Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I am informed that it is necessary for me to insert into the Record of the proceedings the resignation letter that I sent to Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona on December 12, 2018; therefore, I ask unanimous consent that this letter be printed in the Record at this point.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the other thing I would like to do this afternoon is to very briefly report to my colleagues and to constituents back home on some things which my predecessor, Senator McCain, was working on at the time of his untimely death and which his staff and I have continued to work on and, in several cases, have brought to successful conclusion. I want people to know about these items and what we have been able to accomplish. I first want to thank the members of his staff who wanted to stay in the service of the government and the State of Arizona and were willing to take a position in my office, as a result of which, we were able to really have a seamless transition from some of the things Senator McCain was working on and my ability to continue to do so. One of the first things of which I was aware but not really aware of the depth that he had taken it is a new relationship in the State of Arizona among the three pillars representing the defense establishment in our country and specifically in the State of Arizona. These are, first of all, our military installations--Arizona is blessed to have a lot of military installations; secondly, the defense industries--again, Arizona is the home to many important defense industries serving all of our branches of the military; and finally, the communities that support both of those elements of our establishment. As a result, I had the opportunity to meet throughout the State with the groups that Senator McCain had helped to nurture and to create--in particular, a group in Tucson and Southern Arizona, including Yuma, called the Southern Arizona Defense Alliance; in Flagstaff and Northern Arizona, the Northern Arizona Military Affairs Council; and in Central Arizona, Maricopa County and the Phoenix environs, the Mesa Industry and Defense Council. Meeting with the representatives of all three components of our military society and hearing about the successes they had in working with each other and in providing a real synergy that benefited them all just reminded me again of how important Senator McCain's leadership was to the State of Arizona and to our national security. I wanted to mention that today and to let everyone know that I will be passing on to my successor the advice that these councils continue to need to be supported and nurtured by the Senators from the State of Arizona, as well as the Members of the House of Representatives. A second thing that John McCain was involved in as part of his activities as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee was the creation--a couple years ago--in the Defense authorization bill of a national commission to advise the Secretary of Defense on the strategy for the United States and to report back to Congress--and specifically the Armed Services Committee--on their conclusions. This bill created the National Defense Strategy Commission, comprised of 12 members, 3 of whom were appointed by the chairman and the ranking member--each--of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the House Armed Services Committee. I was privileged to have been appointed by Senator McCain to serve on that Commission, and I did for approximately a year. My service there ended as we finished our report. Before it was signed, while it was still being edited, he passed away, and I was appointed to serve in his stead. So I have had the unique opportunity to both help write the report and then be a member of the Armed Services Committee, on which he sat, to receive the report and to question the cochairmen of that Commission, Ambassador Eric Edelman and ADM Gary Roughead, Retired. I think the importance of this Commission report reflects what Senator McCain hoped to achieve, and that is a bipartisan consensus, a unanimous report which provides advice to the Secretary of Defense and will provide advice to both the House and the Senate. As I said, there has already been a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and I know the House committee is going to invite members of the Commission to brief it as well. It is my hope that the recommendations of this bipartisan Commission will be followed by the Congress and by the President and the Secretary of Defense because I think they represent some very strong conclusions about what is necessary to enhance our national security. A third thing Senator McCain wanted to do as chairman of the Armed Services Committee was to hold a series of hearings or briefings before the committee that focused on the advances in technology that were having and can have an important impact on our national security--in many cases, on the kinds of things that we acquire in support of our military superiority, things like hypersonics and artificial intelligence, super-advanced computing, cyber technology, and the like. After speaking with the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee now, Senator Inhofe, it is my understanding that he, in fact, has a plan to carry out this legacy of Senator McCain and hold a series of briefings early next year on all of these technological issues so that our Members will be better able to evaluate the kinds of things that will help our military have superiority in the future. I am happy to have had some small part to play in advancing that. There were a couple of other more specific things that Senator McCain didn't work on but which bear his name that I wanted to mention. One, I cosponsored and helped secure passage of S. 2827, which was a bill to reauthorize the Morris K. Udall and Stewart L. Udall Foundation at the University of Arizona. This was something that Senator McCain helped to create and to foster throughout his career. But I am also pleased to announce that this legislation names the foundation's environmental conflict resolution center after the late Senator John McCain. I am pleased to make that announcement here. There is one other item that we are continuing to try to accomplish in Senator McCain's name. We are not across the finish line yet, but we hope to get there. That is something called the 21st Century Conservation Service Corps Act, S. 1403. This bill carries the name of Senator McCain, and it was one of his favorite projects. It expands volunteerism in our national parks and public lands. I can tell you that while John McCain came to Arizona having lived in many other places of the world and in the United States, primarily as a result of his service in the Navy, he acquired a love for the State of Arizona which is unequalled among all of us who have been there for a very long time. He loved the beauty of the State, the ruggedness of it, the incredible variety in the flora and fauna. When I would visit John and Cindy's home in the Sedona area, I could always count on being taken on a hike around the perimeter of the property to show me all of the interesting things he had discovered over the last several months, including where the hawks live and where the owls live and where they found the rattlesnakes and all of the other things that pleased him to be a part of that environment. So we are hopeful that we can get this Service Corps Act passed, if not in the latter part of this session, at least perhaps early next year. I want my colleagues to know that although Senator McCain passed away in the early part of his Senate term, he was working on a lot of things that his staff and I wanted to continue to move forward, and I am just pleased we have been able to move these items forward and wanted my colleagues to appreciate that, as well as his friends and constituents in the State of Arizona. I thank my colleagues here who helped to make some of these things possible and urge that they continue to focus on the one item of unfinished business that can perhaps be accomplished next year. I conclude by thanking the Governor of the State of Arizona for appointing me to serve for part of the remainder of Senator McCain's term. It has been a great honor and privilege for me to again serve the people of the State of Arizona, particularly to succeed my friend and colleague John McCain. I yield the floor.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me speak a moment about this act. The sponsors, as you have just heard, and supporters like Senator Portman have proceeded with very good intentions. As you just heard, a compelling case for finding ways to help people who have made a mistake or more have an opportunity to turn their life around. One of the reasons I am concerned about the legislation is, all of the kinds of programs that have been spoken of here to enable people to learn new skills or change their attitudes about life so they will not commit crimes again, we will not have more recidivism--one of the concerns is, there is nothing to prohibit any of these programs from being done today, and they are being done all over the country in State prisons, in Federal prisons, and the like. The concern I have is, the effort to provide rewards for people to participate in these programs may have more negative than positive effects, and I think the sponsors of the bill need to look at that in order to persuade some of us that these rewards are necessary, in addition to the programs that are already in existence. The other thing that concerns me is, there is a forgotten person in this whole equation; that is, the victim of the crime. Ever since I came to the Senate, I have worked on legislation to support crime victims. Finally, I think it was my first term in the Senate that Senator Feinstein and I were successful in getting enacted and signed into law the Federal crime victims' rights bill. This act provides a whole series of rights for victims of crime, starting with the right to be notified--the right to be notified of key events during the criminal justice process and, at appropriate times, the right to speak or participate. As I said, the crime victim seems to be forgotten in this legislation, which has the good intention of preventing recidivism, but one of the incentives for people to participate in programs while they are still in prison is that they can earn, in effect, some credits to enable them to get out earlier or to go into other kinds of programs before they are released by participating in these programs, but the victims don't have to be notified. With many of the people who are involved here and have been in prison for a long time, there are reasons for the victims to be concerned about their impending release. Not to notify the victims, I think, would be a grave injustice. One of the amendments Senator Kennedy and Senator Cotton have proposed is to provide notification. Some have said: Well, this is redundant because the Crime Victims' Rights Act already requires notification. Yes, the Crime Victims' Rights Act requires notification of court proceedings but not the kind of proceedings that are embodied in the legislation. Here, the proceedings are before the prison warden, in effect. He or she is the person who makes the decision, adding these credits up, in effect, to determine whether the prisoner is eligible for some kind of early release program. The Crime Victims' Rights Act--and I will quote it in case folks are interested--provides that the victims have the ``right to be reasonably heard at any public proceeding in the district court involving release, plea, sentencing, or any parole proceeding.'' First of all, it has to be public and, secondly, it has to be in court. That is not the proceeding we are talking about in this legislation. That is why the amendment of Senator Cotton and Senator Kennedy is necessary, to ensure that in this context as well, crime victims are notified of the potential release of the perpetrator of the crime upon them so, if they wish, they can allow their views to be known, presumably in some kind of written correspondence to the warden, which the warden could then take into account or not. I heard a very odd argument made earlier on the floor in opposition to this amendment. It was, under the Crime Victims Act, about 10 percent of the crime victims don't care to be notified and, in effect, they opt out of the notice procedure. Therefore, because of that, there shouldn't be a notice requirement for this procedure. That is a non sequitur if I have ever heard one. There are people who undoubtedly choose to ignore the notice they have received. For whatever reason, they don't want to go back into the court or to do anything about the notice they have received. For the other 90 percent, this is a very meaningful proposition. I think it would be a very scary proposition for some people not to be notified that the perpetrator of the crime against them is about to be released, and they don't know about it and will not have any opportunity to say anything about it. The fact that 10 percent of the people may choose to ignore this notice is no reason not to provide the notice. If you don't want to receive the notice, there is something real easy you can do with it: You put it in the wastebasket or, if you are concerned that maybe you will get notified again and that is a bother to you, you can let the warden know you don't care to receive any more notices. This is not a very persuasive argument to me; that because 1 in 10 choose not to do anything with the notice, therefore we shouldn't give notice to the other 90 percent for whom it may be extraordinarily meaningful. To my colleagues, I would say, remember, the only reason people are in prison is because they have committed a crime against someone, and that someone is frequently ignored in the criminal justice process. They shouldn't be ignored anymore. At least in Federal court, we have provided, by law, a series of requirements for notification and, in some cases, the right to be heard that finally recognizes that the victim should have some right to participate in and, at a minimum, be notified of the proceedings that involve a case that is only there because they have had a crime committed against them. In many cases, it is very meaningful for them to come to closure and find a sense of justice in our criminal justice system when they are able to participate in that very same system. In the past, we have seem to have gotten away from this. It is like: Well, it is the prosecutor and it is the defendant and nobody else has any reason to be involved. Yet, of course, the victims have every reason to be involved. To my colleagues who say: Well, it is redundant--no, it is clearly not redundant. The Federal Crime Victims' Rights Act will not provide a remedy in the case of the bill before us. If you care about crime victims, if you believe they should have a right to be informed and to potentially present their view to the warden if they choose to do so, then I urge you to support the Cotton and Kennedy amendment. Finally, I heard an argument that--well, there is a victims' rights group--I have forgotten the name of it--that opposes this. I don't know that victims' rights group. I do know this. I have been in touch with a lot of the advocates for crime victims, and they oppose the underlying legislation. One of the reasons is because it doesn't account for the rights of crime victims. Perhaps the proponents could get a little more support for their legislation if they would pay attention to the people against whom the crime was committed in the first instance and at least notify them that the prisoner is going to be released and give them an opportunity to respond, if they choose to do so. I urge my colleagues to support the crime victims' rights amendment to the underlying bill. I yield the floor.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. I couldn't agree with the chairman more. I applaud the chairman and the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee for going to the President, along with Secretary of Defense Mattis, and talking about the need to continue with his defense modernization, noting the fact that the improvements the Senator has made in the last 2 years have not rebuilt the military or even begun to close the gap. It has staunched the flow of blood. It has been like a tourniquet on the arm to prevent any more loss of blood for the military. The Senator is absolutely right. What the President then said after his meeting with the Senator, that he thought a number somewhere around $750 billion was a more accurate number, is exactly correct. In fact, I think it would be a little more than $750 billion to represent the 5 percent or 3 percent above the rate of inflation. I will have to do the math when I sit down here. The point is, some people think the last 2 years, because you all were very effective--this is before I came back to the Senate--in staunching that flow of blood, that, therefore, the fight is over. Nothing could be further from the truth. Really, a 13- to 15-year program to rebuild our military has just begun.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I certainly appreciate this comment by the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee because the Secretaries of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs have all said our strategic deterrent has to be our No. 1 priority. Why is that? It is because this is the one area in which the entire U.S. security is at risk. This is the existential threat--the threat that could destroy the entire United States. Obviously, a nuclear war between either the United States and China or Russia would be devastating to the entire world, but because it is a direct threat to the homeland, it has to be the No. 1 priority. Yet, as the chairman notes, through our negligence, the administration's and Congress's past, we have allowed three things to deteriorate all at the same time, and the bill is now coming due on all three. Therefore, it is going to be a difficult proposition to get funded. The first are the laboratories in which our nuclear weapons were designed. There was testing and, to some extent, they have been modified or refurbished and have had their life extended through a program operated at our National Labs. The National Labs are in incredible need of modernization. We have a 1946-built facility in which our uranium is being produced, and the roof is literally falling in--I have been there--in Oak Ridge, TN. In Los Alamos, there is a great need to make changes, and we have to create a new facility for the production of plutonium pits. This is all highly technical, but the bottom line is, our laboratories are in dire need of refurbishment. Secondly, the nuclear weapons themselves, designed in the 1950s and 1960s and some as late as the 1970s but built in the 1970s and 1980s, are in extreme need to be checked for their safety and their security and to have their life extended by the replacement of certain components, making certain everything else is in operating order. I was given as a souvenir a vacuum tube which was taken out of one of our nuclear weapons, having been replaced with a more modern circuit board. These are the kinds of things we are doing to extend the life of the nuclear weapons, and it is not inexpensive. Third, our triad, our delivery systems--the bomber force, the intercontinental ballistic missiles, and our nuclear-powered submarines that carry the missiles that currently represent part of our triad and our strategic deterrent--have all been allowed to deteriorate and need replacement at the same time. Instead of doing this seriatim, we are faced with a bill that is going to come due for all three. The good news is, through the good efforts of the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and others, provision has been made in the past NDAA bills to begin this modernization. It has begun, but barely begun, and it is going to have to continue for a period of 13 to 15 years, something like that. The other piece of good news is, while all three components of our nuclear deterrent are needed and are going to have to be paid for at roughly the same time, at no time in the budget does the combination of all three of these things represent more than 6.4 percent of the defense budget. In fact, in most years, it is 3 to 4 percent. So for the most strategically important element or component of our national security, we are really spending a very small amount in proportion to what we have to spend on everything else. That is one of the reasons I think the committee has found it so important to ensure that all three of these things move forward, on time, and in the right way, so our strategic deterrent will, in fact, deter any potential adversary from miscalculating and thinking that the cost of aggression against the United States is worth whatever they might seek to achieve.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee is exactly correct. You could illustrate the same things with charts relating to our Air Force, to our Army, to our Marine Corps--all elements of our services. It is not just in the number of ships but in the quality of the ships. Both the Russians and the Chinese, I would note, have made some significant advances in submarine technology, for example, that would pose a real threat to the U.S. Navy. What the Commission concluded was, three major changes were necessary to the way we fund our military. The first is, the top line, the total amount Congress appropriates each year, needs to be increased. We didn't specify a particular amount, but we noted that just to satisfy the 20-year budget projections of President Obama's Secretary of Defense, this would require a minimum of 3- to 5-percent increases annually above the rate of inflation; in other words, real growth in the topline spending. Secondly--and these are two faults of the U.S. Congress--the Commission pointed to the Congress and said: You have been funding government for far too long with continuing resolutions rather than your getting on with the job of passing appropriations bills that actually note each year's requirements and appropriate an amount of money to reflect those requirements. The continuing resolutions, or CRs, make it almost impossible for the planners at the Defense Department to plan more than just a couple of months in advance, and when we are talking about enormously long-term acquisitions that cost billions of dollars, this makes it a very inefficient way and ineffective way to fund defense. Finally, we recommended that the Budget Control Act, which currently controls the way the Congress spends money, needs to have a change in it. The sequestration trigger in that bill has harmed defense spending more than anything else. It has resulted in about one-half trillion dollars, over 10 years, in lost appropriations for the Department of Defense. That law is still in effect, and it will govern the appropriations of the last 2 years of the decade of its being in effect unless Congress repeals it or modifies it. So the third recommendation is, the sequestration trigger in the Budget Control Act needs to be eliminated.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee for engaging in this brief colloquy and for specifically calling for a hearing a couple of weeks ago at which the two cochairmen of the National Defense Strategy Commission presented the findings of the Commission's report. I agree that the hearing, which was attended by, I believe, every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was a remarkable hearing because the members of the Commission, represented by the two cochairs, made it clear that their report--our report--was, indeed, a bipartisan document and nonpartisan, as cochairman Admiral Roughead said. Perhaps it would be good to just dwell for a moment on how this Commission was created, and then we can talk a little bit more about the report itself because I think one of the biggest factors about the report is the credibility of the people who helped to design it. A couple of years ago, the two Armed Services Committees in the House and Senate put a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act to create a commission that would be comprised of 12 members--6 of whom to be appointed by the Senate and 6 of whom to be appointed by the House. Three each would be appointed by the chairmen and the ranking members of the two Armed Services Committees so there would be a balance of six Democrats and six Republicans--I think. I say that because, like Admiral Roughead, I am not sure of the politics of everybody who served on the Commission. They all knew my politics, as I was a retired Republican Senator at the time, and I knew a couple of the other members of the Commission. Yet, frankly, the politics were left at the door. We went in and debated about the status of our national security and, in particular, about the Secretary of Defense's national strategy. We concluded, first of all, that the Secretary was correct in that we had to reorient the priorities of our national defense to reflect the fact that China and Russia now both presented a challenge to the United States that had not existed in the prior several years but that the challenge was increasingly difficult to confront and important to confront because of the attitudes of those two countries and that the other threats from Iran, from North Korea, and from terrorists, while still very significant, would be relegated, in effect, to a secondary position. We thought, in that regard, the Secretary's strategy was correct, and we commended him for that. We also found the basic strategy he laid out for confronting the challenges was satisfactory but with a big caveat, and that was that unless the Defense Department was adequately reauthorized to confront these challenges, the strategy could not succeed. So much of what the Commission dwelt on was what we would need to do in the near and medium future in order to rebuild our military to successfully defend the United States against these emerging threats.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I just want to thank my colleague, the majority leader, for his comments about me. He asked if there were differences between the time that I served before and this most recent time, and I must say that the thing that I have noticed most is the kindness with which I have been treated by my colleagues and by staff--I am talking about colleagues and staff on both sides of the aisle--and by other people who work here at the Capitol, including, most especially, the Capitol Police. I never expected to be welcomed back with that degree of kindness, and I have commented that it might be a nice thing if we could extend that same degree of kindness to each other every day, rather than to just those who come back after a long absence. But I do very much appreciate your comments, Mr. Leader, and most especially your leadership and friendship over the years. Thank you very much.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I would like to make just a couple of comments on my friend's having left the Senate and with respect to the remarks that he just made. The Senate has had some very good people over the years, and currently, but none have been more principled than my friend from Arizona, Jeff Flake. It started for us to see when he was a Member of House of Representatives and at first singlehandedly fought inappropriate earmarks. He even managed to get himself appointed to the Appropriations Committee for a while so that he could carry on his crusade from within. In the end, he was successful. I was pleased to support him as my successor to the U.S. Senate. He has his priorities right: faith, family, and country. He has spoken about both his faith and his family here. Not very many of us have the opportunity to serve from a town named after our own family, and that is how far Senator Flake's roots go back in the State of Arizona. He has spoken, not just today but on earlier occasions, from his heart about things that he sees need improvement here in the U.S. Senate. I think we are all aware of the things of which he speaks, and it has been appropriate for him to do so because, as he pointed out, in order for us to be a beacon to others around the world in support of liberty, individual freedom, we have to demonstrate how it can be practiced right here in the United States of America. We would all like to leave this place better than we found it, and it is not easy to do, but Senator Flake has tried his best. He also spoke about our democratic republic and our focus on individual liberty and how that has had an impact around the world and how others have tried to emulate what we do here. These are universal principles that we need to focus on. What he has reminded us of here today is that freedom is not free, and each day we all have to do our part from wherever we sit to ensure that future generations will enjoy the kind of freedom that we have had, and that starts with our representatives in the U.S. Government. It was a fitting subject for a farewell address, and wise counsel was given, as always. I want to salute my colleague Jeff Flake as a person, though, as much as a public servant and Senator. He embodies what is right about the people of the United States of America. As I said, he has his priorities right, and he has been willing to serve based upon those priorities. I wish him and his family all the best in their next endeavors. I know because of his dedication to this country and the principles in which he believes that his service will not end at the end of his time here in the U.S. Senate, and we will all be beneficiaries of that. So to my friend and colleague Jeff Flake, Godspeed. I appreciate your remarks today. I yield the floor.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, today, along with several other colleagues from the Senate, I wrote to the President on the subject of the possible extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START. Several people have been encouraging the President to begin studying whether we should extend New START, which expires in 2021. That is a couple years from now, but obviously, if one is going to consider renewing something of this import, it is good to be thinking about it early. In this regard, we offered to the President suggestions of things that he should take into consideration in determining whether to extend New START with Russia and whether to begin negotiations with the Russians. We suggested three things that he should consider in deciding whether to proceed with these discussions. I am going to discuss one of them in great detail, but the first two are also important because they represented factors that were considered by the Senate at the time that it ratified the first START agreement. The Senate declared in the New START resolution of ratification that ``the United States is committed to proceeding with a robust stockpile stewardship program and to maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons production capabilities and capacities that will ensure the safety, reliability, and performance of the United States' nuclear arsenal at the New START treaty levels.'' That was our commitment. That is what we said in the resolution of ratification, and President Obama had written a letter to the Senate confirming that it was his intention, as long as he was President, to follow this program of work. Regrettably, what we posited as an underpinning requirement for participation in New START has not been maintained as the years have gone by. The infrastructure and weapons capabilities that were pledged at the time that the Senate gave its consent to the treaty have been significantly delayed or reduced in scope, and the result of this is a risk that the symmetry that potentially existed between Russia and the United States as a result of the New START treaty will be changed and that the United States will be disadvantaged with the continuation of the New START limits. Another consideration that we brought to the President's attention was also referred to in the resolution of ratification of the New START treaty--and this was in 2012, by the way--we said that the President should ``pursue an agreement with the Russian Federation that would address the disparity between the tactical nuclear weapon stockpiles of the Russian Federation and of the United States in a verifiable manner.'' We did that because even at the time that New START was ratified, the Russians had a 10-to-1 advantage in tactical nuclear weapons over the United States, and the New START treaty didn't do anything about that. It dealt only with strategic weapons. We raised the issue with the Russians. We tried to negotiate it as part of the New START treaty, but Russia was not interested. We went ahead anyway, but what we said was that we really ought to try to address this asymmetry between what the Russians have and what we have in terms of tactical nuclear weapons. By the way, that hasn't been done, either, so we thought it was important for the President to bear that in mind as he considered what to do about talking to the Russians about extending the New START treaty. The reason it is important is that the Russians, with this enormous advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, have actually changed their doctrine of war to potentially use those weapons--to use nuclear weapons in a military conflict with the United States or our NATO allies. They believe that this might be beneficial to them under what has been called a doctrine of ``escalate to de-escalate.'' What that means is, they start some kind of a conflict with little green men or other kinds of hybrid warfare where they can blame it on somebody else. Maybe there are some cyber attacks that are simultaneous and confuse the issue. In the context of all of this confusion, it is very difficult to put the blame anywhere, but the Russians are finally identified, and an actual military conflict breaks out. Well, in order to dissuade NATO or the United States from stopping the Russian aggression, if that is what is going on here, the Russian doctrine says: We reserve the right here to use tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield there, which would enable us to win the battle, obviously, and send a signal to the United States that ``You had better just let us be. Stop there.'' Maybe they will say: We don't intend to go any further, and so don't escalate this conflict because you can already see that we are willing to use nuclear weapons, and if you escalate it, you can expect Russia to use nuclear weapons. Obviously, we don't want to use nuclear weapons in a conflict. The reason we possess the nuclear weapons is to try to defer conflict. But our weapons are very large, devastating weapons that were built to be delivered on long-range missiles or bombers to the Russian--or then the Soviet heartland that could do great destruction to Soviet cities and military installations. They weren't designed to offset tactical attacks by another adversary, like Russia. So we don't have the kinds of tactical weapons that Russia has. As a result, we believe that, on this escalation ladder that could occur in a conflict, we are at a disadvantage, which is why we suggest to the President that in order to be sure that Russia doesn't ever miscalculate and determine that it is worth the risk to Russia to actually conduct an attack, including using nuclear weapons--we need to be sure that they don't miscalculate here, and the President should take into account this disparity in nuclear weapon capability between Russia and the United States today in determining whether to extend the New START treaty. It may be that in renegotiating this, we need to take all of this into account. These are changed circumstances in doctrine since 2012; they are not changed circumstances in terms of the asymmetry of weapon possession. There is a third thing that has changed--although in one respect it hasn't changed--that we also asked the President to consider, and that is the fact that a treaty is obviously only as good as the willingness of the parties to abide by it. In the case of the New START treaty, we would expect the Russians to abide by that, as we would expect them to abide by any other treaty. Well, it turns out that at the time that the New START treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate, the Russians had been in gross violation of another treaty--the INF Treaty--and the government didn't make that clear until after the New START treaty was adopted. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is a treaty of several decades long now that prohibits either Russia or the United States from developing or deploying a missile that has a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. This is a treaty that only binds Russia and the United States. It doesn't bind China, for example, which does possess these weapons. So both Russia and the United States would be at a disadvantage in a conflict with China, for example. We were simply asking that the President consider whether Russia abides by the treaties that it signs, and in that regard, whether it has violated the INF Treaty. Well, it is a question that has already been answered. The U.S. Government has already confirmed--and others have as well--that Russia has been in violation of the INF Treaty at least since the year 2008. The onsite inspections regime of the INF Treaty terminated in 2001. It hasn't been particularly easy to verify, but the State Department's 2014 annual compliance report found that Russia was in violation of the INF Treaty. This is the first time we actually made our knowledge of this public. In April of 2016, the U.S. Government, again, in more detail, revealed Russia's violation of the treaty, and it did so very explicitly, pointing to the particular type of weapon the Russians had been developing--a ground-launched cruise missile. In November of that year, the United States convened a meeting of the Special Verification Commission of the INF Treaty, and through this and other engagements with the Russian Federation, we provided detailed information to Russia about the nature of the violations of which we were aware. This is important because the modus operandi of the old Soviet Union was to say: We are not in violation of the treaty. If we are, prove it to us. Then the United States would have to come forward with information we had gathered through intelligence sources that would demonstrate how we found out they were in violation, thus compromising our so-called sources and methods. We thought this violation was important enough to do that, and therefore we informed the Russians through the Commission of what we understood about their program, including information pertaining to the missile, the launcher, Russia's own internal designation for the mobile launcher chassis, and the names of the companies involved in developing and producing both the missile and the launcher. We gave information on the test history of the ground- launched cruise missile program--the GLCM--that we were aware of, including the coordinates of the test and Russia's attempts to obfuscate the nature of the program. We provided all of this information. We also provided knowledge about the range--between 500 and 1,500-- and the fact that violating the treaty with this missile was actually distinct from two other missiles that Russia had developed. I will not give you the descriptions of them, but we have them, and we made all of that public. We even gave, in a subsequent report, the 2018 annual compliance report, the specific designator for this missile, the 9M729. We continued to raise these issues throughout 2017, 2018, and in fact it wasn't just the United States. In December of 2017, the North Atlantic Council urged Russia to address the serious concerns raised by its missile system ``in a substantial and transparent way, and actively engage in a technical dialogue with the United States.'' Just a couple of weeks ago, on November 12, NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg stated in a speech that ``the deployment of new Russian missiles is putting this historic treaty in jeopardy.'' He was talking about the New START treaty. He completed his thought by saying: ``Russia now acknowledges the existence of a new missile system.'' If Russia cannot be trusted to comply with treaties and if we have this long history of violation of the INF Treaty and now the President is being asked to consider reupping the New START treaty, we urge him to consider this in the context of Russia's current violations. Clearly, at a minimum, this would call for additional verification and enforcement with respect to the New START treaty. It seems to me it calls for more than that because Russia has clearly believed it is in its country's best interests to blatantly violate the INF Treaty and take whatever the consequences are rather than abide by the treaty. If it believes that with respect to the development of a new cruise missile, it could very easily conclude the same with respect to violations of the New START treaty irrespective of any sanctions or other punishment the United States would mete out. There is very little one can do to a country that chooses to unilaterally violate a treaty. You can point it out, you can say they shouldn't do it, and you can pull out of the treaty itself, but that doesn't fix the problem; namely, their violation in the first place. We have actually acted on some things with regard to the INF violation. In December of 2017, the United States imposed economic sanctions on the two Russian companies that were involved in the design of this prohibited missile. We also began examining the range of military options for the United States, both that were INF Treaty- compliant and also what would happen were we to leave the INF. By the way, the President has unofficially said that in view of the Russian violation, the United States will leave the INF Treaty. He hasn't made that public announcement formally yet, but it is clear this is what he intends to do. Under the circumstances, one can hardly blame him when the Russians have gone ahead to develop a missile that threatens both Europe and U.S. interests, and we need to react to that in various ways. One of the things we have done is for Congress to authorize the administration to study what we ought to do in response, both in terms of potential active defenses and potential offensive capabilities to match what the Russians have done. In the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, we authorized $58 million to develop active defenses to counter ground-launched missiles of the prohibited range and counterforce and countervailing capabilities to prevent attacks from these missiles and also to establish a program of record to develop an intermediate range, conventional, road-mobile, ground-launched cruise missile of our own. There are additional potential military response options that obviously come to mind, but the point is, there are two countries to an agreement, and when one country deems it important enough to violate the agreement, even to suffer whatever consequences may exist, then the President ought to take this into consideration in deciding to extend yet another nuclear weapons treaty; in this case, the New START treaty. There are some other things I think the United States would want to consider doing that it can only do if it leaves the INF Treaty, and that is why I think the President is wise to, in effect, give the Russians notice that this is what we intend to do. Russia can still try to come back into compliance, I suppose, by destroying not only the weapon itself, the cruise missiles it has already deployed, and destroying the launchers on which these missiles would be launched because they too would be in violation of the INF Treaty. They have time to do this. By announcing in advance his intentions, the President has also given us an opportunity to think about our future. It doesn't do any good for defense planners to think about potential weapons or defenses that the United States could develop if there is never a prospect, in the case of the offensive weapon, of ever actually building it or deploying it. That is a career-ender to be sure. The INF Treaty would currently prohibit that. So nobody is going to spend any time planning activities for the United States that would themselves be a violation. By letting Russia know we are now willing to consider doing that, Vladimir Putin should understand that the President is serious about potentially withdrawing from the treaty. Hopefully, that would give him time to think about the consequences and decide to come into compliance, but it may not. If it doesn't, and he remains out of compliance, then not only could the United States potentially develop weapons of our own to counter the Russian violation, but we could also begin thinking about what this means in terms of other treaties we have with Russia, changes that we would want to make in order to ensure that these treaties are worth complying with. The New START treaty only applies to the United States and Russia. What it says is, we will both maintain an existing level of nuclear weapons--a little over 15,000 each. The United States had to bring our stockpile down to meet that level. Russia did not. So the practical effect of the New START treaty, at the time, was for the United States to reduce its nuclear weaponry and Russia basically to do nothing. What Russia has done in the meantime, however, is to continue to work on the modernization of its strategic missile and nuclear weapons programs. It has developed new missiles. It has tested. It has developed new doctrine, as I said, in the potential use of nuclear weapons, and it has a capability for nuclear warhead production that the United States does not have. It is not known today, but we don't have a nuclear weapon warhead production capability. We couldn't do it. We could build one in a lab or two over time. Russia has a production line, and it is constantly replacing the warheads it has with new warheads and developing new missiles, as I said. Now, I think all of that is relevant to the consideration of whether we should stay in the New START treaty. If we think Russia will comply with the terms, maybe we would conclude again that it is wise to stay in that treaty. This is a little hard to conclude, however, if Russia remains in violation of the INF Treaty. For all these reasons, we thought it important to recite a little bit of the history of the New START treaty and to quote from the resolution of ratification so the President could see what the Senate's intention was when that treaty was ratified at the end of 2012 and to think about what those factors mean in today's world if the President has an intention to think about potentially extending the terms of the New START treaty. Again, it doesn't happen until 2021. It is smart to start thinking about it now, but in thinking about it, instead of just blindly considering that it is a wonderful thing and we need to move forward with it without expressing an opinion against extending it, the signers of this letter wanted the President to appreciate some of the background and to understand what we thought the intentions were and what we hoped would occur after the New START treaty was adopted and ratified and how we thought it would improve the relationship between Russia and the United States at the time. If anything, conditions have gotten worse, not better. As a result, these are factors the President should take into consideration when determining whether to consider extending the New START treaty. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I know that the Democratic leader is scheduled to speak next, but if there is a minute that I could take in between, I just wanted to comment on my colleague who spoke yesterday, Senator Collins. I had wanted to come to the floor to speak on her behalf, but too many other people had been speaking at that time. People had remarked on her comments and reflected on the fact that she had done her homework, and she, indeed, had. I, simply, wanted to relay this anecdote. When I helped to introduce Judge Kavanaugh to my fellow former Senators, former colleagues, I think of all of the meetings that we had, and many of them were lawyers who are Senators. Probably the most thorough meeting of all was that held with Senator Collins. She had clearly done her homework, and the interview with Judge Kavanaugh consumed more than 2 hours without a break. It was a grilling that could have been done by any fine lawyer because she had clearly done her homework and was very well prepared, and I know she did further followup after that. I do want to commend her for the depth and the breadth of her comments. As the Wall Street Journal said this morning, she not only debated like it used to be done in this body--with evidence and sound reasoning--but also with a reference to our founding principles and the higher things that should motivate our public service and our discussions here on the Senate floor. So I wanted to take this opportunity to commend her for her remarks and to tell those who don't know her that this was par for the course. Her performance was magnificent, but it was not out of the ordinary for Senator Collins. I just wanted my colleagues to know that. I thank the Presiding Officer. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, this is the first time I have had the opportunity to address my colleagues on the Senate floor since I was appointed to fill the seat of our late friend and colleague John McCain. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on a matter of great importance, both to this body and to the people of the United States of America; namely, the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh as Associate Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. I would like to address this in five general areas, beginning with a couple of preliminary areas of discussion. The first concerns my work right after I came to the Senate in 1995 to try to adopt a constitutional amendment for the victims of crimes. We called it a crime victims' rights amendment. I had become acutely aware of the problems crime victims faced, especially those who have suffered some kind of sexual assault. Through personal interviews and discussions with victims, victims' rights groups, with prosecutors and others, with research and a great deal of reading and hearing from victims' groups, law enforcement, and others, I became convinced that the only way we could guarantee the rights of these victims and bring justice to them would be through the adoption of the constitutional amendment doing so. I worked with Senator Dianne Feinstein. The two of us joined together in this effort, and we spent countless hours and many months trying to persuade our colleagues that this was the way to proceed. Eventually, we were able to get legislation through the Senate, which established a Federal law rather than a constitutional amendment. This Federal law--which is now embodied in 18 U.S.C. 3771--has provided some support to victims of Federal crime and, as importantly, a template for States to develop their own statutes and constitutional amendments to provide rights to victims. As a result of all of this, I am well aware of the issues like the delay or nonreporting of assaults by crime victims, and I very much appreciate the need to be lenient in evaluating the testimony of such victims. Rights, like the need to attend proceedings and to address the court at the time of sentencing and to be notified of these rights, were included in the statute we got adopted. Those rights are now part of a majority of the States in the Union, either in statute or the Constitution. The recognition of the rightful role of victims in our criminal justice system cannot only help provide courage and closure to victims of sexual assault, it thereby also helps prosecutors gain critical testimony for their cases so that more of the perpetrators could be brought to justice. There are some insensitive people who are not aware of the difficulties faced by victims of sexual abuse, and you have heard some of them speak publicly. What is not true is that all men are ignorant of the problem. Senator Feinstein and I met many men in the victims' rights movement who are extraordinarily helpful and understanding. I don't ask anyone to establish their bona fides to speak to any of these issues, and I would hope none would question mine. To the second point, some have asked me about my time in helping Judge Kavanaugh as a so-called sherpa. This was part of the early process of his confirmation process, where he was interviewed by a majority of the Senators and tried to answer their questions and to also respond to requests for information and the like. Just before his nomination was announced by the President, Don McGahn, the White House Counsel, called me in Arizona and asked if I would serve as the sherpa for the nominee--a person to get him around the Senate, introduce him to the Senators, follow up on any questions, and so on. I agreed to do that, and I also participated in some of the hearing preparation. This all occurred in about a 5-week period of time. During this time, I was employed part time at a Washington, DC, law firm. I want to be clear that my assistance to Judge Kavanaugh was on my own time, free of charge, and in no way connected to the firm or any client of the firm. It was not a pro bono matter because I actually didn't represent Judge Kavanaugh. It was simply to help him prepare for his hearing and to get him around the Senate to meet the Senators and to talk to them. After about 5 weeks of this, roughly, I was appointed by Arizona's Governor to Senator McCain's seat in the Senate, and I immediately resigned from the firm and all other remunerative positions and ceased working with Judge Kavanaugh. I should also mention that during this time, I performed no lobbying work for my law firm or for any clients of the firm, and I so notified the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House. Finally, at no time during my work with Judge Kavanaugh did any allegation of sexual impropriety arise. The Ford allegation came after, and nothing like that was discussed in my presence during my work with him. As I said, some have asked me questions about this. I hope that satisfies their inquiries. I also want to conclude this part of the presentation by saying that having sat through over 50 interviews, hearing the questions asked of him and his responses--many of them repetitious--and helping him to prepare for his hearing, I really believe I have a very good idea of how he would conduct himself as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. After all, that is the most important question before us. The third area of inquiry gets to Judge Kavanaugh as Justice Kavanaugh. The first thing to do is to examine his qualifications and his experience. Ordinarily, this is where we begin in our inquiry to provide advice and consent to the President after a person has been nominated. He is a graduate of Yale Law School, had clerkships on both the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court under Justice Kennedy. He has been described as ``wicked smart'' and extraordinarily hard-working. He went over this on numerous occasions, discussing his early service on the Court of Appeals, where he wanted to emulate Judge Merrick Garland, whom he had heard something about. Merrick Garland is a prodigious worker by reputation, and Judge Kavanaugh saw that and tried his best to follow in Judge Garland's footsteps in that regard. He has had a huge output in cases. I believe he has 312 written opinions over his 12 years on the bench. In addition to that, outside of the court, he wrote law review articles, speeches, and gave many presentations to groups. He also lectures at the Harvard Law School. Regarding his previous experience, it also includes, as we know, previous experience on the executive branch, both as a lawyer and as an assistant to the President. All of this, by the way, he was required to undergo six separate FBI checks. His qualifications have been reviewed by the American Bar Association, which is just one entity that looks at judicial nominees and is generally deemed to be an organization that studies records. It goes into depth interviewing people, and they concluded he had the top rating, ``well qualified,'' to serve on the Supreme Court. As some have described, he is a judge's judge. He is a real standout on the bench. People would have been surprised if he were not someday nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. He has also been recommended by law professors, students, former clerks, and hundreds of people who have written letters on his behalf. I note that many of these are liberals or Democrats. They are not necessarily conservatives or Republicans. He is well regarded by virtually everyone who has had connection with him either in his professional or as a member of the Bench. The next question we go to in evaluating a nominee to a court is their judicial philosophy--how do they approach the job of judging? How will they decide cases? I first want to say what Judge Kavanaugh is not, and he made this crystal clear in the many meetings in which I sat with him talking with the Senators. He is not a results-oriented judge. When parties come before the court, he doesn't decide whom he wants to win and then figure out a way to help that party win the case. That is not the right way to evaluate a case before the court, and he is not that kind of judge. He is a judge who wants to apply the law in the right way and to reach the decision the law requires based upon precedent, based upon the way the Constitution or--if appropriate--statutes are to be interpreted in order to reach the right result in the case. One of my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee I think got us off on the wrong foot or tried to get us off on the wrong foot in this regard. He came to one of the hearings with a presentation on how many times Judge Kavanaugh allegedly ruled for corporations over individuals and concluded this was an important factor in determining whether Judge Kavanaugh should sit on the Supreme Court. I think this illustrates the mindset of many: Whom did you rule for, rather than how did you rule in the case? This is totally wrong, and it is irrelevant to the way judges should decide cases. Theoretically, if 10 plaintiffs bring 10 spurious lawsuits against 10 different corporations and the courts rule for the corporations in those cases, it proves exactly nothing. That is why we shouldn't focus on who wins the cases but rather on whether they were decided based upon proper legal principles, on precedent, and on the way courts are supposed to approach cases--on facts and the law. In the meetings that I sat in on, Judge Kavanaugh went to great pains to describe how he approaches a case. He begins by looking at the text of the Constitution for any relevant statutes. He begins applying the law, as judges are supposed to do, in interpreting those constitutional provisions and statutes. In the process of doing this, he uses the same principles other judges do. In just a moment, I will mention what some of those principles are. I mentioned the fact that some of my colleagues have focused on whom he has ruled for in cases. Bear in mind that as a member of the U.S. Court of Appeals, he sits with two other judges, so the three judges decide the cases, not just one--although, a case can be decided by a 2- to-1 vote. Some of my colleagues have said, well, they are concerned that because he served in an administration for a President and because of something he once wrote for a law review article, they fear he would want to rule for the President and against other parties if a lawsuit involved the question of Executive power--how much authority does the President of the United States enjoy. I think that is wrong, based upon his explanation of all of his decisions and what he has written on the subject. I think it is very clear that he has no predilections in this regard, and that he believes strongly in the separation of powers as set forth in the U.S. Constitution; he holds no special place for the President above the other two branches of government. One of the cases he cites to demonstrate this fact is a case that didn't please me, and the outcome certainly didn't please his old boss, President Bush, because he ruled against President Bush. Instead, he ruled for Osama bin Laden's assistant and driver. The reason he did that is that individual--as bad as he may be, as evil as he may be--was not accorded proper constitutional rights as guaranteed under our Constitution, and he had to reach the result he did because of that. As I said, I didn't like the outcome, and I am sure his previous boss, President Bush, didn't either. But it illustrates the fact that he is not going to blindly rule for the President, even in a case where the equities would seem to favor what the President was trying to do in this case; that is, to ensure that Osama bin Laden's colleagues were held to account for their misdeeds. So the bottom line here is that it is not who wins and loses that matters; it is whether the law is applied fairly and correctly. Now, how do we know whether it is correctly applied? Obviously, judges will differ sometimes, and each case is going to be decided on its own merits. The question of how one judges is really the key to this. I said I would get to this. Here is just a little bit of a discussion of how cases should be decided, how judges should approach these decisions, and how I believe Judge Kavanaugh will. It is based on legal rules and principles that have been long established and written up and followed by courts throughout the ages. The law is literally full of these rules-- basically, the ``how to'' for judges to decide difficult cases. Most judges know and apply these rules fairly and systematically. They don't try to make up new rules or deliberately fudge the facts or twist the rules in order to reach a desired result. I kind of liken it to the instructions that come with those dreaded packages that say ``some assembly required.'' That is always a sign that I need to get my wife involved rather than for me to do it myself because I don't follow directions very well. But failure to follow the steps in that case can lead to some pretty bad results, as a couple of lawn chairs I put together will attest to. The question here is, a judge should have a clear view of how he approaches each case, the steps that he follows to decide them. But sometimes cases provide ambiguities and difficult decisions that make it especially difficult to apply the usual rules. In these cases, the question is whether a judge will be tempted to guess what the right procedure is or to try to reach an outcome that he has predetermined he wants to reach, as opposed to applying other commonsense principles. It is true that sometimes laws are ambiguous, and they require some interpretation. I have seen Judge Kavanaugh address this precise question and go over decision after decision that he has made, showing how he approaches cases like this. I can tell you, first of all, he tries to get his colleagues to agree, if a reading of a statute is not really all that ambiguous, to say: Look, if you find my reading of the statute persuasive, then that should be it. We can end the inquiry. We don't have to find ambiguity in every single thing because when ambiguity is found, obviously, judges are not as tethered to the law as they would otherwise be. He is very aware of this, and he has tried very hard, I think, to reach the right conclusion based upon the proper application of the law. I am not going to go into all of those judicial rules; we have heard precedent and statutory interpretation and the like. But I will say that having heard him describe his approach to numerous cases, I am convinced that he will, as a Justice on the Supreme Court, apply the law in the same way that he has during his 12 years as a member of the court of appeals. He describes his approach to judging in a way that some have called strict construction or textualism, which I think is really not much more than giving a preference to the written text of either the Constitution in cases where constitutional interpretation is the question or statutes in cases where statutes have to be interpreted. This approach to judging is the methodology that is used more and more today by judges, and it tries to avoid substituting the judge's notions of how things should come out and substituting the judge's discretion as opposed to carefully reading the text of the Constitution or the statute as either the Founding Fathers or the Congress, in the case of a statute, has written it. As I said, during his many interviews and hearing him explain his approach, I believe he has given us a very good idea as to how he would approach cases in the future. As I said, while there are one or two areas that some of my colleagues have raised questions about, I have no doubt at all that he is an extraordinarily knowledgeable and very wise judge who will do what he is supposed to do on the Supreme Court to apply the law fairly and correctly. I also believe something else. I believe that he is going to work very hard to find consensus on the Court. We all hear about 5-to-4 decisions, and they don't make us feel good because it illustrates how judges can differ, and sometimes it demonstrates an ideological division on the Court, which we would hope to avoid. He would like to work with his colleagues to try to come to more consensus decisions than to have these kinds of split decisions. He really loves the law, and you know that when you talk to him, and he is really committed to making it work. Another critical factor for a judge--and we frequently refer to it, as it has been referred to on the floor here--is what we call judicial temperament. This is especially important in district court judges where they appear before juries and where trials are actually held. You want the jurors in the case to understand the case well, to feel good about being there as jurors judging their fellow citizens, so judicial temperament is very important for the judges in those cases. But even on the court of appeals, one must have a judicial temperament that demonstrates to the parties and to the litigants that the judge is fair, that demonstrates to the lawyers involved that he can be respectful of them and fair to all of them, and that he can be congenial with his fellow judges on the court with whom he has to work every day and decide these cases. Until the second hearing for Judge Kavanaugh, following Professor Ford's testimony, I don't believe anybody really questioned Judge Kavanaugh's judicial temperament. His 12 years on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia revealed a very careful and courteous and engaged judge--fair to the parties, reasonable to the lawyers, and collegial to his colleagues. It was only when responding to the attacks on his character that he even showed much emotion. I believe that most honest observers would allow him some slack for that in view of the nature of the allegations against him. Much like the need to show some lenience in evaluating the testimony of a victim of sexual assault, I think we can appreciate the role of emotion in his testimony. He apologized to the one Senator to whom he was rude. In my view, the best evidence of his temperament as a judge is his temperament as a judge for the last 12 years. So as to judicial temperament, knowledge of the law, an approach to deciding cases, I believe few would doubt his qualifications to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. That brings us to the fourth part of my presentation: the allegations of sexual misconduct against him. Do they amount to something that should disqualify him for serving on the Supreme Court? I don't think I need to detail here every allegation and every witness statement that has been involved in the investigation of these allegations. In the recent hearing at which both Professor Ford and Judge Kavanaugh testified, I believe most observers saw both as presenting credible testimony, and I agree with that. That their recollections differ does not necessarily mean that either of them knowingly lied. We should neither automatically believe one over the other--she, because her testimony was that she had been sexually abused, nor he, because he is a sitting Federal judge. As I said, each deserve some deference for the reasons that I have stated. But, if both are believable, we must still find a way to analyze the evidence to help us reach a conclusion on the issue before us: Should Judge Kavanaugh be confirmed? Well, the best way to verify the allegations is through corroboration--evidence that backs up the accusations that have been made. While both Professor Ford and Deborah Ramirez have named individuals who they believe were present during the incidents of which they complained, none of those individuals would corroborate the accusations. Some denied them; others had no recollection of such incidents. Some said, even so, they believe Judge Kavanaugh; at least one says the same as to Professor Ford. There does not appear to be any corroborative evidence. Professor Ford's telling of her story later to others is not corroboration, but it does go to her credibility. That she did not report her incident earlier is not dispositive. Victims in similar situations frequently do not report for a number of reasons. The fact that her very good friend, allegedly at the party in question, and the only other girl present, according to Professor Ford, did not become aware of the accusations that night, does raise some questions. And that particular witness, despite her obvious friendship with Professor Ford, has continued to insist that she has no recollection of the party in question or of Brett Kavanaugh. I have either read all of the FBI notes or have had them read to me, and I have been briefed by the committee staff on all of the FBI and committee contacts. This includes the second round of FBI interviews. Contrary to what some have said, this process was not constrained. The FBI was not told not to interview certain people; they were, in fact, told to follow the leads, and I believe that they interviewed not just 4 witnesses but a total of 10 witnesses in this latest round of their interviews. After reading what I have read and being briefed on the remainder by committee staff, I find nothing to verify the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh. He has unequivocally denied them, and having gotten to know him as I have, I conclude that he is not the proper subject of the accusations. Some have suggested that he must prove that he did not engage in the conduct alleged. It would be totally unfair to place upon him the burden of proving a negative. This is ordinarily impossible. When you neither know the time nor place of the event alleged, you can't disprove that you were there then--there, wherever it was--or then, whenever that was. In this particular case, for example, unless he can somehow show that he was in Europe the entire 3 months of the summer allegedly involved here or in some similar circumstance, there is no way that he could prove a negative; namely, that he wasn't there. It is true that the presumption of innocence applies in our courts, but the same notion of fair play applies in other aspects of our civic and social life. If a mere allegation of wrongdoing is enough to deny an applicant a job or otherwise discredit an individual for the rest of that person's life, our society would be torn apart. This is why we have Constitutional rights, which embody our notions of fair play in life generally. While this is not really a job interview as it has been described, even if it were and we were the prospective employers, we would want to evaluate the qualifications--in this case of Judge Kavanaugh--including accusations of against him, and those accusations would not just be taken at face value, particularly as serious as they are and given the fact that he has unequivocally denied them. So I conclude that, under all of the circumstances, including the nature of the evidence brought forward and how that evidence would be proven to us, including how he has lived his adult life, and after seven FBI investigations now, it is more probable than not that the accusations against him are not true and therefore disqualifying for his nomination. That brings me to the fifth and final point of my discussion: lifelong considerations of suitability to serve. I noted the qualifications for judges, their judicial temperament, the way they approach judging cases, their record of writing opinions, what they have said and how they have said it--that is the first thing we look at, but we also look at the whole person, and that is an appropriate thing to do. So let's look at Judge Kavanaugh's whole person. First of all, I would like to note some things that I think are not relevant to his competence to serve on the Supreme Court but which we have heard a lot about. Not relevant are Judge Bork, Justice Thomas, Judge Garland, or arguments about who started the unseemly process we are in now. By the way, let me just as an aside here note that in one of the interviews with a Senator, the interview started as follows: Judge Kavanaugh, glad you came in today, but I can tell you that this is going to be very, very hard because of what happened to Judge Garland. Well, you can have your views as to whether Judge Garland was treated fairly or not, but that should have no bearing on the qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh to be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Other not relevant things are comments from the President of the United States, including unfair comments about Professor Ford. Also not relevant is the outcome of this debate on elections or on President Trump's future. Nor is this about punishing Judge Kavanaugh because some crime victims have not previously received justice. The most recent claim here now is about process. I think his qualifications having been well established, now they are claiming that the process is lacking and is not fair. Obviously, what this is not about is whether the FBI was allowed to do its work, as I believe it was. The vote we will be casting tomorrow should not be a surrogate for some other agenda; it should be simply our judgment of Judge Kavanaugh's fitness to serve on the Supreme Court, our advice on and potential consent to his nomination by the President. As I said, having been with him in interviews, the majority of my colleagues have otherwise gotten to know him. Having witnessed and learned of the esteem in which he is held by colleagues, former law clerks, students, and professional friends, and being aware of his contributions to his community, his country, his church, and his family, I conclude that he is imminently qualified to serve on the Supreme Court and will serve the Nation well in the position of Associate Justice. As I said, the best evidence of how he would perform as a Justice is how he has performed over the dozen years he has been a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. I urge my colleagues to focus on the question at hand, and I urge them to support Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), and the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Tennessee (Mr. Alexander), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from Nebraska (Mr. Johanns), the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk), the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Portman), and the Senator from Florida (Mr. Rubio).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk) and the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).

Mr. KYL. The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint) and the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Kirk).