Ron Johnson

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, how much time do I have left?

Mr. JOHNSON. I move to concur in the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 7776 with an amendment numbered 6526.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent for up to 6 minutes of debate equally divided.

Mr. JOHNSON. I rise to offer an amendment on behalf of myself and Senator Cruz. I want to say I appreciate Senate leadership for allowing this amendment. I appreciate, as does Senator Cruz, the conferees' willingness to consider or repeal the vaccine mandate, which they didn't include. We truly appreciate that. This amendment reflects the fact that we don't think the vaccine mandate went far enough. So our amendment is pretty simple, it immediately ends the vaccine mandate, whereas what is in the bill allows it to continue for 30 days. It prohibits DOD from imposing a future COVID-19 vaccine mandate without the express authorization of Congress. It prohibits DOD from taking any adverse action against a servicemember solely for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine. It allows the servicemember to be reinstated with backpay if kicked out of the military solely for refusing the vaccine. And it redresses any other types of adverse actions the DOD took against a servicemember for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine. People serving in our military are the finest among us. Over 8,000 were terminated because they refused to get this experimental vaccine, and so I am urging all of my colleagues to support the Senators and my amendment.

Mr. JOHNSON. I would argue that it is not a lawful order because the executive order required that the vaccine be fully FDA-approved. In August of 2021, the FDA did something very strange: They extended the emergency use authorization for the vaccine available in the U.S. and granted approval on Comirnaty. But that, to my knowledge--and I have asked repeatedly--none of that has been made available to our members of the service. So it is not a fully FDA-approved product. And the FDA is completely ignoring its own safety surveillance systems on VAERS. There have been over 32,500 deaths reported worldwide. Twenty-six percent of those deaths are occurring on a zero, 1 or 2 following vaccination. There are all kinds of different, scary safety signals that are being ignored. It was not unreasonable for people to refuse this experimental gene therapy.

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. Vote on Motion

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask for the yeas and nays.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, you will notice that the senior Senator from Vermont didn't talk about overall spending numbers. I would ask the President--I would ask anybody listening to these floor speeches today: Do you know how much the Federal Government spent last year? I have been asking that question of my colleagues. I have been asking that question of journalists here in Washington, DC, people who report on the dealings on the floor, and the vast majority cannot answer that question. So the question you all ought to be asking yourself is, Why can't you answer that question? It is not your fault. The reason nobody knows how much the Federal Government spent in total last year--virtually no one knows it--is that we never talk about it. We are the largest financial entity in the world, and we never talk about how much we spend in total. We talk about little bits and pieces. We talk about $6 billion here, $76 billion there--no doubt, necessary funding for top priorities. But we don't spend the time talking about how we are mortgaging our children's future. I have got a couple of charts that I would like to display. This first chart shows over 20 years of spending history, going back to the year 2002, when the Federal Government spent, in total, a little more than $2 trillion. If we would have just increased spending from that point by population growth and the rate of inflation, last year we would have spent a little under $3.8 trillion. If you go to the year 2008, when we spent just under $3 trillion, and once again just grew spending by population and inflation, last year we would have spent $4.4 trillion. If you go back to 2016, when we were spending $3.8 trillion--under $4 trillion--and grew that by just the rate of growth and the population rate of inflation, last year we would have spent about $4.8 trillion. Instead, last year, we spent $6.3 trillion. Now, I realize--and you can see on this chart--that, the last 3 years, spending was heavily impacted by COVID relief, close to $6 trillion worth. But in 2019, before the COVID pandemic, we spent about $4.4 trillion. I have another chart I would like to put up here that puts this all in perspective. This breaks down spending between discretionary and mandatory plus interest, and then you have total outlays. Again, if you look at 2019, total outlay is $4.4 trillion. So because of COVID, the next year we spent an additional $2.1 trillion--$6.5 trillion. In 2021, $6.8 trillion; last year, $6.3 trillion. Now, I heard President Biden say the pandemic is over. I think most of us have gotten back to our normal lives. That is a good thing. Why haven't we gone back to a normal spending level? I don't know exactly what the total spending will be for fiscal year 2023. I do know that we are 2\1/2\ months into the fiscal year. We have not brought up one appropriations bill on the floor of the Senate for debate, for amendments--not one. We are operating on a continuing resolution. I hear all the time that these continuing resolutions are such a terrible way to do business. I agree. It shows the dysfunction--the complete dysfunction--which is leading to these out-of-control spending numbers. You would think, now that the pandemic is over, that we would return to a more normal level of spending. Had we just grown the 2019 level by, again, the rate of population growth, the rate of inflation, we would be spending about $4.8 trillion this year, but it appears--again, we don't know; there are a couple of people negotiating this; the rest of us are completely outside of the process--that we are going to have some massive omnibus spending bill dropped on our desks, and we expect to vote on it in a day or two, or maybe just hours. But it is going to be somewhere around $6 trillion. Have we literally just increased the baseline since the beginning of the pandemic by $1.6 trillion? That is a 36-percent increase. I will just put this in perspective. Again, had we grown this just by inflation and population growth--that would be a reasonable way to put some kind of constraints on what we are spending--that would be $4.8 trillion. Last year, the Federal Government raised in revenue $4.9 trillion. Again, I can't predict what revenue is going to be in 2023, but based on 2022 revenue, if we are only talking about $4.8 trillion, we would actually have a surplus as opposed to a massive deficit almost guaranteed to be more than $1 trillion. My final point is this. And I know Senator Scott also is in the business world, and a number of Senators have been. If we were looking at this as, let's say, a division that had a problem, that had to spend a lot more money--a fire, some kind of real issue with the business where they had to drag increased spending over the last 2 or 3 years-- but that spending issue had been resolved, and that division came to us having spent $4.4 million in 2019 and now that the problem has been resolved, now they want to spend $6 million, I can guarantee you we would be looking for a lot more detail. We would be spending a lot more time in terms of why in the world would we be increasing our base budget by 36 percent now that the danger or the problem has passed. So in the business world, in the private sector, where I and Senator Scott came from, we would be spending a lot of time analyzing this. But here, in Washington, DC, the world's capital of dysfunction--of monetary and budgetary dysfunction--we don't even know what we are spending, and we are not even supposed to know because the powers that be are negotiating some massive omnibus bill, and they are going to jam us up against the Christmas holidays and ask for an up-or-down vote. That is outrageous. This process--this horribly broken, dysfunctional process--must end, which is why I completely agree with Senator Lee's amendment. Let's pass a continuing resolution. As much as I hate them, as much as that signals dysfunction, it will allow us the time to actually take a look at, debate, and question: Why in the world are we talking about $6 trillion of spending when, at most, looking back to 2019, growing that by inflation and population growth, we ought to be talking somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.8, certainly under $5 trillion, and maybe looking at the prospect for the first time in many, many years of balancing a budget? That is the attitude we ought to be taking. That is the debate we need to have. We need to have time for that debate, which is why I support Senator Lee's amendment. I yield the floor.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise today to tell a story of one family's tragedy but also of two wonderful people who turned that tragedy into helping others and finding solutions. On May 15, 2014, a 19-year-old Wisconsinite named Archie Badura died of a fentanyl overdose. Two years later, I met his mother Lauri Badura, who testified before a field hearing I held in Pewaukee, WI, together with an emergency room doctor named Dr. Tim Westlake, who testified about the growing problem that he was seeing in his emergency room with overdoses and, in particular, overdoses with, I think, a drug that we all heard was somewhat new, fentanyl, a schedule II drug; one used in medicine but one that had been altered, the molecule changed, and produced in China and shipped through our Postal Service and was killing people like Archie Badura. It was probably the first time I heard of what was happening to fentanyl. And so Dr. Westlake, because he was seeing the tragedy firsthand, was developing a piece of legislation that he was proposing in Wisconsin as well as on a national level. The piece of legislation I introduced in 2017 was called the SOFA Act. The reason I called it the SOFA Act--and that stands for Stopping Overdoses of Fentanyl Analogs--is because Lauri Badura, again, who lost her 19-year-old son, turned her tragedy into helping others. She was the go-to person for other families who also lost a loved one through overdoses, and she started an organization called Saving Others for Archie. The acronym was SOFA. So I thought it only appropriate, when working with Dr. Tim Westlake on this piece of legislation that would recognize the growing problem of these analogs, of these fentanyl-related drugs that were killing and poisoning our citizens--I thought it only appropriate to come up with a piece of legislation named after that organization with that same acronym, SOFA. So on July 13, 2017, I introduced SOFA for the first time here in the U.S. Senate. On November 9, 2017, because of Tim Westlake and Lauri Badura's tireless effort, a State piece of legislation, the SOFA equivalent, was signed into law in Wisconsin. And basically what this law does--it is a pretty simple law--it just allows law enforcement, the DEA, to view these fentanyl-related substances as a class under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Prior to this bill, prior to these regulations, law enforcement had to view each new molecule, each new analog as a separate drug, and they could not arrest, they couldn't prosecute, they couldn't put people in jail for selling these and poisoning our cities. So Dr. Tim Westlake recognized that problem. I recognized that problem, and so we introduced the SOFA Act. And once DEA saw it, they thought this was a pretty good idea, and they utilized their regulatory authority and passed a regulation on February 6, 2018. They issued a temporary scheduling order that placed ``certain fentanyl-related substances in schedule 1 for 2 years.'' The text of that regulation was identical to the text of the SOFA law that I had introduced earlier in 2017. Now, unfortunately, they could only issue that regulation having an effect of 2 years. So as it was about ready to run out, Congress extended that regulation in an act of Congress, and we have extended it six times. President Biden has signed that extension five times. But the problem is, the extension of that regulation runs out on December 31 of this year. Now, the Biden administration--I think it is important to understand--in its 2021 budget proposal, called for classwide fentanyl scheduling. The DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said: The permanent scheduling of all fentanyl-related substances is critical-- Is critical-- to the safety and health of our communities. She added: Class-wide scheduling provides a vital tool-- A vital tool-- to combat overdose deaths in the United States. Now, why have we extended this regulation six times? There is no need for it. We could pass the law, which we have tried to do a number of times. But the reason we keep extending it is because it has worked. It has helped stop the flow of these precursor chemicals coming out of China. China has actually cracked down on these analogs within China. So the regulation worked. The SOFA Act is vital, according to Anne Milgram. Something else I want to point out about the SOFA Act is, in an almost unprecedented--this is very rare--in 2018, all 50 States' attorneys general, plus the attorney general from the District of Columbia, including current HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, who was an attorney general for California at the time, signed a letter to congressional leadership urging the Congress to act expeditiously and pass the SOFA Act. This is such a commonsense piece of legislation. It works. It reduces the number of types of fentanyl on the streets killing our citizens, killing our youth, killing people like Archie Badura. Again, the DEA had a regulation for 2 years. Congress has extended that regulation six times. All I am asking is for the Senate to pass this commonsense, lifesaving piece of legislation by unanimous consent. And so, Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 1006 and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. I ask this in the name of Archie Badura and on behalf of Dr. Tim Westlake and a wonderful woman, a wonderful Wisconsinite named Lauri Badura.

Mr. JOHNSON. Would the Senator from Illinois yield?

Mr. JOHNSON. So I want to just make the point that there is nothing in the SOFA Act that would prevent that research from continuing, and if a molecule was found that is helpful, it can be scheduled separately. This is just targeting the deadly drugs that are not helpful. So there is nothing in this that would prevent that type of research, which is why, you know, we have--Congress has reauthorized this or extended this six times, and the Biden administration supports this. They say it is vital that we are able to class all these fentanyl- related molecules together so that we can enforce our laws and prevent death. So, again, there is nothing in here that prevents the research, which I would completely support. Again, molecules are amazing things, and changing them can change the characteristics, but we have to recognize how deadly fentanyl is. We have gone from, you know, slightly more than 50,000 overdose deaths in 2015, the year after Archie Badura died, to over 107,000 last year, and we are on a path to break that record too. So, again, this has been supported on a bipartisan basis. We have extended this. I just have to say that the research argument just doesn't hold water.

Mr. JOHNSON. Would the Senator yield again?

Mr. JOHNSON. Fentanyl is being used in medicine today, and it is on schedule II. So they can do the research off of that drug on schedule II. There is nothing preventing that--nothing whatsoever.

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, again, I find that unfortunate. I would hope that the Senator from Illinois would not at least object to Senator Grassley coming on the floor looking for another extension of this. Again, the DEA Administrator says this is vital. So I hope that, at a minimum, we can extend this for a seventh time, and then maybe we can come back when some of these issues are resolved and maybe finally pass SOFA possibly in the next Congress. I yield the floor.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, let me first also express my condolences and associate myself with the comments of the Senator from Texas. The tragedy is horrific. It is hard to think of anything more awful than what happened in Texas and in other schools over the last few years. Asylum Rule Mr. President, I come to the floor today for another reason--in support of using the Congressional Review Act to disapprove of and prevent the implementation of a rule titled Procedures for Credible Fear Screening and Consideration of Asylum, Withholding of Removal, and CAT Protection Claims by Asylum Officers. I will refer to this rule as the ``asylum rule'' to make it a little bit simpler. As the title suggests, there is an awful lot to this, but the reason we ought to disapprove of it is actually quite simple. This rule will go into effect at the end of this month, on May 31. On May 31, what this new rule will do is it will allow the USCIS, asylum officers, to begin granting asylum without review by an immigration court. It is important to note that section 240 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs removal proceedings, states: [a]n immigration judge shall conduct proceedings for deciding the inadmissibility or deportability of an alien. Now, an immigration court is an adjudicative court. It is a separate unit of government from a USCIS officer, who is within the Department of Homeland Security in the executive branch. It is a check and balance on executive action. It is a very necessary check and balance on an executive who is not faithfully executing the laws, as we have today with President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas. On May 1 of this year, news reporter Bret Baier asked Secretary Mayorkas in an interview: Is it the objective of the Biden administration to sharply reduce the total number of illegal immigrants coming across the southern border? The obvious answer to Bret Baier's question is, That is the goal--to reduce the flow of people coming into this country illegally. That ought to be every administration's goal. That is what a President and an administration would do if they were faithfully executing the laws; but listen to Secretary Mayorkas's reply, his answer. Secretary Mayorkas stated: ``It is the objective of the Biden administration to make sure that we have safe, orderly, and legal pathways for individuals to be able to access our legal system.'' I first must note that our legal system is horribly broken. It is that legal system that has produced this result. Now, I don't expect the viewers to look at and to be able to see everything on this chart, but you can go to my website and download this, and you will see the cause and effect of various directives, of various rules, of various regulations, and of various court orders and proceedings to cause this explosion--this out-of-control flow--of illegal immigration. By the way, it all started back in 2009 when then-ICE Director Morton issued a directive directly contravening the plain language of the law that required detaining individuals whose asylum claim was being adjudicated. So we stopped detaining them. Then, of course, in June 2012, President Obama, through his DHS Secretary, created the DACA memorandum, which was an open invitation to unaccompanied children coming to this country because they knew that, once they got here, they would be able to stay. If you take a look at the history here, the gold represents single adults coming into this country illegally and being apprehended. This is on a monthly basis. Blue is family units exploiting our very broken asylum system, where the credible fear standard gives you a free pass into the country. Red represents unaccompanied children. It is important to note that back in 2014, when President Obama declared it a humanitarian crisis, about 2,000 people were being apprehended at the border on a daily basis--2,000. Now, again, because of different policy choices, the word gets out--and because of different court decisions--and people in Central America and throughout the world realize that we are not following our asylum laws. We have a virtually open border. We are engaging in ``catch and release.'' So President Trump had to deal with a surge in 2019 of more than 4,000 people per day in a given month, and you can see that surge here. But President Trump took action. He engaged. He implemented the Return to Mexico policy. He made agreements with the Central American countries and Mexico, and we pretty well stopped the flow of unaccompanied children and family units. We actually reduced the flow of single adults who were exploiting our broken immigration system. Then, during the Presidential debates, Democratic candidates, including President Biden, declared to the world that they weren't going to deport people; they were going to offer people who were coming into this country illegally free healthcare. You can see, even during 2020, as we were building the walls--and we had the Return to Mexico policy in place--that single adults realized there might be a change in policy, and they started flooding our border. If you will notice, we went from, on average over about 10 years, about 30,000 single adults per month coming into this country to the last 2 months, when it has been over 150,000 or closer to 160,000, 170,000 single adults. Throw on top of that, at almost the minute that President Biden came into office and dismantled those successful programs, we then had a new flood, a new surge, of family units in blue and unaccompanied children flooding our border and exploiting our asylum laws. This new rule that is about to take effect at the end of this month, the asylum rule, again, circumvents, is contrary to stated law that says immigration judges, immigration courts, need to make that asylum determination, not members of the administration, not USCIS officers. What this rule does is it gives that power to grant asylum--an awesome power that Congress never meant to give to the administration-- to USCIS officers and only allows a judge to take a look at it if the asylum claim is denied by the USCIS officer. This isn't going to do anything to reduce the backlog. What this will do is this increase the flow. This is another signal throughout the world that we have an open border policy. The only restraint right now is title 42, and this administration is working actively to overturn a court order that says you must keep title 42 restrictions in place. And if the USCIS officer isn't as generous as we fear they all will be and actually denies asylum, you are right back there in immigration courts. So the only purpose of this rule is to increase the flow, to accomplish Secretary Mayorkas's stated goal of making sure we have a safe, orderly, and legal pathway for individuals to access our legal system. In other words, this administration's policy on the border isn't to secure it, isn't to reduce the flow; it is to make the processing and dispersing of illegal immigrants more efficient so more will come. Last year, one and a quarter million people either encountered and dispersed or came in as known ``got-aways,'' came to this country illegally and were dispersed. That is a number that is larger than the population of eight States. That is how out of control this crisis is. Yet Secretary Mayorkas won't even call it a problem, much less a crisis. So it is obvious how harmful this rule is to our Nation and to our national security. An open border is a national security threat. I urge my colleagues to join me in using the Congressional Review Act to disapprove of this rule and prevent its implementation. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, today America grieves. There is nothing partisan about being a parent and grandparent. I cannot imagine--I cannot imagine--the grief felt by the parents of those children. Unless you have experienced it, none of us can. What is the solution? There is no one solution. Let's be honest about that. Following Sandy Hook, following Parkland, I met with the parents of those horrific and senseless tragedies. I have been blessed to get to know three parents quite well: Tom and Gina Hoyer, and Max Schachter. Tom and Gina are the parents of Luke Hoyer; Max is the father of Alex Schachter--two of the 17 victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School slaughter in Parkland, FL, that occurred on February 14, 2018. In getting to know Tom and Gina and Max, you get some sense of the level of grief. I mentioned there is nothing partisan about grief. I listened to President Biden's remarks last night, I think the point he made that pierced my heart, because President Biden has known tragedy, is when he said that those parents in Texas, they are asking themselves will they ever sleep again. So we all grieve. We are all looking for solutions. The good Senator from Delaware said: ``We must take action.'' So what I have always valued about Tom and Gina and Max is these are three individuals, parents who do know the pain, that still grieve the loss of their sons, and yet they have not approached trying to find solutions in any partisan way whatsoever. They are trying to find areas of agreement. They advised the Federal Commission on School Safety. They came up with a pretty commonsense action. It may not solve all the problems, but it is a good idea. It is such a good idea that as chairman of the committee--Subcommittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, we codified it, we passed it unanimously out of our committee in November of 2019. It is called the Luke and Alex School Safety Act. It is pretty simple. It just creates a clearinghouse of information of the best practices for school safety. It involves numerous Departments--Department of Health and Human Services, Justice, Homeland Security. All must approve what these best practices are. It ensures the parents, teachers, school officials, other stakeholders have input into what those best practices are. It doesn't allow the clearinghouse to mandate any school take any certain action. And maybe, most importantly, it publishes the available grant programs and Federal resources available for school safety. Again, it passed out of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs twice, unanimously, once under my chairmanship, once under the chairmanship of Senator Peters. There is nothing partisan about this bill whatsoever. It is just a good idea that can save lives. It was such a good idea that under the previous administration, they set up that clearinghouse. It is up and it is operating. So all this bill does at this point is serve as a model for what is happening. All this bill does now is codify it, to make sure this clearinghouse stands the test of time, that it will always be there to provide those best practices on school safety. Now, I am very sensitive to the moment in time we are sitting here right now. We should let the Nation and those parents grieve. I don't want to politicize anything about this moment. So I called up Max, I called up Tom and Gina and asked them what would you like me to do? They have been trying to get this codified, passed into law for 4 years. I can't explain why it is not law. Just last month, the Senate passed the Pray Safe Act, which was basically it took that bill, the Luke and Alex School Safety Act and just applied it to churches. That passed by unanimous consent--no objection. I tried to attach this bill to that bill, but for whatever reason, somebody is objecting. I have no idea why. None. Again, it passed our committee unanimously twice. It is a good idea. It could save lives. It is an action when people are calling for action following this tragedy. So I know I see the Senator from Florida that would also like to speak to this bill before I ask consent.

Mr. JOHNSON. I thank the Senator from Florida for those comments. I just want to again emphasize the fact that I just spoke with Max and Gina and Tom. These are parents of children who lost their lives in a school shooting. These are parents that have come up with a solution--a nonpartisan solution--got it recommended by the Federal Commission on School Safety. They told me that the day after Parkland, had a parent from Sandy Hook had a piece of legislation that they had been trying to get passed but couldn't, it would help. They would have been 100 percent supportive of that piece of legislation, come to the floor, and pass it by unanimous consent, irrespective of the timing. They asked me to come to the floor today to ask my colleagues to lay aside partisanship, to do something for these families, provide them some measure of comfort by passing a completely nonpartisan bill that could make a difference, that could save a life. There is no reason not to pass this bill today in this Chamber at this hour. So, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 102, S. 111. I further ask that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. JOHNSON. As chairman of Homeland Security, I have passed more than 300 pieces of legislation out of committee, and over 130 of those became law. Very few of those--almost none--were partisan in any way, shape, or form. The approach I used to have that kind of legislative success is, rather than focus on issues that divide us, I concentrated on areas of agreement. Today, I brought to the Senate floor a nonpartisan bill, a bill crafted by the parents--the parents--who lost their sons in one of these horrific tragedies. It passed out of our committee twice unanimously. Those parents asked me to come today to please pass this bill; take some action; provide some comfort to all the parents who are grieving, to a nation that is grieving. So I came to the floor today, and I will not engage in partisanship other than to say it is just sad--it is just sad that this body can't pass this bill when, about a month ago, they passed an identical bill that applied to churches. This one applies to schools. Yet it is inappropriate, according to the majority leader, to pass this nonpartisan bill by unanimous consent? This is a very sad day for the U.S. Senate. I yield the floor.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, this is truly one of the more inappropriate additions that the House made to this bill: to ban the production of farming of mink for the production of fur. I have no idea why they have included it here. It makes no sense to be included. Actually, in Wisconsin, it supports hundreds of jobs and produces exports to China. So my motion simply instructs the conferees to reject any proposal that would ban mink farming. I want to thank Senators Romney, Daines, and Boozman for their support of this amendment, and I urge my colleagues to support American farmers by voting in favor of this motion to instruct.

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

Mr. JOHNSON. Madam President, I call up my motion to instruct conferees, which is at the desk.

Mr. JOHNSON

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

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I thank Senator Grassley. What Senator Grassley and I have showed over the course of six speeches are the actual bank records of financial transactions tying President Biden's son Hunter and his brother James to businesses that are essentially arms of the communist Chinese regime. But the Biden business ventures include activities in many more countries than just China. In our September and November 2020 reports, we showed a vast web of Biden family foreign financial entanglements that were largely ignored by the media and falsely labeled ``Russian disinformation'' by our Democratic colleagues. As outrageous as the suppression of our reports and the false attacks were, perhaps the most egregious behavior came from 51 former intelligence Agency officials who lent their names and reputations to an effort designed to convince the American public that Hunter Biden's laptop had ``all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.'' Without any evidence backing their assertion, they engaged in their own information operation by signing a public letter right before the election. Their letter was actual disinformation, coming from what are supposed to be trusted former members of our U.S. intelligence Agencies. They should all be ashamed and held accountable for spreading this disinformation. By signing that disinformation letter, they reinforced false claims that the records on the laptop were not legitimate. By casting doubt on evidence of the Bidens' corrupt practices, these former intelligence officials interfered in the 2020 election to a far greater extent than Russia could have ever hoped to achieve. Their willing accomplices in the press amplified this disinformation letter and, by doing so, were equally guilty of egregious election interference. In August 2020, I wrote a public letter detailing the history, purpose, and goals of my oversight and investigations. In that letter, I laid out the timeline of Joe and Hunter Biden's involvement in Ukraine. The timeline is very revealing. It starts in February 2014. That was the month of the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine. Two months later, on April 16, 2014, then-Vice President Biden met with his son's business partner Devon Archer, now a convicted felon, at the White House. I just want to pause and just let that sink in a little bit. Devon Archer is now a convicted felon. He got a meeting in the White House with the Vice President of the United States. That is kind of a big deal. The press didn't ask many questions. Five days after that meeting in the White House, April 21, Joe Biden visited Ukraine, and the media described him as the ``public face of the administration's handling of Ukraine.'' The next day, on April 22, Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma. What a coincidence. On April 28, 6 days later, British officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma's owner Mykola Zlochevsky. Let that sink in a little bit. Six days after Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma, a day after Vice President Biden visited Ukraine, which was 5 days after he met with Devon Archer in the White House, British officials seized $23 million from the corrupt owner of Burisma. On May 13, 2014, 3 weeks later, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma. What a coincidence. Because of the findings in our reports and the excellent investigative journalism on the part of John Solomon, we also know that Hunter was involved with Yelena Baturina, the corrupt and now- sanctioned wife of the former mayor of Moscow, during the exact same period of time. On February 14, 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an investment firm cofounded by Hunter Biden. Between April 4 and April 5, 2014--again, the same month that Joe Biden met with Devon Archer in the White House and Devon became a member of the board of Burisma--Hunter Biden and Devon Archer sent emails about meeting with Baturina, potentially relating to a business deal in Chelsea, NY. On April 13, 2014, 9 days before Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer discussed a potential deal involving Baturina. Archer wrote that Baturina ``confirmed green light to fund deposit.'' Archer continued: Just spent two hours on the phone with Kiev. I am confident at this point this is a good if not life changing deal if the Ukraine doesn't collapse in the meantime. It is quite interesting to see how much significant activity involving the Bidens and corrupt actors in Russia and Ukraine occurred within a 6-week period, only 2 months after the Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity. It sure looks like they intended to cash in on the turmoil in Ukraine. In my August 2020 letter, I listed a number of questions about then- Vice President Biden's interaction with Hunter Biden's business partner and other family members' foreign financial dealings. In making this letter public, my hope was that the press, the very uninquisitive press, would begin to ask then-Presidential candidate Joe Biden these important and legitimate questions. It should come as no surprise that the corporate media was completely uninterested and failed to conduct any investigative journalism. Nearly 2 years after I wrote this public letter, the mainstream media has still not adequately pressed President Biden for answers to these very legitimate questions; for example, No. 1: Why did Joe Biden meet with Devon Archer at the White House on April 16, 2014? What did they discuss? Did they discuss anything related to Ukraine, Hunter Biden, or Burisma? No. 2, was Joe Biden aware that Devon Archer joined the board of Burisma 6 days after that meeting, 1 day after he visited Ukraine? No. 3, does Joe Biden believe Burisma and its owner are corrupt? No. 4, when did Joe Biden first become aware that Hunter Biden also joined the board of Burisma? No. 5, when did Joe Biden first become aware of how much money Hunter Biden was being compensated by Burisma? Senator Grassley and my report showed it was close to $4 million. No. 6, what does Joe Biden know about Hunter or James Biden's dealings with China? No. 7, what does Joe Biden know about financial benefits his brother and sister-in-law have obtained because of their relationships to him? Investigative reporter John Solomon has added a few more questions to my list, including: No. 1, what, if anything, did Joe Biden know about his son's dealings with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina? No. 2, a 2017 series of memos referred to a Chinese business deal that involved Hunter Biden and included a 10-percent equity for the ``big guy.'' What did Joe Biden know about this specific deal, and who was the ``big guy''? No. 3, emails on Hunter Biden's laptop, now in the possession of the FBI, refer to shared accounts or bills between Joe Biden and Hunter. Did Hunter ever give Joe Biden any money, gift, or financial benefit from Hunter's business dealings? After a long-overdue analysis, the New York Times and the Washington Post have finally admitted that records from Hunter's laptop are authentic, which means--although they will never admit this--that Senator Grassley and I were right, and they were wrong. It is interesting to read how limited and muted their mea culpas are. My guess is that they learned a lot from their coverage of Nixon's Watergate scandal coverup. They learned that when you have been caught in a coverup--and that is what has happened here--you try to limit the damage by telling a little bit of the truth. In the intelligence world, this strategy is called a ``limited hangout.'' The Watergate coconspirators called it a ``modified limited hangout.'' Regardless of what you call it, what the New York Times and the Washington Post are doing is not telling the whole truth. I doubt they ever will. But just in case they decide to pursue the truth with a little bit more rigor, they can use the above list of relevant questions as a good starting point for what they should be asking President Biden. For our part, Senator Grassley and I will continue to ask tough questions, review more information and records, and transparently provide that information to the American public. We intend to pursue and uncover the truth. I will now turn the floor back over to Senator Grassley for his closing remarks.

Mr. JOHNSON

Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I know of no further debate on the nomination.

Mr. JOHNSON. I ask for the yeas and nays.