Jeff Flake

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I thank the two leaders of this agreement, the Senator from Tennessee, the Senator from Alabama--Mr. Jones--and others who have worked to ensure that the next vote we will have in this Chamber will be on an agreement as Senator Corker said--not a test vote, not a cloture vote. What I wanted to do with not proceeding is to demonstrate that not all Republicans would be for the House bill either. There is no path forward for the House bill. The only path forward is to a bill that has an agreement between the President and both Houses of Congress. The next time we vote, it will be on the agreement. It will not be another test vote. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, to conclude, I thank my colleagues for their kind words. I thank them for taking their jobs seriously and that they would continue to do this. I say to our President: This is not a witch hunt. Russia attempted to interfere in our elections, and they will continue to make that attempt. We are seeking truth here, and that is what the special counsel is doing, and he needs to be protected. We need to be better prepared for future elections. That is what this is about. As the Senator from New Jersey just said, this is based on the principle that no one--no one, however high and mighty, whatever position they hold--is above the law. With that, I yield back.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I rise for the third time in the past 2 months to defend the integrity of our political process by defending the ongoing investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The continuity of this investigation is critical to upholding public trust in our institutions of government due both to the substance of the investigation, the extent to which a foreign government was able to interfere in our political process, and the principle that no person-- no person, no matter how high the rank--is above the law. The investigation has produced results already, including the indictment of more than 12 Russian nationals for interference in the 2016 elections. It has also led to much knowledge about what was going on during the period of 2016 and beyond with regard to individuals in the United States. We need to protect the independence of the special counsel and allow this crucial investigation, and any like it in the future, to run their course. This particular bill, S. 2644, Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, was approved by a bipartisan vote of 2 to 1 in the Judiciary Committee--14 to 7. We don't have many votes like that, the Senator from New Jersey will attest, in the Judiciary Committee. It has awaited a floor vote ever since. That is 9 months--9 months without a vote on this bipartisan bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee. I just asked a moment ago for unanimous consent to pass this legislation. It was objected to for the third time. I know some of my Republican colleagues have some sincere objections to this bill. Some of them believe a President must be able to fire anyone within the executive branch, at any time, since the President is the head of it. I understand the constitutional arguments. I know some of my colleagues hold them sincerely. I would respond that, if this bill becomes law, the President still has a key role in overseeing the process. There is accountability to him. The Constitution requires that there must be. Under this act, the Attorney General would still oversee the investigation and still be able to remove the special counsel for good cause. So the special counsel would not be fully insulated from Presidential control. The Attorney General who oversees the special counsel still answers to the President. This legislation simply adds one layer of protection to the special counsel and makes his removal renewable, to make sure it is for sufficient cause, and it maintains a significant degree of Presidential control while protecting the special counsel investigations from being terminated by a President who might feel that he or she is under increasing heat. This bipartisan request today is timely and necessary. Just last month, after the midterm elections--for those of my colleagues who said throughout the year nobody is being fired, don't worry, nothing to see here--the day after the midterm elections, the President forced his Attorney General to resign after numerous public comments from the President that the AG should not have recused himself from the investigation even though he was a key player in the 2016 campaign. It is clear we need to put these protections in place and send this signal to the President. Nobody is above the law. The truth must be told, whatever it is. I thank my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, particularly Senator Coons and Senator Booker, for pushing this legislation and for insisting that it be considered on the Senate floor and for being here today again. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to immediate consideration of Calendar No. 393, S. 2644. I further ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I wish to begin by noting that had the people of Arizona and America been truly lucky, my mother or father would have served in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Senate. Everything I know about what matters most in life I learned first at their dinner table. For many reasons--they were otherwise preoccupied raising and feeding 11 children, working the land, running cattle to keep the F-Bar business going, and serving their church and community daily, and in too many other ways to count--my parents were too meaningfully occupied in life to detour to something that can be so frivolous as politics. So you got their son instead. I rise to say, it has been the honor of my life to represent my home, Arizona, in the U.S. Senate and, before that, in the House of Representatives; that is, it has been the honor of my life after being Dean and Nerita's son, Cheryl's husband, and Ryan's, Alexis's, Austin's, Tanner's, and Dallin's father. Through 18 years in Washington, our kids grew up thinking it was normal to have their faces plastered on campaign signs along the roadside when campaigns rolled around. They were dragged to countless fundraisers and campaign events. They were used to having their dad join them, sort of, with a choreographed wave on C-SPAN at dinnertime. They spent summers in Washington catching fireflies and voting with their dad on the House floor. They served as interns and congressional pages. Much of it they enjoyed, some of it they endured, but through all of it, they were not just good sports but were extraordinarily understanding and supportive. And Cheryl--well, Cheryl is the rock upon which our family is built. Her strength, equanimity, endless patience and love--her good humor even when congressional life was not always funny, and her belief, when disbelief would have been perfectly reasonable--these are but a few of the long list of things that leave me simply awestruck by my wife. I think all of us who presume to hold these positions owe someone who loves us a debt we can never ever repay. If they cannot be repaid, they can at least be properly recognized--Cheryl, that girl I met on a beach so long ago, our wonderful children, my brothers, my sisters, our extended families. John McCain often joked that the only way I ever got elected to anything was because of my hundreds of siblings and thousands of cousins. Well, the truth hurts, I reckon; Senator McCain just may have been on to something there. It was my honor to serve with him, as it has been my honor to serve with Senator Kyl. Today I am filled with gratitude--gratitude for the privilege of loving and being loved by those people I mentioned and of serving the State and the country I love as well; grateful beyond measure and luckier than I deserve to be. I leave here grateful and optimistic. I will always treasure the friendships that began here and the kindness shown to me and my family by all of you, my colleagues. I will forever cherish the work of our country that we were able to do together. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all. As I stand here today, I am optimistic about the future, but my optimism is due more to the country my parents gave to me than it is due to the present condition of our civic life. We, of course, are testing the institution of American liberty in ways that none of us ever imagined we would and in ways we probably never should again. My colleagues, to say that our politics is not healthy is somewhat of an understatement. I believe we all know well that this is not a normal time and that the threats to our democracy from within and without are real, and none of us can say with confidence how the situation we now find ourselves in will turn out. Over the past 2 years, I have spoken a great deal on the subject from this Chamber, and there will be time enough later to return to it in other settings, but in the time I have here today, and with your indulgence, I instead wish to speak somewhat more personally. As the authoritarian impulse reasserts itself globally, and global commitment to democracy seems to now be on somewhat shaky ground, I have been thinking a lot recently about the American commitment to democracy--where it comes from and how, if the circumstances were right, it might slip away. This got me thinking back to when I was a much younger man and had the privilege of witnessing the birth of a new democracy in Africa. When I was about half the age I am now, for my church mission, I went to South Africa and Zimbabwe. I fell in love with the people in these countries. When Cheryl and I were drawn back to Southern Africa a few years later for a job, we were in Windhoek, Namibia, in February of 1990, at the very moment that much of the world enslaved by totalitarianism was throwing off its shackles, and the free world that the United States had led since World War II was growing exponentially. The Soviet Union was in a glorious free fall, shedding republics seemingly by the day, and Eastern Europe was squinting out into the light of liberation for the first time in 40 years. Free markets and free minds were sweeping the world. Freedom was breaking out in the Southern Hemisphere as well. The country where I was sitting that very morning was itself only days old. In November of 1989--the same week the Berlin Wall came down--Namibia held its first election as an independent nation, freed from the apartheid administration in South Africa. This had come to pass in no small part because of leadership from the United States, through the United Nations. Just days earlier, an awe-inspiring document had been drafted only a few blocks away from where I sat in Windhoek--a new democracy's founding Constitution, the inspiration for which had been the marvel of free people everywhere and those who aspire to be free: the U.S. Constitution. At the time, I was in Africa working for the Foundation for Democracy, trying to ensure that Namibia emerged from the process of gaining its independence as a democratic country. In my role at the foundation, I evangelized for democracy and democratic values, the benefits of which had been a given for me for my entire life. I can safely say, though, that I learned more about democracy from the lives of those around me who aspired to it than those who experienced it as a birthright. As I sat there in the brandnew African democracy, I read the speech that the playwright and new President of a newly democratic Czechoslovakia, Vaclav Havel, had just delivered before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, right across the way in the House Chamber. Havel, who had much of the previous decade in a Communist dungeon and whose last arrest as a dissident had been mere months before, was quite astonished to find himself president of anything, much less a country of his oppressors. I sat there in Africa and read Havel's speech--an encomium to democracy, a love letter to America, literary and inspiring--and I was overcome by his words. There is nothing quite like the sensation of having someone who has been stripped of everything but his dignity reflecting the ideals of your own country back at you in such a way that you see them more clearly than ever before and maybe for the first time. In some ways, that man knows your country better than you know it yourself. I can only imagine how surreal it must have felt for Havel as he stood before the entire Congress, the President's Cabinet, the diplomatic corps, Joint Chiefs of Staff assembled before him in the House Chamber of our Capitol Building, with the Vice President and Speaker of the House behind him, all standing in a sustained ovation, a deep respect from the oldest democracy in the world to the newest, whose leader had been a political prisoner just a season earlier. Havel soberly poured out his gratitude to the United States for the sacrifice our country had made in liberating Europe once again and for the moral example of its leadership around the world in opposing the Soviet Union, ``the country,'' he said, ``that rightly gave people nightmares.'' Havel's awed appreciation for the values that too many of us might take for granted brought home to me, an American in my midtwenties sitting there in Africa, the power of the American example to the whole world and the humbling responsibilities that come with that power. It is no exaggeration to say that Havel's disquisition on democracy before Congress that day in 1990 was a turning point in my civic education. Havel similarly called out to the whole world from Washington on that day in 1990, with grace and without rancor, but for one mistaken prophecy, which to me now reads as tragic, especially in the context of the here and now. At the time, as the wall fell and the Soviet bloc that had been encased in Stalinism thawed, it was vogue among some historians, scholars, and others to declare ``the end of history''--that the big questions had been settled, that liberal democracy was triumphal and inexorable, and that the decline of the impulse to enslave whole countries was also inexorable. Freedom had won, it was said, and forever. The historian Francis Fukuyama, who had coined ``the end of history'' in an essay a year before, was much in demand, and it was likely that Havel would have been inspired by the fervor, which might explain this passage from his speech. He said: I often hear the question: How can the United States of America help us today? My reply is as paradoxical as my whole life has been. You can help us most of all if you help the Soviet Union on its irreversible but immensely complicated road to democracy. Of course, history was not over. The road to democracy is not irreversible--not in Moscow, not in America, not anywhere. After erecting a Potemkin village for democracy for an agonizing decade or so, the Russians thrust forward a strongman amid the chaos, a strongman who was determined to reassemble the pieces of a broken empire, in the process strangling Russian democracy in its cradle. Vladimir Putin would go on to be President, and he is President still, and just as he hijacked democracy in his own country, he is determined to do so everywhere. Denial of this reality will not make it any less real. This is something that is staring us in the face, right now, as we are gathered here today. As we in America--during this moment of political dysfunction and upheaval--contemplate the hard-won conventions and norms of democracy, we must continually remind ourselves that none of this is permanent, that it must be fought for continually. Civilization and the victories of freedom--history itself--are not a matter of once achieved, always safe. Vaclav Havel lived this. The lovers of democracy I met in Namibia lived this. Our children, whose rights and prerogatives have never been in doubt, are for the most part unaware of it. But we are being powerfully reminded just how delicate all of it is right now. The stability of tested alliances, the steadiness of comportment, and the consistency of words and deeds sum up the best of water's-edge postwar American consensus on foreign policy. It might seem that all of this has lately been tossed around like pieces on a board, but it is important to remember that we have seen such tumult before, and it is the genius of the architects of our liberty that we withstand it and emerge the stronger for it. What struck me in Namibia that day with such force and has stayed with me ever since is how vital a beacon the United States is and has always been to the peoples of the world--both to those who are already free and those who still suffer tyranny. It is a solemn obligation that we have as Americans. Let us recognize from this place here today that the shadow of tyranny is once again enveloping parts of the globe, and let us recognize as authoritarianism reasserts itself in country after country that we are by no means immune. I stand here today, recognizing that I have had the good fortune during my time in the Senate to have been surrounded by supremely smart and dedicated staff, some of whom have worked for me for my entire 18 years in Washington. My chiefs of staff--Steve Voeller, Margaret Klessig, Matt Specht, Chandler Morse, and Roland Foster have ably supervised a legislative team that included over the years people like Colleen Donnelly, Helen Heiden, Chuck Podalak, Kris Kiefer, Sarah Towles, Emily Nelson, Brian Canfield, Blake Tonn, Flaka Ismaili, Chance Hammock, Matt Sifert, Colin Timmerman, Melanie Lehnhardt, Hannah Grady, Brian Kennedy, Katie Jackson, James Layne, Andrea Jones, Kunal Parikh, Gary Burnett, Michael Fragoso, and so many others who drafted substantive legislation and consequential amendments that have been signed into law. My schedulers, office managers, and press shop have been asked to explain a lot over the years, including my penchant for marooning myself on deserted islands, sometimes with people like Senator Martin Heinrich, or forced to explain why I had been chased by elephants in Mozambique with Senator Chris Coons--people like Celeste Gold, Meagan Shepherd, Caroline Celley, Megan Runyan, Christine Chucri, Michael Christifulli, Jacob McMeekin, Jason Samuels, Brownyn Lance, Liz Jones, Dan Mintz, Krista Winward, Jonathan Felts, Elizabeth Berry, and many more. They have kept me largely out of controversy, if not out of elevators, during my entire time in office. Dedicated caseworkers in my State offices have helped countless Arizonans with matters of immigration to veterans' issues to Social Security. I am frequently stopped, as I am sure many of my colleagues are, in airports and grocery stores and thanked for the good work done by my staff. Thank you to Buchanan Davis, Mary Baumbach, Julie Katsel, Melissa Martin, Mike Nelson, Jeremy Thompson, Michael Vargas, Chris Stoller, Bob Brubaker, Blake Farnsworth, Chelsea Lett, Elizabeth Bustamante- Lopez, and so many others for such dedicated constituent work over the years. To all who have served in my office: I will miss your wise counsel but, most of all, your friendship. Thank you. I would also like to say a word of thanks to the institutional officers who serve the Senate so ably: the clerks, Parliamentarians, the floor staff, the pages, the Sergeant at Arms and his employees, and the Capitol Police, who keep us safe here in the Capitol and at times on distant baseball fields. I quite literally owe my life to them. Thank you. As I give this last speech from the Chamber, I cannot help but look to my maiden speech I gave here just 6 years ago. In it I talked about how 12 newly elected Senate freshmen in 2012 were invited to the National Archives and taken to the legislative vault, where we viewed the original signed copy of the first bill ever enacted by Congress, as well as other landmark pieces of legislation and memorabilia. Oaths of allegiance signed by Revolutionary War soldiers, witnessed by General Washington, documents and artifacts related to the Civil War, segregation, women's suffrage, and the civil rights movement were also on hand. I noted that it was an affirmation to me of the tumultuous seas through which our ship of state has sailed for more than 200 years, with many brilliant and inspired individuals at the helm, along with personalities ranging from mediocre to malevolent. But our system of government has survived them all. I also noted then and I will echo today that serious challenges lie ahead, but any honest reckoning of our history and our prospects will note that we have survived more daunting challenges than we now face. Ours is a durable, resilient system of government, designed to withstand the foibles of those who sometimes occupy these Halls, including yours truly. So as I start a new chapter in the coming weeks, I am grateful most of all for the privilege of having served with all of you here. It is my sincere hope that those in this body will always remember the words of Lincoln who said: ``We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of Earth.'' The way forward, he said, ``is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud and God will forever bless.'' I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, last week I chaired a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health that focused on Zimbabwe. As a young man, I fell in love with the continent of Africa and, specifically, with the country of Zimbabwe, where I served part of my Mormon mission. The year was 1983, and the country had recently gained its independence. A man by the name of Robert Mugabe was serving as Prime Minister at the time. I don't think anyone could have predicted back then that Mugabe would serve as leader of Zimbabwe until November of 2017, nor could anyone have imagined the damage that he would do to this beautiful country. Jubilation erupted in the streets of Harare in November of 2017 when Zimbabweans heard the news that Mugabe had been ousted by his own party and forced to retire. The people of Zimbabwe burst into spontaneous celebration, hoping that with Mugabe finally removed from power, the country might begin to move forward after nearly 40 years of his reign. I had the opportunity to visit Zimbabwe in February of 2016, where I led a delegation to southern Africa. Mugabe's misrule of the country was certainly evident at that time. The devastation had taken its toll on the capital city of Harare. Yet, somehow, the people of Zimbabwe were so capable, so resilient, and had persevered and were looking to a brighter future. I was able at that time to reconnect with friends whom I hadn't seen for 30 years, including one of my missionary companions, Peter Chaya, who despite severe physical disability brought on by polio as a child, managed to raise four children and contribute a great deal to his church, to his community, and to his country. Zimbabwe's greatest potential has always been its people, and it is time for the government to take steps to ensure that this potential can finally be realized. I want to work with Zimbabwe to make this happen, and that is why I introduced the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Amendment Act, along with Senator Coons, last March. Senator Coons has been a valued partner in efforts to bring better governance to Zimbabwe, and I am sure that we can play a constructive role. The ZDERA Amendment Act, signed into law in August, reiterates that in order for sanctions on Zimbabwe to be lifted, the government must restore the rule of law, it must hold free and fair elections, and it must demonstrate a sincere commitment to land reform, but--and this is different from the prior statute--our changes send a signal to the Government of Zimbabwe, to the opposition, and to the Zimbabwean people that the United States is interested in improving the state of our bilateral relationship, including in the areas of trade and investment. The bill asks that the government of Zimbabwe take concrete, tangible steps toward good governance and the enactment of economic reforms. It asks that all statutes inconsistent with Zimbabwe's 2013 Constitution are either replaced or amended to bring them in line with that Constitution. Finally, it underlines the need for a robust civil society that is allowed to function freely and without government interference. The conditions outlined in the ZDERA Amendment Act are reasonable and will not take too long to achieve. I urge President Mnangagwa to move ahead and repeal troublesome statutes and engage in meaningful economic reform along the lines of what Finance Minister Ncube has already recommended. I remain concerned that a lack of momentum for reforming Zimbabwe will squander the opportunity presented by the former President's ouster. We can't expect Zimbabwe to flip a switch and reverse nearly four decades of misrule in a few months' time, but we should expect more urgency to reform the economy and to expand the political space for the opposition. There is no more outward sign that Zimbabwe has yet to turn the page than the government leveling charges against opposition figures like Tendai Biti and others. There is no purpose served by going after one's political opponents, especially in the wake of a contested election. The new government of Zimbabwe bears much of the responsibility for forging a positive path forward, but the opposition party needs to play a constructive role there as well. The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, Nelson Chamisa, is young and capable. He has a long career ahead of him. It would be to his benefit and to the benefit of all Zimbabweans to recognize the legitimacy of the new government and to help create an inclusive process moving ahead. As in any democracy, Zimbabwe needs a loyal opposition in the form of an opposition party or parties to hold the government accountable within the framework of the rule of law. There will be new elections to contest and more chances to make the case to voters. Now is the time to unify the country. During this past few months, I have thought often about my friends, like Peter Chaya and others in Zimbabwe, whom I know deserve far better from their government than they have received in the past four decades. They deserve a government that represents them, a government that provides an environment that allows them to follow their dreams and to realize the dreams of their children. Zimbabwe deserves a government worthy of its people, and I encourage my colleagues to look for ways to engage constructively with Zimbabwe's new government moving ahead. The new ZDERA presents a good, worthy framework. By next month, my role will change, but I will remain involved, and I will still be committed to a strong partnership between the United States and Zimbabwe. I yield the floor.

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

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, on this vote, I have a pair with the Senator from Oklahoma, Mr. Inhofe. If he were present and voting, he would vote ``yea''. He is absent due to a family emergency. If I were permitted to vote, I would vote ``nay''. I therefore withdraw my vote.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Madam President, I thank my colleague from New Jersey and my colleague from Delaware for working together on this issue. I rise today once again to speak in defense of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and to speak of the importance of the investigation he is leading and the attacks on our electoral system during the lead-up to the 2016 election. One wouldn't expect that such an investigation would be controversial, but somehow it warranted a tweet from the President earlier this week--one of several tweets--calling Special Counsel Mueller a ``conflicted prosecutor gone rogue'' and claiming that the ``$30 million witch hunt'' is doing nothing but ruining lives. To be clear, this is the same investigation that brought indictments for more than a dozen Russian nationalists for attempting to influence the 2016 election. Why shouldn't we be up in arms about that? Why does that warrant a tweet from the President--many tweets--trying to go after the special counsel? The findings of this investigation are too important to our national security and the well-being of our democratic institutions to be halted or watered down. Mr. Mueller must be able to preserve the work he has done by completing this very thorough investigation, and his findings must be made public. This legislation has been proposed to ensure this outcome. S. 2644, the Special Counsel Independence and Integrity Act, serves one purpose: to protect the integrity of the special counsel's investigation and to prevent the executive branch from inappropriately interfering in an independent investigation in the future. This legislation passed out of the Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan manner nearly 8 months ago. It has been awaiting action on the Senate floor ever since. It passed on May 26. Since that time, the Judiciary Committee has been busy. We have been busy here on the Senate floor. We have processed more than 50 judges and passed them here on the Senate floor. That is a good thing, but the priority now needs to be to protect the special counsel. Some of my colleagues have said that this legislation is not necessary because there hasn't been any indication that Mr. Mueller will be removed from office. But with the President tweeting on a regular basis, a daily basis, that the special counsel is conflicted, that he is leading the so-called 12 angry Democrats, and demeaning and ridiculing him in every way, I believe to be so sanguine about the chances of him being fired is folly for us. We have already seen the forced resignation of the Attorney General the day after the election. It is clear, therefore, that something has to be done to protect Mr. Mueller's investigation. Let me just say it wasn't just that the Attorney General was fired; it is that the investigation--or oversight for the investigation--was taken from the Deputy Attorney General, where it properly belonged and where it was before. It was taken from him and given to somebody who is in an acting capacity--somebody who has not been confirmed by the Senate. Should we in the Senate be OK with that? I would argue no, we can't be. That is why a few weeks ago my colleague from New Jersey and my colleague from Delaware came to the Senate floor to ask unanimous consent to bring this bill to the floor. After our efforts were blocked by an objection, we promised to come to the floor again and again, and that is why we are here today. We will continue to do so until this vital investigation is completed. So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 393, S. 2644; I further ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 393, S. 2644. I further ask that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill, as amended, be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I want to thank the Senator from Delaware, Mr. Coons, and the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Booker, for doing this together with us to make sure that we have this bipartisan piece of legislation here on the Senate floor. It is not unremarkable to have such a bipartisan piece of legislation pass out of the Judiciary Committee. We don't have very many bipartisan pieces of legislation coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but this one was--by a vote of 14 to 7, including the chairman of the committee. There is no reason it shouldn't be brought to the floor. It was passed out of the Judiciary Committee on April 26. I should note that the Judiciary Committee has been busy sending things to the floor during the intervening time. In fact, since April 26, when this bill passed the Judiciary Committee, we have sent 49 nominations through to the floor that we have voted on and confirmed here on the floor. Since that time, the floor actually has voted on 50. There was one that was already in the queue. So on the floor, since this bill passed the Judiciary Committee, we have voted on 50 confirmations of the President's nominees. Many of these nominees were blue-slipped in Democratic States; some, in Republican. We have been able to move on all of them. There is no reason we shouldn't move on this vital piece of legislation to protect the special counsel. When the leader said in April that there was no move on the special counsel, nobody was being fired, nothing to worry about here--if that was the case then, that certainly is not the case now. Since then, the Attorney General has been fired, and the oversight for this investigation, which sat with the Deputy Attorney General, has been wrested from him and turned over to someone who has not received Senate confirmation, someone who has expressed open hostility to the Mueller investigation. Does that not ring alarm bells around here? If that doesn't, what will? Why are we so sanguine about this? This would provoke a constitutional crisis. Yet, when we have the opportunity to pass legislation to protect the special counsel, which received a bipartisan vote in the Judiciary Committee, we fail to bring it up on the Senate floor. Why? Why do we do this to protect a man, seemingly, who is so incurious about what Russia did during the 2016 elections? Why do we do that? Do we have no more institutional pride here? Don't we more jealously guard our prerogative as Senators than to simply let this go? What will it take? I am prepared--and I know that the Senator from Delaware is, as well--to bring this up again. We will bring it up again until we can get a vote on the Senate floor. I hope in the next few days and in the coming weeks that the public will rise up and say that this needs to be done. A bipartisan piece of legislation that has passed the Judiciary Committee ought to be brought to the Senate floor for a vote. We are not saying that it has to pass, although we think it will; for sure it will. It has overwhelming support. We are just saying: Bring it to a vote; bring it to a vote. Until we do, the 21 nominations that are in the Judiciary Committee waiting for a vote there will not receive a vote, nor will I give my vote to the 32 nominations that are sitting here on the Senate floor. This is important. This should be a priority. I thank the Presiding Officer, and I thank the Senator from Delaware, and I will yield to him.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I rise to speak in defense of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and to defend the vital role he has played since May of last year in yet another act of service to his country in what has been a lifetime of distinguished service. For his trouble, Mr. Mueller has been accused repeatedly and without basis in fact of conducting a ``witch hunt'' in the course of his current investigation by none other than the President of the United States. So I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words about what Special Counsel Mueller and his team have been investigating and why, as the point of this vital investigation seems to have been purposely confused and maligned by the White House in a rather alarming way. My colleague from Delaware, Senator Coons, and I have made the unanimous consent request to bring this to the floor, but it has been objected to already. This bill is designed to do one thing: protect the integrity of the special counsel's investigation and spare it of any influence or interference from the executive branch, including from those who may themselves be subjects of the investigation. The findings of Mr. Mueller's investigation are of utmost importance to the security of this country and to the well-being of our democratic institutions as well. In America, as we all know, no one is above the law. Our doctrine of separation of powers and the independence of the judicial system is what sets us apart from lawless countries, and Presidents do not get to determine who gets investigated and who and what does not. For the record and for history, this special counsel was appointed to thoroughly investigate the attacks on our electoral system by elements of the Russian Government during the lead up to our 2016 general election. How such an investigation can be a cause of controversy is beyond me. Surely, we all recognize it is essential to understand this new form of foreign aggression so that we might better defend America against such attacks in the future; right? One would think there would be unanimous national resolve to get to the bottom of such aggression from an enemy or foreign power, especially a foreign power with whom we spent much of the second half of the 20th century locked in a global ideological struggle, especially when in their renewed aggression toward us, they have targeted the institution we have and they don't--free and fair elections. Vladimir Putin knows he could not defeat us on the battlefield, and he knows the ideas at the center of his former empire were soulless and bankrupt. He wants to rob us of what makes the United States superior to his autocracy. His goal is to turn us against ourselves and, in doing so, to try to destroy our democracy. This is a matter of grave national importance. This is not a moment for our national leadership to be weak or irresolute or compromised in any way. Some of us in Washington have seemed strangely incurious about just what the Russian malefactors did to America in 2016 at the direction of Vladimir Putin. Our President has been so incurious that at times over the past 2 years he has been eager to accept Putin's denials at face value. In fact, our executive branch has generally been in such a state of denial about the attacks on our democracy that the White House has not been aggressive at all in defending against future attacks. I defy any of us to name a threat so grave to which the government of the United States--that we, all of us, including this Senate--has responded so lackadaisically. Why is that? With the firing of the Attorney General and, in my view, the improper installation of an Acting Attorney General who has not been subject to confirmation by this body, the President now has this investigation in his sights, and we all know it. My purpose here is not to divine the President's motives in his seeming determination to sow doubt about and curtail Mr. Mueller's investigation. If, as the President says, there was no involvement by anyone in his campaign with the Russian malefactors, then this investigation--properly conducted--will discover and document that. Mr. Mueller has already brought dozens of indictments against Russian nationalists. It is in the national security interest of the United States to fully understand what they did to us in 2016. If the President doesn't understand this, we must. If he doesn't prioritize that, we will. We--all of us--talk much in this place about the defense of ``all that we hold dear.'' Those are the words we speak--``all that we hold dear.'' What do we actually mean when we say those words? Speaking personally, I can't think of values held more dear than the independence of our judicial system and an electoral system free of malign influence, either foreign or domestic. When I think of the things we must hold dear, those things are right at the top of the list. It is our sworn oath to keep it that way. On one further note on this unanimous consent request that has just failed today, Senator Coons and I are prepared to make it again and again until there is a vote on this vital bipartisan legislation on the Senate floor. I have informed the majority leader that I will not vote to advance any of the 21 judicial nominees pending in the Judiciary Committee or vote to confirm the 32 judges awaiting confirmation on the Senate floor until S. 2644 is brought to the full Senate for a vote. Mr. President, I yield to the Senator from Delaware.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, there are no more consequential words spoken than those spoken by the President of the United States. The words of a President reverberate around the world like no other world leader's, and as attentive as Americans are to what our President says, the rest of the world is probably paying even closer attention, as it is often their fate that hangs in the balance when our President speaks. Americans can ignore certain utterances from the President. The rest of the world often has no such luxury. Another audience for Presidential utterances is the despot, the strongman, the authoritarian, and the dictator. From this President, that horrible focus group has received a great deal of sustenance. In fact, the oppressors of the world have taken to parroting some of their favorite lines from the White House. Anything critical of their regimes has become ``fake news,'' and the press is the ``enemy of the people,'' just to name two of our President's greatest hits. As I mentioned in this Chamber in January of this year, a State official in Myanmar recently said: There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news. He was, of course, referring to the persecuted ethnic group. In February of last year, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad brushed off an Amnesty International report that some 13,000 people had been murdered in his military prisons by saying: You can forge anything these days. We are living in a fake news era. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has complained of being ``demonized'' by ``fake news.'' Last year, according to a news report, with our President ``laughing by his side,'' Duterte called reporters ``spies.'' In July 2017, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro complained to the Russian propaganda outlet that the world media had ``spread lots of false versions, lots of lies'' about his country, adding: ``This is what we call `fake news' today, isn't it?'' And on and on. This feedback loop is appalling. We are in an era where the authoritarian impulse is reasserting itself to challenge free people and free societies everywhere. We cannot give convenient language to authoritarians, language that is used against their own people. Now, with the apparent brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, some of the real enemies of the people and enemies of freedom seem to have taken license to eliminate a man their regime viewed as a threat. We need to know exactly what happened in that Saudi consulate in Turkey earlier this month. Put bluntly, we cannot do business with the Saudi Government if they directed or were complicit in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. We in this body had best be very careful about who the enemies of the people are and who they are not. The free press is the guardian of democracy and the enemy of tyrants, and the man or woman who speaks from behind the Presidential Seal needs to remind the country and the world of this truism again and again, as long as the world will listen. I yield the floor.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that all postcloture time on the Dreiband nomination expire at 2 p.m. today and that the Senate vote on confirmation of the Dreiband nomination with no intervening action or debate; further, that if confirmed, the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and that the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action of debate.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 654, submitted earlier today.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it stand adjourned under the previous order.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the majority leader be authorized to sign duly enrolled bills or joint resolutions on Thursday, September 27.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 12 noon, Thursday, September 27; further, that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and morning business be closed; further, that following leader remarks, the Senate proceed to executive session under the previous order.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I now ask for a second reading and, in order to place the bill on the calendar under the provisions of rule XIV, I object to my own request.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I understand there is a bill at desk, and I ask for its first reading.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 625 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Mr. FLAKE

Mr. FLAKE. I further ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 655, submitted earlier today.