an Internet video? None has squarely answered that question. No. 6. Why did former Deputy CIA Director Mike Morell edit the intelligence community talking points to delete the references to Islamic extremists and Al Qaeda? No. 7. Why did the FBI not release pictures of the militants taken the day of the attack until 8 months after the fact--why not immediately, as proved so effective in the Boston bombing? No. 8. Why was Secretary Clinton not interviewed for the ARB report? If all the relevant questions were answered in the ARB report, as our friends on the other side of the aisle often like to say, why did the State Department's own inspector general's office open a probe into the methods of that very report? No. 9. Why have none of the terrorists who attacked in Benghazi been captured or killed? No. 10. What additional evidence that the White House engaged in a partisan political campaign to blame the Benghazi attack on the Internet video is contained in the additional emails requested by Judicial Watch but withheld by the White House on the grounds that it would put a ``chill'' on internal deliberations? I would suggest to my colleagues that what is truly chilling is that 20 months after the Benghazi attack, we have four dead Americans and no dead terrorists. It is chilling to think our President may have had better things to do than personally attend to an ongoing terrorist attack on our people. It is chilling to imagine that we could have mounted a rescue attempt of our own people but that we didn't even bother to try. It is chilling to think our Secretary of State would not insist on giving an interview for the ARB report. It is chilling to think we have an administration that is reluctant to utter the words ``radical Islamic terrorism,'' let alone fight effectively against it. It is chilling to have former administration officials respond to questions in response to Benghazi with, ``Dude, this was like two years ago.'' The clock is ticking. Memories are fading. It is beyond time to get the full resources of both Houses of Congress behind this investigation. The President should release his daily intelligence briefings in the times surrounding the Benghazi attack, as President George W. Bush did concerning 9/11. This body should join with the House of Representatives, with a joint select committee to get to the bottom of what happened. Why didn't we protect Americans? Why didn't we stop this attack? Why haven't we captured the terrorists who killed four Americans including our Ambassador? Accordingly, I ask unanimous consent that the rules and administration committee be discharged from further consideration and the Senate now proceed to S. Res. 225. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.

Mr. CRUZ. I would note that my friend from New Jersey did not endeavor to answer any of the questions I proffered, including the most simple question, such as did the President sleep on the night of September 11, 2012.

Mr. CRUZ. I would thank my friend from New Jersey for a colloquy in support of this joint select committee on Benghazi because the Democratic Senator from New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, just told this body he has no idea if President Obama was even told that four Americans were under terrorist attack. He has no idea. He doesn't know what, if anything, the President could have done to save them. I would suggest that is exactly the reason we need this committee. If the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee 2 years later cannot answer that question, it makes abundantly clear that the response of the administration, sadly, and the response of the Senate Democrats has been partisan stonewalling rather than getting to the truth. In the immortal lines of Jack Nicholson, it makes one think perhaps they cannot handle it or at least they don't want to know. I would finally say I am more than prepared to consent to the request from the senior Senator of New Jersey if he would only show the same reciprocal courtesy of agreeing to the same request; a bipartisan committee, in which he would no doubt participate, to answer the question--the senior Senator from New Jersey just told this body he doesn't know if the President knew. He doesn't know what the President could have done. Apparently, the premise of the statement is he doesn't think the American people care. I suggest that the American people care a great deal as to what the President knew about national security. They would want to know if he was not engaged or if he didn't act to stop it. That is a matter worthy of inquiry by this body.

Mr. CRUZ. Since my friend from New Jersey has made it plain that he will not consent to this request, I will note that this is an open offer that anytime my friend from New Jersey will simply stop blocking a fair, bipartisan, joint inquiry as to what occurred in Benghazi--the terrorist attack that tragically took the lives of four Americans--I am happy to consent.

Mr. CRUZ. I object.

Mr. CRUZ. So why is it--I am curious--the senior Senator from New Jersey believes an inquiry to ascertain the truth about what happened is necessarily a partisan endeavor? Is there no partisan interest on that side of the aisle in finding out what happened, how it could have been prevented, and why we didn't save those four Americans?

Mr. CRUZ. Madam President, reserving the right to object, my friend, the senior Senator from New Jersey, suggests that this is a request on the eve of a midterm election. The only reason for that of course is 8 months ago, when I made the exact same request, the Democrats objected and blocked a joint select committee looking into Benghazi at that time. The Senator from New Jersey also suggested this was some kind of distraction from ObamaCare. I promise the Senator, there is no one in this Chamber less interested in distracting from ObamaCare than I. I would encourage the senior Senator from New Jersey, if he believes what he says, to go and campaign for his Democratic colleagues who are up for election this year with the simple message that he said on the floor of this Senate, which is Senator so-and-so is the critical 60th vote to passing ObamaCare, and if you like it you can keep your Senator. I feel quite confident that the Democratic Senators up for election this year are running as rapidly away from the point suggested by the senior Senator from New Jersey as possible. But secondly, I would note, in his entire speech, the senior Senator from New Jersey said there is no need for any further inquiry because we had lots of hearings and there is no need to know anything, but let me point out, the senior Senator from New Jersey did not answer even a single question that I asked. I outlined 10 questions that have not been answered. He is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. Yet he either could not or did not answer even a single question--two simple ones--which are ``yes'' or ``no'' questions. No. 1. Did President Obama sleep on the night of September 11, 2012? The senior Senator from New Jersey chose not to answer, I suspect, because none of us knows because the White House has never answered that question. No. 2. Do the President's daily intelligence briefings reflect the political spin from the White House on Benghazi? Likewise, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee did not answer that question. Again, I suspect it is because he does not know because the White House has not released that information. There are far too many questions remaining, but the senior Senator from New Jersey, my learned colleague, proposed a counter unanimous consent request to improve embassy security. I would ask unanimous consent to engage in a very brief colloquy with my colleague and ask him specifically one question about the unanimous consent request.

Mr. CRUZ

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

Mr. CRUZ

Mr. CRUZ. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I wish to note very briefly to my friend from Minnesota that her bill is good policy. It is policy on which I hope this body can come together. I will note a path forward. If my friend from Minnesota can prevail on the majority leader simply to allow a vote on the Senate floor on the two amendments I have introduced, then I will withdraw my objection. The reason I have to make this request is, under this majority leader, the minority of this Chamber is shut out of the ability even to have votes. I would note this request is less than what I asked in my unanimous consent. It is not a request to pass. It is simply a request that there be a vote, and if there is a vote, that gives an opportunity for every Member of this Chamber--Republican and Democrat--to go on record and to see if every Democrat in this Chamber is willing to do what every Democrat in the Judiciary Committee did, which is vote affirmatively against making it an offense for IRS employees to willfully target Americans based on their political views. Any Democrat who votes that way can no longer stand and say they are upset about the IRS's abuse of power because once you voted against prohibiting, you have made clear that you are unwilling to do anything to protect the American people. The requests from the Republican side to the majority leader to have votes scheduled fall on deaf ears. Perhaps my friend from Minnesota will have more sway with her party's leaders than we will. But in the interim, we are obliged to use whatever tools we can to press for the American people, to stop the abuse of power that is stifling their First Amendment rights. For that reason, I object.