Richard Durbin

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Arizona (Ms. Sinema) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I support the bipartisan budget deal that will extend the debt ceiling and lift the current budgets caps for the next 2 years. This important deal will avoid harmful cuts to domestic priorities, prevent a default on our Nation's debt, and finally allow appropriators to get to work on this year's appropriations bills to fund the government. Despite proposing draconian cuts in his budget, I am glad that President Trump has agreed to join Democrats in permanently ending the threat of sequester. For too long, sequestration has handcuffed Congress's ability to make investments in middle-class priorities that advance the health, financial security, and well-being of the American people. I am pleased that this agreement goes even further than previous budget deals by increasing nondefense spending by $10 billion more than defense spending. With this budget deal, Democrats have secured an increase of more than $100 billion in funding for domestic priorities since President Trump took office. I am especially pleased that this budget deal will allow us to continue making the big investments in medical research conducted at the National Institutes of Health, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that will improve and save lives. Because of NIH funding, new treatments have been developed that reduced cancer deaths more than 25 percent over past two decades. Thirty years ago, HIV was a death sentence. Because of NIH funding, that is no longer the case. Because of NIH-funded research, deaths from heart disease and stroke have fallen by nearly 80 percent since 1970. Because of NIH funding, we are on the verge of curing--yes, curing-- sickle cell anemia. Consider this: Between 2010 and 2016, the Food and Drug Administration approved more than 200 new drugs and treatments for use in the United States; every single one of them was developed with NIH dollars. Congress has recognized the importance of NIH, which is why we have, on a bipartisan basis, provided the NIH with $9 billion in additional funding over the past 4 years, a 30 percent increase in that time. This agreement will allow us to continue those vital investments. Most importantly, this agreement will help prevent another harmful government shutdown from occurring this fall. While not perfect, this budget deal will finally allow Congress to get to work on this year's appropriations bills and invest in the programs that the American people rely on. I hope that my colleagues will join me in passing this agreement with overwhelming bipartisan support.

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise on my behalf and on the behalf of Senator Tammy Duckworth to express my condolences to the family of SPC Michael Isaiah Nance. He and fellow paratrooper, PFC Brandon Jay Kreischer, of Ohio, gave their lives in service to our country on July 29 in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. The early reports on their deaths are that they were shot by an Afghan soldier at a military base--a so-called green on blue attack. The incident is under investigation. Isaiah was 24 years old. Isaiah was the 96th Illinois servicemember to have been killed in Afghanistan since our invasion began in 2001, and he is 1 of 2,289 American troops who have died there since that invasion. He was a proud and outstanding member of the 82nd Airborne. Since enlisting in 2017, he earned the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, and the Combat Infantryman Badge, and he qualified as a Basic Parachutist. As a member of the Nance family noted, ``He loved his country and wanted to serve his country. He died doing something that he loved.'' Isaiah arrived in Afghanistan just a few weeks ago, shortly after a trip to Europe with his mother Shawn Gregoire. He and thousands of other Americans who are still there were deployed in support of our NATO-led mission to train, advise, and assist the Afghan Army, a mission known as Operation Freedom's Sentinel. As fate would have it, when uniformed Army personnel arrived at his house to break this terrible news to his family, much of the family had already gathered after having attended the funeral of the Nances' great-grandfather, Sam Forest, Jr., who had served in the U.S. Army during the Korean war. As one member of Isaiah's family noted, ``It was the worst day in our family's history.'' Isaiah was raised by his mother and grandparents in Chatham, which is on the South Side of Chicago. He attended college in Florida. After 2 years, he insisted to his mother that he wanted to join the Army. He wanted to continue his family's tradition of military service not only as his great-grandfather had but also as several members of his family still do in the Chicago Police Department. He told his mother he wanted to pursue his dream. He promised her that after it was over, he would finish his degree. Shortly after enlisting, he completed basic training and earned his wings at the Airborne School at Fort Benning, GA. He became an Automatic Rifleman who was assigned to Company B, First Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the storied 82nd Airborne Division. The motto of the 82nd Airborne is ``Airborne all the way.'' Isaiah lived every bit of this motto in his faithful service to America and with his family and friends. He enjoyed wrestling, traveling the world, and cheering for his beloved Chicago White Sox. He was a foodie. He loved good soul food. Perhaps, most especially, he loved spending time with his younger brother. As a member of his family noted, he was ``energetic, athletic, funny, humble''--all of the things you would want your kid to be. Every Member of the Senate would be proud to have a son like Isaiah. All of the Members join me in expressing their condolences to his family at this painful moment and in grieving with them over Isaiah's bright light--ended all too soon. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. ``We've got a friend in Trump; He's lifting us out of our slump; We were down--and life was rough; Too many regs, were way too tough; After so many years; We'd just had enough, but; Now, we've got a friend in Trump.'' Mr. President, that was a song, sung to the tune of Randy Newman's ``You've Got a Friend in Me,'' written by a former lawyer for Dream Center Education Holdings about the prospects for their for-profit college enterprise under a Trump administration. Earlier this month, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman Bobby Scott sent a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos which revealed damning new details about just how far Dream Center's ``friends'' at the Trump/DeVos Department of Education would go to assist as they collapsed. Details, including that catchy little ditty, were later reported by the New York Times in an article entitled, ``Emails Show DeVos Aides Pulled Strings for Failing For-Profit Colleges.'' I ask unanimous consent that the New York Times article be printed in the Record.

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, back in 2017, Dream Center Education Holdings, the spinoff of a Christian charity with no previous experience in higher education, announced its intention to acquire the campuses of the failing for-profit giant Education Management Corporation, EDMC, and convert them to nonprofit status. Among EDMC's most notable brands were the Art Institutes and Argosy University. I joined several of my Senate colleagues at the time, raising concerns about Dream Center's ability to effectively manage this higher education enterprise in the best interests of students and taxpayers. Despite our concerns, Secretary DeVos's Department of Education gave its preliminary approval to the transaction in October 2017, without conditioning that approval on any restrictions or protections for students and taxpayers. The Department's failure to protect students and taxpayers at this critical juncture set up a chain of events that left thousands of students harmed and millions in taxpayer dollars wasted. In November 2017, as part of its own approval of that transaction, the Higher Learning Commission, HLC, removed accreditation from Dream Center's newly acquired Art Institute of Colorado and the Illinois Institute of Art effective January 20, 2018. HLC transitioned these schools to ``candidates for accreditation,'' during which time they could still receive Title IV funds. HLC noted that the loss of accreditation could have serious consequences for current and prospective students and that students ``should know that their courses or degrees are not accredited by HLC and may not be accepted in transfer to other colleges and universities or recognized by prospective employers.'' Because of these risks, HLC required Dream Center to provide students with ``proper advisement and accommodations.'' But Dream Center failed to comply with these requirements and instead continued to falsely advertise to students that these institutions ``remain accredited.'' In June 2018, when several news articles brought the misrepresentation to light, I wrote to the Higher Learning Commission asking them to investigate. I also sent a copy of that letter to the Department of Education. Then, in August 2018, an article by David Halperin alleged that the top DeVos postsecondary education official, Diane Auer Jones, directed Dream Center to continue to represent the Illinois and Colorado campuses as accredited while she worked behind the scenes to orchestrate retroactive accreditation. As Chairman Scott put it in his recent letter, it was an attempt at ``rewriting history to erase Dream Center's deceptive marketing practices.'' And, it required changing Department regulations. I wrote to Secretary DeVos in August about these troubling accusations. In a December 4, 2018, response, signed by then-Assistant Secretary for Legislation and Congressional Affairs Peter Oppenheim, the Department denied the allegations. Instead, Mr. Oppenheim's letter asserts that Ms. Jones didn't learn about the misrepresentation until July 17, 2018. In response to subsequent written questions, Secretary DeVos further stated to me that Ms. Jones first learned that HLC had withdrawn accreditation from the Illinois and Colorado campuses on July 10, 2018. But, according to emails obtained and released by Chairman Scott, Ms. Jones appears to have been already working to change Department regulations to allow Dream Center to obtain retroactive accreditation before these dates. A July 3, 2018, internal Dream Center email reads, ``We just got off the phone with [the Department of Education]. It appears HLC is in sync with retro-[accreditation].'' Diane Jones is specifically mentioned in the email as being the Department official working with accreditors to facilitate this. As reported by the New York Times, in a recorded meeting on July 11, 2018, Dream Center's chief operating officer told faculty in Illinois that the Department was working to change its regulations to allow retroactive accreditation. As evidence, he specifically referred to a conversation the week before with Ms. Jones. These revelations raise the prospect that Secretary DeVos, Ms. Jones, and other Department officials may have misled me and other members of Congress in their responses to questions on this matter. Ultimately, the Dream Center debacle led to thousands of students being lured into a predatory enterprise on the verge of collapse. The question is, to what extent did the DeVos Department of Education, and Ms. Jones in particular, inappropriately aid and abet Dream Center's exploitation of students and bilking of taxpayers as the company collapsed. In February of this year, House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro and I asked the Department's Office of Inspector General to investigate the Department's role in the Dream Center collapse. Now, the revelations accompanying Chairman Scott's letter, raise serious questions about the Department's truthfulness with Congress and a potential attempt to cover up inappropriate involvement by Ms. Jones or others. In his letter, Chairman requested transcribed interviews with several Department officials, including Ms. Jones, and a host of documents and correspondence. I call on Secretary DeVos to immediately comply with these requests, to direct her Department to fully cooperate with Chairman Scott without delay. Anything less and we will be forced to ask what exactly Secretary DeVos is trying to hide.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to take a moment to tell you about a remarkable young man from my hometown of Springfield, IL. His name is Matthew Blade. In late May, Matthew graduated from Lutheran High School in Springfield as his class valedictorian. He was also the president of his senior class, president of his school's Spanish Honor Society and an Illinois State scholar. He was involved in theater and Madrigal singers and his school's praise band. He was a member of Students Against Destructive Decisions. Outside of school, Matthew volunteers at a local food pantry, and he is an Eagle Scout. If Matthew Blade had done nothing more, he would be exceptional. What makes Matthew's accomplishments even more extraordinary is that Matthew Blade spent half of his high school years battling bone cancer. He first felt the pain in his left arm when he was 15 years old, a sophomore. At first, he thought he might have pulled a muscle playing soccer. When the pain didn't go away, Matthew went in for x rays, then an MRI. The same day he underwent the MRI, Matthew and his parents, Doug and Tricia, received the devastating diagnosis. The pain in Matthew's arm was not a sprained muscles; it was most likely osteocarcoma, a type of bone cancer. What Matthew did next tells you a lot about his character. He went to school, didn't tell anyone about his diagnosis, took a biology exam-- and aced the test. But Matthew wasn't able to keep his diagnosis private for long. Over the next 9 months he underwent 18 grueling chemotherapy treatments. Each time, he had to be hospitalized for 4 or 5 days. His mom Tricia never left his side. Matthew lost his hair and his eyelashes. When he was up to it, he went to school, often pulling an I.V. bag on a pole. When he was too sick for school, he kept up with his lessons from home or from his hospital bed. What got him through those hard times, he said, was his faith, prayers, the love of his family, and ``great doctors and nurses'' at St. John's Hospital in Springfield and Children's Hospital in St. Louis. His other saving grace, he says, were his friends, who never treated him differently and helped him to feel like a normal kid, even at his sickest. Matthew undergoes scans every 6 months to monitor his health. His latest scans, in June, showed ``no detectable cancer.'' These days, his hair has grown back. He is playing soccer again. He is working this summer as a counselor at a church summer camp, working with little kids, ages 5 to 7. But the cancer changed Matthew in some ways. Early in his treatment, he had to have a 6-1/2 inch section of his left humerus bone--the long bone in his upper arm--removed, so he can no longer lift his left arm above his head. After the surgery, Matthew had to wear a sling, which made playing his guitar impossible, but Matthew adapted. He learned how to play the ukulele. Before his diagnosis, Matthew wanted to be a lawyer. Now, he wants to be a pediatric oncologist, to help other kids with cancer. He is looking forward to starting college in the fall at St. Louis University. In his valedictory remarks, Matthew told his classmates: ``Life--like a hike through the mountains--is full of peaks and valleys. The more time you spend in the valleys, the sweeter the peaks will seem.'' By his example, Matthew Blade has taught his classmates--and really, our whole town of Springfield--how to endure life's valleys, and how to cherish its peaks. I want to wish Matthew all the best on his accomplishment, and I know I am not alone in saying that I can't wait to see what he does with the rest of his remarkable life.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, as those who are following on C-SPAN have probably noted, we are not overwhelmed with business on the floor of the U.S. Senate, nor have we been during the course of this year. We have considered several bills--you could count them on one hand-- including the Defense authorization bill, and, of course, the momentous, historic legislation 2 weeks ago, the tax treaty with Luxembourg, which had been pending before the U.S. Senate for 9 years. It finally made it to the floor of the Senate. That was the highlight of the week, as we have watched the U.S. Senate ignore some of the most important issues of our time. Let me tell you one that strikes at the heart of our democracy, which we should be focused on today and until it is resolved. Last week, former FBI Director and Special Counsel Bob Mueller testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The hearing clarified several important things. For example, President Trump loves to claim that the Mueller report completely exonerated him. Trump's tweets, one after another, talk about how he was exonerated by that report. Director Mueller made clear that is ``not what the report said.'' When asked by the House Judiciary chairman ``Did you actually totally exonerate the President?'' Director Mueller answered ``no.'' President Trump likes to say the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt. He has said that about 1,000 times. But the investigation actually led to 37 indictments and over $42 million in assets forfeited to the government. If this were a witch hunt, it certainly found a lot of wealthy witches. Some Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee tried to attack Director Mueller's credibility, but Mueller has a lifetime record of being a straight shooter, by-the-book investigator, and prosecutor. He did this country a service when he took on the role of special counsel. One thing Director Mueller tried to remind the American people of is the reason the investigation was necessary. He said: Over the course of my career, I have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government's effort to interfere in our election is among the most serious. Mueller went on to say: ``This deserves the attention of every American.'' One of the most important takeaways from the Mueller report is that Russia did successfully attack our democracy in 2016. Page 1 of the Mueller report says: ``The Russian Government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.'' The report detailed numerous examples, including an ``intelligence- gathering mission'' that employees of the Internet Research Agency, known as the IRA, took in June of 2014. The IRA was the Russian troll farm that waged information warfare against the 2016 election by using stolen identities, fake social media accounts, and fake campaign events. The Mueller report and the earlier indictment of several IRA employees noted that two of the Russians arrived in the United States for a 3-week trip ``for the purpose of collecting intelligence to inform the [IRA's] operations.'' The report also detailed the Russians' attack on my own home State board of elections. In July 2016, the Illinois State board of elections discovered that it was the target of a malicious, month-long cyber attack that enabled the intruder to access confidential voter information and view the registration data of approximately 76,000 voters in my State of Illinois. These efforts to influence the election and attack campaign organizations and State and local election administrators and vendors continue to this day. What are we going to do about it? What has been the response so far of the U.S. Senate, the body sworn to uphold the Constitution and to protect against enemies, foreign and domestic? Nothing. We are too busy with the trade treaty with Luxembourg to deal with Russian interference in our elections. In the face of Russia's threat to our elections, this Senate has been quiet as a graveyard. Let's start in 2016. Top officials from the administration's national security and intelligence community came and warned congressional leadership of Russia's ongoing attack on our elections, rightly asking for a bipartisan statement to tell Russian dictator Putin to stop. What was Senate Majority Leader McConnell's response to this obvious request to protect our Nation? He said: No thanks. I am not going to do it. History will no doubt look back in infamy at that decision. What about the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a historically recognized body with key jurisdiction over Russian attacks on the United States? That committee did not even conduct an investigation into Russia's actions in the last Congress. Republicans were silent when Trump repeatedly accepted Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's brazen denials over American intelligence experts and all of the evidence to the contrary. They were silent again after the Mueller report's devastating findings of Russian interference. And they were silent when President Trump subsequently said he would gladly accept election help from a foreign power again. Now look at the current Congress. Several bipartisan bills have been introduced to respond to this Russian threat, including the Election Security Act. This is a critical, comprehensive bill that would provide States with much needed resources and establish a robust Federal effort to protect our democracy. Unfortunately, Republican Senate Leader McConnell is blocking all efforts to bring this important legislation to the floor for a debate and vote. This legislation could thwart Russian interference in the 2020 election. Senator McConnell refuses to bring it to the floor. I end with the questions I have asked before here on the floor: How can the party of Ronald Reagan continue to sit by while this President pursues policies aligned with the former KGB agent, Vladimir Putin? Why didn't the first bills in this new Senate under Republican control deal with this threat to the election process in our democracy? Why isn't the Senate Foreign Relations Committee holding urgent hearings on these stunning dalliances between an American President and a Russian dictator? Why isn't the Senate Foreign Relations Committee moving bipartisan legislation that would protect U.S. membership in NATO? Quite frankly, we barely do anything in this legislative graveyard of the Senate under Republican control. You would think we would at least focus, on a bipartisan basis, on making certain that the outcome of the next election is not influenced by a foreign power, whether it is Russia or some other malicious force in the world today. But because it bruises the President's ego and it may invoke a nasty tweet, the Republican-controlled Senate prefers to do nothing. It is time for the Republican majority to stop protecting President Trump at all costs. There reaches a point when the Senate Republican leadership needs to put the country before fear of the President's tweets. I yield the floor.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren). (Mr. TILLIS assumed the Chair.)

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from Colorado (Mr. Bennet), the Senator from New Jersey (Mr. Booker), the Senator from Delaware (Mr. Coons), the Senator from New York (Mrs. Gillibrand), the Senator from California (Ms. Harris), the Senator from Minnesota (Ms. Klobuchar), the Senator from Vermont (Mr. Sanders), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Ms. Warren) are necessarily absent.

Mr. DURBIN

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